Tango: Balm or Addiction?

I am Addicted to Air,Water and Tango


I am addicted to air.
I try not to breathe but I just cannot seem to stop.
I am addicted to tango.
She and I synchronize our breathing.
We find a breath that defines the music as us.
This breathing addiction consumes me.

I am addicted to water.
I can go for about a day, but I give up.
I am addicted to tango.
The fluidity of movement washes over my soul.
I feel like I am truly alive and this fluidity purifies me.
My addiction to fluidity of motion consumes me.

I am addicted to food.
I can go without food during a fast, but I become weak.
I am addicted to tango.
The community of tangueros and tangueras nourishes me.
I realize how much I am hungry for connection.
My tango-fast cannot last.  I am am addicted.

I am addicted to shelter.
I try to be out in the open and rely just on myself,
But I become cold and wet or too hot, and give up my quest.
I am addicted to tango.
The world pelts me with cold rain or I wilt under its stress.
I try to be just myself, but I find myself once again seeking shelter
In her embrace.  I admit it -- pure addiction.

The embrace is my air -- call it an obsession if you wish.
The musical fluidity of movement is my water, truly my weakness.
The community of dancers my nourishment -- my addiction, I guess.
Tango's gestalt is my fortress, in the great hall we dance.
I am addicted, you might say...

But I say I am surviving life -- if joy be "survival."
Join me in my "addiction."
Come get your fix.





Photo credit:  http://www.allbestwallpapers.com/waterfall_wallpapers.html

The Healing Embrace

Tango can be just a dance.  It can be much more.

West End Library Practica

When I am present, I feel a transfer of information.  More than just a transfer, I feel an understanding, an empathy.  But it's only when I am present. Listening.

I have experienced this myself, but it has been validated in movement therapy (tango therapy).  When I was working with a combat veteran and his wife, using the therapy protocol I am developing.  We worked on two psychological traumas.  One was with his father's abuse and the other nearly dying in combat.  In the first case, she felt the hatred leave his body.  "His body vibrated, and I knew that he had forgiven him," she said.  Immediately he felt sorry for his father who never got to know three grandchildren and his amazing wife.  In the combat trauma resolution, he felt that his wife fully understood his experience.  That is what many vets NEVER feel -- they do not feel anyone could understand them, especially their partners.

I feel this transfer of information only when I am listening for it.  It makes sense, right?  If someone is talking to you, and you are not listening, what do you hear?  Even if you half-way hear what they are saying, there will be misunderstandings.  So try listening.  I find it easy to forget to listen.  So I practice!  Non-auditory communication is an art, whether it is in "listening" for visual body communication or "listening" through the embrace.

Let me give you an important personal example:  A while ago when I got a new job, I organized a farewell luncheon at a salsa lounge, which provided a fajita buffet for us.  A semi-professional dance friend of mine came and taught my colleagues how to salsa, and we demonstrated a tango, a vals and a milonga.  After eating, I danced with many colleagues, but when nearly everyone was gone, I got a chance to dance with a person at work whom I did not trust -- a chance to dance with the enemy.  My work colleague was once a dance instructor.  We had endured a long difficult relationship, but after everyone had left and I was about to get in my car to leave on a 3-day drive to my new job, she suggested we dance a salsa.  I suggested a tango.  We danced well, although she had never danced tango.

The dance was very healing for me -- I think for both of us.  Dancing with her had a lasting effect on me because much was forgiven through our embrace.  It was as if I knew how she felt.  Immediately I felt an enemy had been destroyed through mutual compassion.

I cannot speak for her, but for me a lot of animosity melted at that moment.

Some say that tango is only a dance.  It can be much more.


Photo credit:  Eddie Arrossi, photographer and tanguero, Washington, DC

For friends in DC, here is Eddie's link to that event -- the anniversary practica celebration:  www.eaphoto.com/works/2011/library

A-Theist Tanda

What is more powerful than an embrace?
 Words?

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” ― Thich Nhat Hanh



The vals played.  I always wonder what makes the vals feel so divine.  She snuggled up.  A familiar embrace.  I felt a difference.  We danced.  The first song ended.  I usually do not talk much between songs, but I asked, "Something is on your mind," I can feel it in your body.

"My good friend died in a car wreck."

"Oh no!  I am so sorry to hear that."

"And we were in an argument before she died. . . . I feel terrible . . . .  and I wish I could have told her that I loved her before she died.  I keep having nightmares about her."  She paused and then began to cry.

"Did you know her family?" I asked. 

"Yes, very well.  We lived near each other.  They are like second parents to me."

We danced again.  I held her now in a different way.  I danced in the simplest way I knew possible and embodied the music.  She cried in my arms.

The vals stopped.

"How well do you know her character?"

"She was like a sister."

"Then you know what her character would say to you now, is that right?"

"She would say that she loves me, and to go on with my life."

"Can you do that?"

"I don't know."

We danced again.  I held her again, leaving room for her friend's character to speak with her.  Her balance was sometimes a bit off, although that never happens with her.  I knew she was having a conversation.  The music stopped.

"Can you do what you know she is asking you to do -- to love her and go on with your life?"

"Yes."

"I suggest you pray for her parents.  It's harder for them than for you, I think."

"I know it is hard for them.  But you know I am an atheist."

"Of course I know that.  But that is the best prayer.  If you ask that God to be with her parents, God will hear your pray perhaps more than anyone who is a believer."

"How's that?"

"Because I have an idea that God tires of having so many friends who want his riches and eternal life.  God might feel like the rich kid on the block.  Everyone loves him because they want something from him.   If you don't want these things, I think your prayer goes on top of the pile to be answered.  Your friend would like this too."

"Yes, she would."

We danced.

This time I held her and a certain energy went between us.  I cannot explain it.  But I have an idea that her prayer had a lot of power that night.  No adoration. No riches.  No request for eternal life as a special favor for believing in God's holy Awesomeness.  Just "be with her parents, God, will you?"

