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just in different ways. A private lesson with Lorena Ermocida made me realize what good tango is regardless of styles. Tango is forever about embrace, posture and walk.

After dancing one song with Lorena, she first gave me some encouraging compliments: very smooth, dance to the music well, elegant… but… then she pointed out the things that she didn’t like.
I occasionally took her off her axis, my embrace was too controlling at those moments. We tried to dance a little without my right arm embracing. Then we discussed the placement of my right arm. Then we danced a second song.

After that, she asked me what I would like to work on. I asked her what she thought that I should work on. We went through posture briefly, spent a lot of time on walking and leading with the body. I was amazed that the way she explained walking, however different style it is, was essentially the way Javier, Andrea and Silvina had taught me. They all stressed the leg behind, good transition between legs and the pull up from the front leg.

There were a lot of information to be absorbed in an hour. I was too tempted to book another lesson with her next day. Then I realized that I needed time to take everything in. But I thought that this class had taken my dance to another level. I finally realized how to set myself free in the dance.

The music makes you dance. ” Pedro said to me during our milonga practica session with Tina. Pedro is a seventy year old milonguero who has been dancing tango for over fifty years. He makes the yummiest rabbit stew.

The music makes you dance. It is so simple when one gets it. Connect with my partner and then connect with the music, let the music tell me how to move my body rather than how my body moves to the music. With the right music and right partner, I am contented to have just one tanda a night.

Would you like the woman in your embrace dancing like a man, marching like a soldier, say during the song of Poema? Probably not, right? A woman should look and feel like a woman: sexy, beautiful and feminine. A masculine follower doesn’t get much cabaceos, at least at the milongas where I have been going to.

A woman tangos like a woman, a man tangos like a man. It is natural, that yin and yang thing. When two becomes one, it is the most beautiful to see and feel. When I was in Buenos Aires, from the 72 year old Padro who has been dancing over fifty years to Javier who is younger than I am, every man that I met who dances tango, has this universal message: stand like a man and walk like a hombre.

When I left La Nacional last night, I took a glimpse of these men, who are supposed to be the creme of creme in the NY tango scene, dancing, which inspired this post. I felt ill watching these men dancing like they haven’t eaten for a week. I wanted to stop them and said to them: “Guys, please, dance like a man.”

I had a milongaless weekend. And I only went out one night in the week. The weather hasn’t been nice enough: snow, freezing cold, rain, and strong wind. The thought of going out in the weather and having a bad or even a so-so night deterred me further. I still remembered driving on the icy side streets of Manhattan to attend milongas last year. Now the desire of dancing with all those “hot” women is waning. Tango, for me, is no longer to dance till my feet hurt.

My enthusiasm is still here and growing strong. Besides working on the technique in my living room, I am undertaking the work of putting lyrics to my 4000 song Itune library and building my own tanda list. It is to help me with my musicality, which has always been raved by most of the followers. Now only if I understood the lyrics, had I have more control over how to express music. At the mean time, I am expanding my Spanish vocabulary. Maybe by November, my third trip to BsAs, I can finally converse in Spanish.

Two of the bloggers have taken down their blogs. I think that I can relate to it. I wiped out my posts from March to October 2007 without backup. At that time, I felt that I needed to move on and there was no need to look back. Two weeks later, I found myself posting again, only that it was changed to a journal to my first trip to BsAs. Amidst my post BsAs blue, I wanted to close up shop again. A few days later, I couldn’t resist but voice my opinion again… I do hope one of these days they will find the desire to write again and share their voices.

Part of the reason I am so into tango is because it is a life long experience, like martial arts. There is always another level you can reach to. In the end, it is not so much about the physical aspect of the game but the mental one. One doesn’t stop learning if one chooses not to.

It is rewarding to have a blissful tanda once a while. And it makes the whole experience more cherishable.

“You want to put woman into sleep in the music with you.” Javier said and Andrea translated. Hence the adjustment on the embrace, the posture and the walk; get rid of the little nuisance that disturbs the tranquility and learn to respect her space and her balance.

Use the body to lead, use the mind to dance, listen to the music, listen to her body. Keep these in mind, then one would not fixate on leading the steps but the quality of each step. It may sound abstract and it is difficult to do. One’s body has to develop the muscle and strength to move smoothly.

If you watch old milongueros dancing, their upper body maintain at even level regardless what they are doing with their feet. Upper body movement is smooth, circular and calm even though D’Arienzo is playing. Less is more: less movement, deeper connection.

“Let her dream in your embrace and in the dance. Don’t wake her up…”
—Javier Rodriguez

This is what I am working on…