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Technique is not important.

Three years ago, when I took my first privates with Javier and Andrea, Javier said to me ” Technique is not important*…. your feeling in tango will one day make you great.” Three year after, in the only two privates that I had the chance to take with them this time, we worked on technique: walking, how to use the arm…

I had assisted Andrea in a couple of her privates, dancing with the ladies. And I had learned so much about woman’s technique and experienced the huge differences before and after the ladies made adjustments in their embraces, walking, and embellishment (for advanced dancer). The sensation of the right embrace, the slight delayed timing of walking, and the little technique of cross was so sensuous, musical and pleasurable.

And I am not talking about the technique of Volcada, Giro, sacada… I am referring to the basic and fundamental technique: walking and embrace. You might be surprised how many people can’t walk two steps straight, and walk long or short evenly. Very often I dance with women who either press their chest with most of their body weight against mine, or try so much to avoid putting any weight that they are escaping from the embrace. Neither way gives me a pleasant feeling. I can’t tell you how much more pleasant a fellow student felt after she made a small adjustment in embrace, after she did what Andrea had taught her. How a strong and powerful short walk without the music made me feel out of this world, after I got the technique of walking.

Technique is very important. It is the catalyst to building and maintaining feeling throughout the dance. It is the essential tool to communicate with each other on a different level. One’s tango experience won’t go very far without proper and sound technique. If you long for the elusive tango bliss, then you should be obsessed with perfecting the technique.

*Technique is not important: when one dances, one should focus on anything but technique. One works on the technique so it becomes natural. Part of the reason that many technique classes aren’t useful is that they teach the technique of leading and following. Instead of that, I was taught and learned the technique that made both feel perfect and free in the dance; that made the woman look and feel beautiful, and the man appreciate the beauty of the woman.

Who with a sane mind wouldn’t want to work on that?

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A couple of nights ago, I was about to leave the milonga early: shoes changed, bag packed and winter coat put on. One of my favorite dancers showed up, fashionably late. I greeted her and half jokingly complained about her late appearance. Swiftly she put on her shoes, and I mine, again. We went on the floor and danced a tanda of Troilo con Fiorentino. It was nice.

Just as I thanked her and was ready to call it a night, the next tanda came up: Pugliese con Chanel. I love this! I exclaimed. We could dance if you like. She was generous.  We stepped on the floor again.

We just slowly walked to the music, very simple. It was such a rare experience,  being able to stretch a simple step over the whole phrase in a flowing fashion. On the surface, I felt so calm; underneath I felt the energy surging and receding. At the end of tanda, I’d experienced the joy yet felt so peacefully, like coming out from a meditation…

I hadn’t been able to put this experience into words. I wasn’t sure how to make of this. This approach to tango, the lack of intention of movement, the profound satisfaction of submerging in the energy of the music, of my capable partner and mine… I don’t want to call it a spiritual experience. It sounds corny, especially to someone who hasn’t had similar experience. And I don’t consider myself a spiritual man, although I’d been practiced martial arts for many years, and yoga for a couple.

But I’ve been really feeling this approach to tango.

Coincidentally, my tango brethren posted a video of OSHO: Meditation Is a Very Simple Phenomenon. Looked into his website, I found that the Nataraj way has perfectly described my discovery.

Disappearing in the dance, then relaxing into silence and stillness, is the route inside for this method.

“Forget the dancer, the center of the ego; become the dance. That is the meditation. Dance so deeply that you forget completely that ‘you’ are dancing and begin to feel that you are the dance. The division must disappear; then it becomes a meditation.

If the division is there, then it is an exercise: good, healthy, but it cannot be said to be spiritual. It is just a simple dance. Dance is good in itself – as far as it goes it is good. After it, you will feel fresh, young. But it is not meditation yet. The dancer must go, until only the dance remains…. Don’t stand aside, don’t be an observer. Participate!

And be playful. Remember the word playful always – with me it is very basic.”

I had been experimenting this way of dancing tango, after my private with Cecilia: “Let your unconscious take over completely. Do not control your movements or witness what is happening. Just be totally in the dance…Dance in celebration and enjoy.”

Isn’t it more fulfilling than trying to figure out what step one should dance?

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I have been experimenting…

For the past few months, I have been trying to forget everything that I’ve learnt of how to dance tango. I’ve been trying to come to the embrace without thinking about how to dance: how to move, how to walk, how to turn…empty my mind.