And I said the atheist prayer too:  "No special bargains, God.  Be with these bereaved parents!  Be with my friend!  And if you won't be, I will be with them in my heart . . . because this is the way you made me and put room in my heart."


Cortina.




Afterword:  Events and details are changed to protect the identity of this person and her grief.  I cannot tell you if the parents felt God's presence, but the nightmares stopped.

The miracle is the embrace, the music, and the walk that embodies the music.  If these do not lead to peace and the miracle of life, I am not dancing tango.  Thich Naht Hanh said it so well.  Tangueros and tangueras know of the miracle and joy of life better than many.

This story appears today on Veterans' Day for a special reason.  The person who died was a young veteran.  The risk of death and serious injury of veterans is 10 times the risk than in a combat zone during the first six months after they return.  The price of war is far greater than what the general public knows.  And if we did know, I believe we would all be fierce Warriors for Peace.

Happy Veterans' Day.


Photo credit link.

Wanted: Tango Teacher in Heaven

Photo by  Laura Peligrino

Earth and Heaven

When a tanguera is taken from our arms
We know she will be at home in heaven.
Tango friends know more than most
What heaven on earth feels like
  in our blood,
  in our sinew,
  in our feet.
The music declares order and meaning in the universe.
The embrace speaks heart to heart for those who listen.
The movement creates the musica humana.

When her family assembles to mourn her,
They will embrace each other more that day.
They will do what we do all the time.
Those who loved and honored her most
Will feel the power of the embrace to say
What a million words cannot.
They will know what we know each day.

We can only guess at the depth of their loss
But over many miles we reach out with our thoughts.
And if we could, we would embrace them and share their grief.

In heaven the angels needed a Tango Instructor
They did not ask if it were okay with us.
But we know that she will teach them well
To experience Earth-in-Heaven
As she helped so many experience
Heaven on Earth.

Mark Word
in Memory of Anne-Sophie 

FDA Warnings on Tango

Warning:  Your stage tango may be
hazardous to my health.

I dreamed last night that an advertisement for Argentine tango was on television.  It was wonderfully done.

The couple was all alone on the dance floor as others watched them.  The camera panned across the adoring faces of those watching.  Then I saw close-ups of the dancers' feet, a shot of their hands together and moments of passion expressed on their faces.  The dancers dramatically displayed well rehearsed moves that needed no lead-and-follow because they had learned patterns they had practiced over and over.

At the end of the advertisement, the tango scenes continued with wonderful moments of ecstasy and grace, but a hurried voice mentioned all the side effects that the Federal Drug Administration had required the tango industry to include:

 "Side effects include loss of friends," the mumbling voice quickly said, "loss of money and harm to others.  Many tango students report that they eventually only horrify good dancers on the social dance floor.  50% of those who buy this product report that they experienced the side effect of endangering others on the dance floor.  The other 50% were simply unaware of how much they were endangering others."

Of course this was only a dream.

But I invite you to watch the faces of those new to tango, watching social tango dancers.  Now look at others who have been dancing for a while also watching.  Everyone seems to be looking at the same couple, who briefly look up to see who is paying attention.  The beginners are watching and hoping that they one day can do the cool moves too. Tango dancers trained in emergency medicine are watching in case they are needed to help those who might become injured.  Others are horrified and are watching as if they were stuck watching a B movie -- tango without laugh-tracks to cue the audience when something is meant to be absurd or funny.

Before the FDA gets involved, don't you think it is time to require a product claim for tango?  For those teachers who are selling showmanship tango for social dancers, shouldn't a side-effects warning be required?   Stage Tango on the social dance floor, like all ego-enhancing drugs, should have a warning.

One must weigh the benefits against the side effects.


Photo credit:  http://www.verbum.biz/blog/?paged=2

Why she is smiling in his arms?

I have rarely felt envy in dancing.  I love watching people who can dance better than I.  But the other night I felt envious of a guy dancing with a tanguera I know pretty well. I saw the person I practice with dancing with a new guy in town and she was smiling with him in a way that she rarely does with our dancing. We were not connecting at all that night. It was really terrible in fact. Partly, the floor was too slippery for the leather shoes I had on. But it only got worse.

Finally, I made a comment that we were not connecting well that night. She said that it was because I was too interested in my own steps rather than hers. The most hurtful critiques are the ones we fear are true. Really, am I that bad? Maybe, but it is also a slap in the face to have to take the full blame for the disconnect.

I felt that she had broken a sacred agreement and an important element of tango etiquette not to critique your partner on the dance floor. I had, of course, opened the door by commenting on OUR dancing that night.

I was ready to walk out the door. I was fuming and mad at myself for being envious of him doing such a great job of making her smile so wonderfully.  It seemed that she had been frowning the whole time with my dancing that night.

I did not leave because I had so many friends I wanted to dance with. My dances with them were wonderful. I was smiling a lot. Finally, I danced with a short Chilean woman who hardy was getting to dance at all that night.  The dance with her was absolutely wonderful. I hope my practice partner wasn't watching. I was smiling just too much!  But when I did start dancing with my practice partner, we were once again tuned and we were both smiling.

What happened that night?

The next day, I read an article, called "Misunderstanding the affective consequences of everyday social interactions: The hidden benefits of putting one's best face forward" by Dunn, Elizabeth W., et al. in the American Psychology Association's PsychNet online resource.

The authors would have done better research if they had been tango dancers.  Tango shows us that we humans do better with our close relationship when we interact with strangers. Perhaps this psychological phenomenon is similar to biological in-breeding.  Once we become "familiar" (from the word family), dancing can become stale without outside influences. On a social level, people learn a lot about themselves and their own creativity by having interactions with strangers. However, when people are asked to rate the enjoyment of an interaction with a close person versus "that stranger over there" the participants in a psychological study found that they over-rated the enjoyment they would have with someone they know, and under-rated the enjoyment they thought they would have with a total stranger.

I think that people who really love tango and are couples or practice partners should take note. It is good for your dancing, your relationship and your dance progress to dance with others.  The thing we learn the most is that what works with strangers, works with those closer to us.  If we treat friends and family with as much attentiveness and simple respect, great things happen.  When the researchers instructed people to put as much effort into their close partner as they did with the stranger, the interactions with the partner was much better.

Since that time, we talked about the disconnect, and I found out that a milonga she feels I try out too many things.  I told her that I was afraid I was boring her.  She just wanted to get in a groove and enjoy things that are know to work, and then apply the millions of variations of these simple elements to the particular orchestra being played in that tanda.

Then last night something very remarkable happened.  The music was playing all by itself at the practica when I came in and no one was there.  I danced by myself.  It was euphoric.  She arrived and we danced.  We had classes we wanted to review, but we just danced and danced and danced.  I cannot tell you which cloud we danced on, but it was past cloud nine.  Others came and all tandas I had were this way last night -- absolutely heaven on earth.

No -- even better than heaven on earth.  The angels were envious as they watched that night.

I turned and told one of the angles.  "There is no reason to be envious.  You might want to try what I did.  Dance with a stranger."



Note: Dunn was co-other with Biesanz, Jeremy C.; Human, Lauren J.; Finn, Stephanie.
Source of reference with link to the original work from the American Psychology Association's:
http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.990

Photo Credit: Woman smiling http://www.helltodanaw.com/tag/dating/

Be a Man!

Knight, Queen and Castle

Be a Man!
      by Mark Word

I go to work and I am the only man

Among all my colleagues.

A soldier tells me his story and cries:

He awakes after thirty-two days.

He sees the lead they took out of his brain.

He finds that eight of his friends are dead.
They haunt him.

In therapy he remembers for the first time

That his mother was there and stroked his hair,
As he awoke from his month of deathlike sleep.

A green blanket was around her neck, he says.

All this, he remembers five years after the fact,

In an office of two men, talking.

He now knows that his mother brought him

To life yet a second time, a rebirth.

We cry.  We men.

His most terrible moment transforms

To a moment of pure joy for his mother.

Her son came back to life!

Now he is changed -- forever -- by remembering.

We talk to each of the warrior-spirit friends.

They tell him to live on, what he would want for them. 

He feels forgiven for returning from his death-sleep.
It is not his fault he lived, they say.

We cry.  We men.

She goes to work among men.
Her boss needs her expertise

And asks her counsel

On the minutiae of legal things.

She wears slacks and fits in.

They discuss policy.

They discuss international law.

But at the milonga,

I embody the male energy embedded in my soul.

I protect her as she closes her eyes.

I navigate her away from the danger

That she does not even see

Because she entrusts this to me.

I am her knight, she rides with me.

I know the way to the castle.

She trusts me to take the reigns

Of the power beneath us.

I am her minstrel,

Playing our steps like a mandolin,

To an ancient song of dance.

At the milonga, she wears her dress,

And slips on her highheels.
She chooses her clothes not to fit in,

Or to be like others.
Her earrings match her shoes.

She dons -- no, embodies --
Womanhood's feminine energy.

Her soft, close embrace and trust

Invites me to be a man, fully.

We are a man and a woman.

For one tanda at a time.

The milonga seems like reality,

Our work, but a dream.

Photo credit:  http://www.thechesspiece.com/proddetail.asp?prod=G-264-BTF

Re-finding Tango as a Safe Haven

This is my Safe Place.  You cannot take it from me!

Recently I suggested that tango is a "Safe Place" for many people.  Many people can just imagine dancing and they feel calm and safe.  A friend pointed out that tango no longer feels safe for her because trust was broken, and now she no longer feels safe with tango in general.


I am glad that she brought this out.  In all cases, one's safe place can be challenged by human experience.  In some cases that Safe Place never comes back.   Tango can lose its feel of safety too because tango with certain people is not safe.  Never was.


My Safe Place is a mountain in Nevada behind the home where I grew up. Had I experienced a rattlesnake biting me on that mountain, I probably would not choose that particular place as my favorite Safe Place.  Chances are, I would choose a different place.  However, tango is not a place that can be easily replaced.  Some Safe Places are worth preserving.  Tango belongs to this class of Safe Places that are worth retaining forever.  Tango itself is not itself archetypal, but the embrace, movement to music, mastery of improvisation are archetypal.  Here are some examples of archetypal Safe Places:

• Mothers:  I have some clients whose mothers severely abused them, but a motherly figure replaced the abusive mother.  An archetypal motherly figure creates a Safe Place for even people who have not had a loving mother.
• Fathers:  The same as above, but this one is particularly clear for many people with their sense of a fatherly God -- a loving father whom they experience only in a mental realm.
• The Opposite Sex:  Because of physical or mental abuse many people lose their trust of the opposite sex, but through their own resiliency or therapy, they find freedom from generalizing against all women or all men.
• Races or classes of people:  This is similar to the opposite sex, even more insidious .  In all cases of trauma that I have worked with up to now, there is some sort of hate of a class of people that at some point drops.  Without this change, true freedom from trauma was not achieved.
• A place of worship.  Sometimes when a bad experience in paired with a place of worship, the person loses more than just that place, but the whole idea of a sanctuary and a holy Safe Place and faith.  Regaining that safety -- perhaps in a different community -- is part of engaging oneself in the world.

Like the above five things, tango is worth preserving as a Safe Place.  It is an embrace, and the joy of movement to music and the mastery of improvisation.  Also tango is a community of people, and unless we plan on being hermits, living fully requires us to learn that all communities will have safe and unsafe people.


The work that a person must do to regain resiliency after being at war, after rape, after trust is broken, after suffering a loss or after being abused is an important fork in the road that will surely come in some way for all of us who live very long.  Re-finding your safe place is an important life task!  Bad experiences tied to good things one by one could have you living in a world with nothing good.  


Let's say you left salsa because of "the crowd."  Now, you find solace in the tango community.  But there are unsafe people everywhere you go, and sooner or later, someone will come along to challenge your Safe Place in tango (or anything beautiful in the world).  So live and learn.