When I could actually do that, without thinking about how to dance, the experience was great, memorable. Most of the time, I did what I did the best, I danced: walk, turn, pause, walk, turn… I felt uninspired.

Cecilia Garcia, of formerly Horacio and Cecilia, was in town. I used to be unimpressed by their performances. It was not my kind of tango. So I didn’t take their workshop when I attended Chicago tango festival last year. I didn’t even know who Cecilia was…until I saw her dancing in the milonga with Claudio Gonzalez and Pablo Villarraza. Wow…

Anyway, I took a private lesson with her. The essence of the class was how to use energy in the dance, so it matches the expanding and contracting energy of the music. After dancing three songs to three different orchestras: Di Sarli, D’Arienzo, Pugliese, I worked alone under her guidance. Listen to the music, through breathing, move my axis, connect to the ground, and find freedom by relaxing my body, my mind. As in meditation.

Then we embraced.

Don’t do anything, unless you feel you have to. And do anything that you feel you have to do. She said.

I didn’t take a single step, just changing my axis in place, embracing her and feeling her energy. At certain point, however short it was, I felt that our energy met… together grew and grew, expanded infinitely… it was magical!

What makes one dance? No… what makes me dance? I asked her, at the end of the class.

The music and your energy from music. Her answer was essentially the same as Pedro Sanchez’s.

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I used to be puzzled yet at the same time fascinated by some of my close tanguera friends’ tango experiences. How certain men would make them feel…using their own words: “opening up like a flower”, “that he knows every inch of my body”… or simply “orgasmic”. I felt jealous when I listened to these tales.

Just about one year after I started dancing in the milongas, I had already received compliments. Women told me sincerely how beautiful my various partners and I looked together. Some men, who had danced for a longer time, pat me on the shoulder and said that they were going to steal a few moves from me. I knew that I could make women look beautiful dancing with me and make most of them dreaming in my embrace. Everyone told me I was a good dancer, but I wanted to be the best.

When I was not dancing in the milonga, I liked to just sit and observe. I paid attention to how people move and what expressions they wore on their face. And I observed a couple of said men dancing. At first, I felt unjustified.

There was this man, who a friend of mine said that she would go to a milonga just to hope to have a tanda with him. I looked at him barely dancing and questioned ” his movement doesn’t have music. ”

“Oh… he is so musical.”

I don’t understand women… I have twice better posture and movement than this guy. My walk is much more elegant. I definitely dance better than this guy. Hmmm!!!

There is this instructor from BsAs. The first time I saw him dancing. I thought to myself ” What’s the deal?”

He didn’t move much. The woman in his embrace wasn’t what you would call dancing either, movement was sporadic. Yet the expression of the woman’s face was intriguing: eyes closed, small beads of sweat falling through their pink cheeks. A lot of women were thrilled to dance with him. According to some, dancing with him was a tangasmic experience.

I believed the first hand accounts of my friends. But I didn’t understand or started to understand till this post.

Shortly after, one summer night, I was at this outdoor milonga. The night was beautiful. The music was alternative, a beautiful guitar piece by Jesse Cook. I took this tanguera friend’s hand and embraced her. She was on her platform sandal, and I my flip flop. The floor was uneven wood plank. We didn’t dance the way we used to dance. I didn’t even lead ocho. We just embraced and breathed together. Walked slowly, one step then another…

She told me after that she hadn’t felt this way for a long time.

Me neither… I finally start to get it:

Tango is internal.

We really don’t need to do all these movement to connect with the other. Sacada, volcada, boleo, open embrace, fluid embrace…etc these are all external, like how many different positions does a couple have to do in order to achieve orgasm? Or does one have to do a series of movements in order to reach the deepest and most tranquil state in meditation?

I like what maestro Juan Carlos Copes said:

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The unpleasant aftereffect of an orgasmic tango experience is the inevitable crash, the emptiness that follows as hollow as black hole. After having that experience every night for four night straight, dancing till exhaustion, one could only imagine the severity of the crash.

I am not alone. A buddy of mine has been disinterested of dancing since he came back from a trip a couple of months ago. He hasn’t gone out as often lately. Whenever he was at the milonga, he hung out most of the time. We have mutual sympathy for each other.

I don’t know how long this will last. It is not a plateau or a slump. I am still improving technically. I have been trying to go out and dance. I have had some good tango experience.

But good isn’t good enough.

Some asked: ” Don’t you wish that you haven’t had that experience? “
” Better missing it than never had experienced it. ” I answered.

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