Re-finding tango is an important task for anyone who has found its beauty.  A person who has been raped has to re-find sex or men in general.  Divorced people have to re-find the opposite sex.  People robbed by a particular person of a certain race may have to re-find their trust of that race and fight inner racism.

My dance shoes are my Safe Place.  I like it here.

Perhaps going to a therapist is the best place to start.  Some therapists might have you leaving tango, especially if you mention that some say it is an "addiction," which is a poor, medicalized analogy of something very beautiful.  So be careful of framing tango in this way, or the therapist will only go along with your avoidance behaviors.  Then the problem will be solved by not solving it.  The best actions to support your therapy is to "get back on the horse."  Get back out there dancing!  Also align yourself well with people who can be trusted.  I also suggest the eight solutions I mentioned earlier in my blog for rejection.  Losing a Safe Place is not "rejection"; however, these solutions help in both rejection or a loss of trust in tango.




A future blog entitled "Tango Vultures" will also help to identify whom you can trust, what to do to instill trust with others who know your struggle, and finally what the tango community needs to do about the Tango Vulture.  




Photo Credit:
Cat in her Safe Place
http://www.scenicreflections.com/media/577486/A_safe_place_for_spying_Wallpaper/


Safe Place Shoes
http://piccsy.com/2011/07/safe-place/

Logotango: Tango with personal meaning

Dr Frankl suggested that a "Statue of Responsibility" be placed
on the West Coast to compliment the "Statue of Liberty."
This sketch in part of the the current plan.

The story of Viktor Frankl's life is the story of Logotherapy.  He was the founder of the so-called "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy," following Sigmund Freud (the will to pleasure) and Alfred Adler (the will to power).  However, Dr. Frankl felt that humanity's will to have meaning was more important than pleasure and power.  ["Logo" comes from the Greek word "Logos," signifying meaning, reason among other things.]


From Viktor Frankl's lead, I am suggesting the term Logotango: Tango with personal meaning and purpose.


For those interested in the background of this remarkable man and how his work and philosophy fits into tango, I have a permanent resource page that gives a larger background of Dr. Frankl and Logotango.  The shorter version of this post continues below.    


Logotango describes the positive and powerful influence has in many people's lives.  If you are going to dance tango for more than just a fad season of you life, it will have to "survive" many things.  If it has a purpose, then it will survive.  I will even go so far as to say that you must dance Logotango if you wish to dance through your life.  Otherwise, my guess is that someday you will be "cured" from your tango addiction (a Freudian, negative philosophy).  Logotango lives on and continues to bring you and others joy.  But purpose and meaning must continue to be redefined and rediscovered.


The four elements of how many people understand the meaning of life are: purpose, values, efficacy, self-worth. Baumeister and Vohs (2002) have synthesised these four factors from their interviews with many people. If you do not build these things into your tango, who will?


I will share my explanations of Logotango using the four above categories:


Purpose:  I am aware of basic needs being met in tango.  I need air/food/water/shelter.  I get all of those at a milonga.  I need human touch.  I get this more than anywhere else in the world as a single man at a milonga.  I need to move.  All human beings would soon die if they were not allowed to move.  A person would soon go mad.  I could run or bike or walk, but dance is the best of all.  Now, my purpose beyond some basic needs as described by Freud:  My purpose in tango is to share the joy of the music with another person.  They way I share this with her and she with me will be a unique experience.  My purpose too is to be a part of the larger community of tango.


Values:  I love the sense of culutre that counters a world without values, kindness, gentleness.  The tango world has only the values I bring to it.  Sure, I am influenced by what others have defined as "Tango Culutre."  But ultimately, I must express my values as a gentleman and live my values of kindness.  What a great community to practice these and receive these!


Efficacy:  After a tanda, there is a sense that "we made it there together."  What a great moment to share, over and over.  I maintain efficacy by taking classes and always learning/practicing efficiency, the twin sister of efficacy.


Self-Esteem:  Skill development only starts after about 700 hours of work on most skills.  In tango there are skills upon skills upon skills.  And they all keep returning to the basics.  I have put in my 700+ hours, and this builds my sense of self-mastery.  In my case, my years of musical study and practice adds another level of joy and mastery, and tango allow me to return to a part of my life that I had somewhat abandoned as a former professional musician.


Logotango is tango with meaning.  The meaning must be yours.  Share it with me!  Perhaps it will bring meaning and purpose to my world.

PS:  Also see the article: The Meaning of Life (in Under 300 Words), which attempts to succinctly describe the meaning of life in just a few hundred words: Purpose - this could be living happily ever after, going to heaven or even (whisper it) found at work. Whatever it is, meaning in life comes from reaching goals and feeling fulfilled. Even though fulfilment is hard to achieve because the state fades, people need purpose. Values - people need a moral structure to work out what is right and what is wrong. There are plenty to choose from: some come from religion, others from philosophy and still others from your friends and family. Efficacy - people want to make a difference and have some control over their environment. Without that, the meaning of life is reduced. Self-worth - we all want to feel we're good and worthwhile people. We can do this individually or by hitching ourselves to a worthy cause. Either way we need to be able to view ourselves in a positive light.

Photo credit:
Go see more about the plans for Frankl's vision of a "Statue of Responsibility" to balance off the "Staute of Liberty":  http://www.sorfoundation.org/

Tango: your "safe place"?



Laguna Arenál, my mental "safe place" in Costa Rica.

In tango, people are finding their "Safe Place" nearly every time they dance.

A Safe Place is a place you can go in your mind that will calm you if your are stressed or afraid.  A Safe Place is a good place to go before sleeping.  Anyone who has been in harms way, such as my combat veteran clients, need to make this place very vivid in their mind because the "common cold" of combat experience is not being able to sleep well again -- sometimes, never again, especially those who do not believe that therapy works.

I have two places I go in my mental Safe Place:  A mountain near my home as I was a teenager, and a place in Costa Rica (pictured above).

From training in trauma therapy, I have become more aware of the importance of a "Safe Place" for any who become resilient in this world.  The main therapeutic intervention that I use with combat veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing therapy (EMDR) has taught me the importance of a  establishing a "Safe Place."  EMDR training has helped me understand the therapeutic aspect of tango better.  As a therapist, EMDR has been the single most inspiring therapeutic approach I have ever learned because of the rapid results of change.

One of the first procedures after explaining what EMDR is to a client is to establish a "Safe Place" while using eye movement -- left, right, left, right -- for about 10 times.  The client and I are about to get a list of the worst things that ever happened to him or her, and most people need to return to a their "Safe Place" and get their heart rate down after recounting these events.  Sometimes it will take a long while before we are even ready to get this list of horrors if they have too many problems going on in their lives.  Some of these present stressors must be resolved before we can even start.  The therapist who starts EMDR too soon could cause extreme distress, blackouts, disassociation (not knowing where or who they are), even bring on feelings of suicide and/or homicide.  In other words, don't do this at home!  If you or someone you love needs help, get a qualified therapist.  This link -- Find an EMDR therapist  -- allows you to find someone for yourself or someone you know who needs trauma therapy.  Tango alone, although therapeutic, is not enough!

Human experience adds more and more experience to your world that will confirm that life is full of tragedy.  Finding a safe place -- from any source -- is an important step for anyone who will be resilient in this world.

The Safe Place in tango has three distinct elements that allows this warm, safe feeling.

• The first is the music.  Personally speaking, when I am embarrassed to be a human being from watching something on television (people mistreating others, or even American circus-like court cases, for example), music brings me to my Safe Place very quickly.   Tango has an important advantage because it provides a "clean slate" for most of us who grew up outside of Latin America.  North Americans have no human history associated with tango; so this music has a clean slate.  That is, tango does not trigger any sad human experience.  I have had many vets who like my tango mix CD that I sometime give them.  They listened to a lot of music when in Iraq, and now the same music they once loved can trigger flash-backs.  Tango is a clean slate for them, as it is with us.
• The second element is touch.  The lack of human touch causes old people and infants to suffer from what is called in the medical world, "Failure to Thrive."  A child getting all its basic needs but not enough touch will not gain weight, be developmentally delayed and in the worst instances, will die.  We all need touch.  An heartwarming hug brings me to a Safe Place.  I get more hugs in a milonga than anywhere else in the world.  This element is the most important element of how a woman brings me to a Safe Place.  Mari has a resource page off to the right on the concept of "Entrega."   I suggest going there to understanding feminine power, although this is not just for any one gender.  This is Yin.
• The third element is brain balancing.  The left and right of our feet on the ground (it could be swimming/running/biking) apparently forces the brain to think on both sides of the brain.  People who constantly feel unsafe have too much activity on the right side of their brain.  If this assertion is true that we can force our brains to think in more hemisphere-balanced way (and it is), then simplicity will be important for the most soothing, Safe-Place dance... Tangueros, are you listening?   This is not just theory but praxis.  I have been dancing enough to have had scores of friends who have been distressed with something at the milonga or in their life, and a very warm, accepting embrace, combined with a musical and simple tango walk "miraculously" takes them to a Safe Place.  Sometimes the stress falls entirely away, or they get an idea of how to resolve something.  I just gave you an important "secret."  Try it, and tell me what happens.

When we combine all three elements, the Safe Place that everyone needs and hopes to have and maintain quickly appears and sticks with us for days, maybe forever.

At the last Milonga de Los Santos near Washington DC,  a friend of mine, who reads my blog, came up, and said, "I have a story for you that you will like!"  Evidently she had gone to the doctor late and her blood pressure reading was soaring 50 points too high!  She told them to give her a few minutes.  She tried meditating about a nice place, but only when she thought of dancing tango did she feel calm.  When they came back, her reading was normal! 

The next day I saw her again.  She came late to the West End Practica because of terrible traffic.  "We need to find out Safe Place," I told her.  She looked pretty upset that she had come more than hour late. We just walked very simply to the music, using a varity of very slow to normal variations of the beauty of "simplicity."   I could feel her heart pounding at around 80 beats per minute* against mine as we started, but eventually her heart calmed.   I was experiencing what I have seen over and over with combat vets:  One's heart rate goes down substantially when one finds a Safe Place.

Here is my card.  I am the "Tango Therapist," one in the long line of countless men and women who over many years have known the power of the embrace, the music, and walking on the path of grace.  Join us.  There is no certification needed.  The only "credential" needed is that you regularly help others find their Safe Place.  The world needs more tango therapists!

PS:  I did not address how a woman brings me to a Safe Place very well.  Maybe a future post?

Photo Credit:
Laguna Arenál, the safe place in my mind:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/59436014@N00/with/2879349289/

Psychiatry on the Dance Floor

Is your movement a goal or a process?

Diálogo Tanguero 
Psychiatry on the Dance Floor

Prologue:  Lately, I have had wonderful discussions with tangueros and tangueras all over the world and so I hope to bring their wisdom to Tango-Beat.  This is the first Diálogo Tanguero (Tango Dialog) of  what I hope will be many to come.  My conversation below is with a forensic psychiatrist in one of the most populated cities in the US.  Over a cup of coffee, she told me about incidences that influenced her from her childhood, and how these influenced her pursuit of happiness through tango.  An earlier post “Tango Start Line” was about dancing for only your partner and not competing or dancing for the onlookers.  This dialog grew out that article.

Tango-Beat:
What brought you to tango?

María:
I grew up in Colombia, and I listened to tangos all the time.  My siblings thought I was strange because they were listening to rock ‘n roll, but I was influenced by our father who constantly would listen to tangos and boleros.  I loved these classic tangos.  I knew all the words to them by heart.

Mark:
You are a forensic psychiatrist, and you are summoned internationally in your work.  No one would ever guess that at night you come out as a tanguera!  And I am sure that few would ever guess you are a tanguera aficionada when you present papers to audiences, appear in court for victims or that you are treating patients.  My experience is that when we dance you are absolutely 100% connected to me and to the music.

María:
At work I present myself as plain as I can, with little makeup and very conservatively dressed.  Tango lets me be as feminine as I want to be, and that has really been wonderful for me.  Also, as a child I always knew that one day I would be dancing tango.  The reason for this is that my father always listened to tangos, and I have been listening to them since the time I was inside of my mother’s womb.

Mark:
You told me that you guide your tango teachers away from technique, choreography, and competition.  Instead, you are interested in the simple passion of the music and tango as a social dance.  Tell me why.

María:
I think I learned how unimportant competition is early on.  I want to dance it for me and my partner, not what others think or see.  When I was 12 or 13, I participated in an all girl’s bicycle competition in my neighborhood’s club.  My cousins Gladys and Nubia, who were 6 and 8 years older than I was at the time, also participated.  In the middle of the competition, a girl ahead of me tripped over something and fell off the road into grass and mud.  Behind her I fell with others.  My cousin Gladys, came to help me to get back on my bike.  I still remember telling her, “You shouldn't stop for me!  You could win the competition.”  She answered, “It doesn't matter; the important thing is that we are all going to make it to the end. . . .Who cares about being the winner or not.”

On life's track: Against others or with others?

Since that day, Gladys became my favorite cousin, and what she taught me that day stayed forever with me.  Approximately two and a half years ago, when I started taking tango lessons, I remember telling my first tango instructor, “I just want to learn to do it correctly, but overall I want to enjoy it.  I don’t want to compete.”  I don’t plan to be a tango instructor, though if one day it I teach, it would be to help others less advanced than me to get better.  Being on a stage in order to have ovations from the public is not my goal.  All I care about is to dance this music with all my heart, because I love it.  

Mark:
But you have through your passion learned good technique, I think.  I danced with you when you first started and you have really become very good in a short time.

María:
Well, thanks.  But I think that I have learned quicker because I never forgot about dancing just for my partner.  With my teachers, I have had that very clear, that my wish is to be a good dancer, but technically good dancers often are sitting.  My hope has been that anytime that I attend a milonga, I’ll be asked to dance all the time, not because I am the best on the dance floor, but because men will be able to tell that I have passion for tango and I dance it with my soul.   So, my hope is always to be dancing to the end, like in my bike competition, where I did not win, but I was able to finish despite the bumps on the road.

Mark:
Well, I feel this when I dance with you.  It doesn’t take a forensic psychiatrist to analyze this!  You have rediscovered your passion for tango that you knew as a girl.  Now, you are dancing to it, but it has been moving your heart for a long time.  What a great story, María!

Photo Credit:
http://www.thevelodrome.com/community-programs/bicycle-racing-league/

Tango Dreams

I have dreams from time to time in which I fly.  I love flying.  It is so wonderful it wakes me in my delight and concern that it will end too soon.  Before I wake, I feel as if I must remember how this works.  Why couldn't I fly before?  Can I do it again?  All these thoughts make me lose elevation and I must land.  Upon landing, I wake, sad that it was a dream.

Tonight, I know that I will not wake up from these dreams anymore.  I will fly and not fear that I will forget because starting today, I will remember the fact that I can fly.  In my dreams I can -- every night, even before I sleep.  With my passion to fly, I am not limited by worry about my technique of flying.  Before writing this, I never realized the antidote to this sad ending to my dream.  But now I know that I will be free to fly without worry of waking to be disappointed.

The reason I will no longer be awakened from flying is something I learned from working with combat vets.   I will not go into it right here, but one of the single most rewarding things of my work as a therapist with soldiers is that although they had nightmares every night for years, with a new nightmare mitigation technique, the horrific dreams suddenly start to disappear.  Eventually they stop having to use toxic medications to induce and maintain sleep.  It is all about embracing the producer and director of your dreams -- you.  The producer is the raw passion of the film making what we do in our head both asleep and awake and is the limbic part of our brain.  The director is the technique, the cerebral cortex that tames passion and at its very best, makes passion sublime.  This concept has been around for centuries as "sublimation" -- that what makes passion sublime.  Unfortunately, the word "sublimation" has changed in its meaning to become "stuffing your passion."

Perhaps you will ask, what use is this if you cannot really fly?  Mentally when I fly, you will see that I am more serine and happy.  Being more serine and happy has multiple uses, don't you think?

I now have the ending to dream, and it has a wonderful ending:  I fly without worrying about technique because my passion got me to take flight, and hard-earned technique will follow because I am enjoying myself and I am willing to work for the next level.  In other words, passion is what makes us work to have technique that allows us to keep flying higher and longer.

Finding the ending of my stress dream, comes out of my life experience as a tanguero.  This is yet another practical application of what I have learned as a tanguero.  The soaring that tangueros experience all the time is very much like this dream.

I am suggesting that you more assuredly can soar in your practice of the walking embrace, commonly called "tango."   Nightmares have an overly active producer, and tango dancers often have an overly active "director," stealing away the very basis for the creative work of art you are about to paint upon the floor.

Give up the worry about your technique (although that  is very important) and put it into context of art and love!  Tango is an art and much more than that.  It is the art of flying with another person.  The arts hit their highest of highs through technique, but what makes them have the energy to take flight and soar?  It is your passion for art and love.

Let's say that we are both authors.  We write a novel about tango.  We have passion about what we write.  It is important to have good spelling and grammar.  But without our passion we have nothing.

Tango is love -- the love of movement and connection with another.  Let's say that we are lovers.  If were are truly lovers we would love each other with all our hearts and minds, and I would hope that our technique makes it all the better. But without our passion, our technique is nothing.

My best moment in tango is when I hold a woman, no matter how old or young, comely or plain, as the only woman in the world.  There is no technique to open your heart to the transfer of energy between two souls, but technique will help to transform this moment to be sublime.  And when this happens technique seems so important, and I can for a moment believe that technique brought me to this heavenly place.  However after a moment's reflection I will return to my heart:  Passion was what made us take flight, to soar; technique allowed us to fly high and long.

Will you fly with me?  With us?  Try it in your dreams.  But practice it with the soul who has assented to hold you as you go down the wooden path together in this magical, walking embrace, you and I call tango.



For a perhaps more balanced view of technique and it's importance, see this post:
http://moderntanguera.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/technique/

Photo credits:
http://vi.sualize.us/view/9f878a2f026418e54ca53b7917b261e9/  flying dreamer


http://www.dreamstime.com/dancing-water-image12124506 dancing water.

When tango is NOT therapeutic

Walking from the brain's perspective.  It's more than exercise

When is tango not therapeutic?
Rarely.

Tango cannot be everything or used to help you through everything.

Tango may need some help!  If you are suffering from depression, insomnia, obsessions, anxiety, then tango actually can be a problem if you rely on it as your only method of therapy.

You may need medication, counseling and a combination of other activities rather than large doses of the thing that seems to help the most -- tango.   Any ONE therapeutic intervention by itself may be counter-productive.  For example, taking medication alone for insomnia may mask the problem and bring no longterm solution.  All studies show that psychotropic medications work best when in taken in conjunction with counseling.  I would add to counseling, "getting out and living life, including dancing"!  So it is with tango.  What other resources need to be taken with your dose of tango?

As a therapist, working at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, I have been suggesting "self-care" to soldiers using bi-lateral stimulation to the brain through walking, more specifically -- a "tango walk," a graceful, contra-body walk.  Many of my patients have PTSD.

Walking has a long history of helping people cope.  People who walk over five miles a day are far healthier than those who do less.  Most of the research misses why they are healthier and happier.  Is it just exercise?  Maybe the brain is a lot happier with the stimulation that left/right repetition-through-walking provides.  A happy brain helps the whole body to thrive.  Walking makes us happier, more serene, more focused.  Just ask a meditating, walking Buddhist monk!  Or the many prophets who met or pondered their calling on a walk.  Tango is essentially a walk -- especially millonguero style tango.

 Maybe you decided whom to marry or what career course to take while on a walk.  This walk creates through the feet bi-lateral stimulation.  Now that you know HOW to walk from dancing tango, try the "walking-solution," but now using the graceful, contra-body walk you have learned via tango.  And watch out!  Fireworks!

A graceful walk decreases depression, helps with balance, helps the mind sort out stresses and obsessions.  Who hasn't experienced that?  Great brain research is proving what we already know.  The brain that has gone out for a walk looks different afterwards.  The negative ions of fresh air (which the brain loves) and dopamine release are all part of exercise, but also this comes, and maybe even mainly comes, from the the bi-lateral stimulation of the brain (the left/right repetition of the feet hitting the ground) while the brain is doing it main work -- adaptation to its environment.  Runners are not the only ones with a "high" provided by this bi-lateral simulation to the brain.  If "exercise" were the most important element in getting high through bi-lateral stimulation through movement, runners would be happier than tango dancers.  The "tanguero's high" beats runner's high hands down.  I speak with authority here: I have run 14 marathons.

So my soldier clients report that they can now "walk out" anger, frustration and even anxiety by walking.  They seemed to be more grounded too, meaning that flashbacks are more in control.  Many wounded soldiers need more exercise; so going for walks is a great "side effect."  Aren't you glad that they are doing this rather than going for a ride in their big trucks to work out anger?  Also, most soldiers suffering from PTSD-like symptoms need to get up and out, instead of the common avoidance of everything and everyone outside their apartment.  A graceful walk alone or with someone they love is a great resource.  Now imagine walking and holding that person!  Did I say "fireworks" for just walking?  A walking embrace is exactly what people are talking about when they talk about the "addictive" quality of tango. 

A future post will address what happens when the power of touch and music are added to the walk.

Again, tango is not automatically therapeutic, but often is.  In some cases, I suppose it could be just an escape, or even feel somewhat like an "addiction."  Tango can be counter-productive, but it cannot be an addiction.*   Mostly, tango is a very positive, therapeutic element in my life.  I suppose that if you are reading this, tango probably has been therapeutic in yours as well.


*Tango is never "addictive" (which is a terrible misuse of words).  However tango can be an avoidance behavior.  Here are some thoughts on this subject:  "Tango is not an addiction, Part I / Part II" (links below).
http://tango-beat.blogspot.com/2009/11/part-i-tango-is-not-addiction.html  
http://tango-beat.blogspot.com/2009/11/2-solution-part-2.html

Note: The above photo is from a "how to" website on Yoga walking, which underscores the message here, although misses the point about the role of bi-later stimulation to the brain.  Please visit this link.

Tango you can Inject $25



Secret ingredients from Buenos Aires                                        Photo M.Word 






















Okay, so I was stupid.  I couldn't go to the milonga last night, so I bought this product:

Tango Solution
100% guarantee:

• Increases a feeling of elation as if you were around friends.
• Increases awareness of fine music.
• Connects you to your primal being, the only mammal that moves to music.
• Provides a feeling as if you had been hugged by lots of friends.
• Feelings of mastery of life may result after only three injections.
• Decreases and often eliminates depression.

The package said that the ingredients came from an actual Milonga snack and water table in Buenos Aires. Also the the makers claimed that real milongueros stood around and blessed the water with lots of laughter and social interaction at a milonga.  The solution was mixed by placing it right next to the speakers that played a wide variety of authentic tango music.

I am too embarrassed to ask for my money back.  What was I thinking?  In my own defense, it was only an experiment to see if I could inject tango.

Nope.  Only tango at a milonga works.

Walking to Find Ourselves

Not some times.   Every time.

Every time I go out on a walk I discover something new about the tango walk and about myself.  And each time I say, "Why didn't I see that before?"  I would not expect you to believe that I keep discovering things about simply walking, because that is unbelievable.

I am sure each time that I have discovered something that it must be the last thing possible.  I never expect to learn something new.  But it just keeps happening.  I learn how to dance tango more efficiently and simply.  Some things are complex, such as leading her with my back and torso movement to take just one step as I take three or two steps.  Some things I discover are simple, such as a lilt to my gate.

 It sometimes takes as many as six months to bring an idea found by walking by myself onto the dance floor.  Sometimes I discover the idea on the dance floor, but perfect it or understand it better when I walk later by myself.  That happened last night in a waltz with a favorite tanguera: I stepped two against her one in 3/4 time -- a surprising feeling.

What occurred to me after I watched the video (below) of long-time teachers walking in a tango walk for an entire song was that we learn a lot about the connection to the music when we merely walk.  Complicated "prefabricated" steps (choreographies) keep us from finding the music and our partner.  But something new dawned on me: I realized even finding ourselves is helped by a meditative tango walk, and I reveal my inner world, my soul to my partner if I walk "simply" with her.  Watch what I mean:



Of course it is not simple to dance in connection to one's partner.  Everyone that attempts any partner dance knows that.  But with tango's improvisational nature, the musical connection is also crucial.  I know people who use the same chronography in salsa or ballroom to any music that happens to be playing.  In tango that would truly be seen more clearly as a counterfeit than other forms of partner dance.  Time out:  I should add right now that I do indeed dance salsa and as a percussionist, understand the intricacies of the music.  But now that I dance tango, I dance salsa much differently now, with "paradas" (stops), hesitations and far fewer underarm turns.  My salsa feels more like tango (without looking like it) -- it's Afro-Cuban with an Argentine accent.

Tango teaches me that I must be in connection to myself.  Learning so many "cool steps" is a way of not getting to know oneself.  Although there is value in learning a "vocabulary" of tango steps, many school-taught steps are superfluous.  So many steps are parroting the ideas of others.  That doesn't do much to help self-discovery.  In my first year of dancing tango, I remember doing lots of steps out of anxiety that I might bore my partner.  Slowly I found that if the connection is good, and the music is truly leading, that no woman on earth is going to be bored.  Well, that was an overstatement.  Let me try again:  All the women in the world interested in allowing her soul to dance with mine will not be bored.   The tango walk allows us to discover ourselves as one and to reveal more of what is on our heart and minds through body language.

In the tango walk, I am reminded that music is the true leader, the woman, my companion, and the next step, a fresh discovery the three of us are finding together as if it were for the very first time.

Cumparsita of the Soul (the second of three poems)

Walking-Embrace, Searching

I met her at a milonga some months back.
We danced often, but I did not know.
Her face had a concern I could not read.
A friend told me she was a combat vet.
I left it to her to tell me more if she'd like.

Early to the milonga, we danced alone.
A pause allowed her to speak.
"I want you to know," she said... and paused.
She searched my face as if for the words.
"I am here to find my soul."

I wondered if this were the over-statement
Of how tango, like just another fad,
Had become everything to her, an addiction.
But she had a seriousness, all the while
A yearning, that someone understand.

"I left my soul, my friends say, in Iraq.
I know I left my trust of men there...
With a battle buddy whom I both mourn
And despise from his false embrace,
From his forceful violation of my trust.

"And then as if my fury had its own power,
He died, in a burning convoy truck the next day.
And now I fear even my own anger,
As if it had the power to kill.
I know anger cannot, but I fear mine can.

"He and I were close, two wild animals
In a tree waiting for the flood to pass.
Our alarm clock was mortar fire.
Our welcoming party was the laughter
Of AK-47's and radio chatter in Farsi."

"But when a fellow soldier
Became the enemy too,
I had no refuge, no place to turn.
He stole even my mourning at his death,
...the bastard, the stupid bastard!"

She lightly pounded my chest,
Half-given to our tango embrace.
The DJ, half-cocked her gaze at us,
Wondering why my partner was in distress.
But the music played on.

"Walk with me." I said.
Was it just her tears or was she melting
Into my chest and crying the melody?
Her embrace became a primal hug,
As if she were inside of my chest, weeping.

Again we paused.
With red eyes, she apologized
For her work of art on my chest--
Watercolor with mascara
On black canvas and tie.

We danced the third song of the tanda.
At song's end, I did not let her go.
I held her near, and voice-to-ear whispered:
"Your soul is still here, very near.
You did not leave your soul in Iraq.

"You would have to return there to find it.
Many try and fail; your soul is here.
The many people who love you
Store your soul in their hearts for you.
Visit their hearts and you will find your soul."

We danced three tandas that night.
Each time I danced as simply as I could:
A tango walk, living and breathing
As soulful and steady
As the bellows of the bandoneón.

The last tanda of the night.
She had stopped weeping.
She stopped me mid-Cumparsita.
Peering in my eyes, "I found it!" she said.
"What? Found what?"

"My soul. It's timid and doesn't always stay.
But it has visited me tonight."
As we danced, I wondered if she felt
The wet irony of the tears on my face,
Which I cloaked by our close embrace.

I was once told that a tanguero
Becomes a true tanguero
When a woman weeps in his arms.

But that is not true.

A woman weeps when she has found
Her soul in the simplicity of a walking embrace,
And the primal hug which cradles it.



This is the second of three poems, dedicated to soldiers.  Only one out of ten women, according to the Department of Defense, report sexual assault out of fear of reprisals and worse problems while they are deployed.  Of those that do report, many say they wished they had not.

When I meet these women, they sometimes complain that their difficulites are minimized by both male and female soldiers, doctors, therapists.  The biggest tragedies begin upon their return.  This story is a collage of stories.  There is no actual soldier tanguera with whom I have danced -- at least as depicted here.  But I have experienced the weeping on my black shirt, and it truly is all about finding one's soul. 

Tangueros/tangueras:  I hope you can appreciate the power of tango.  It is more than a dance, a nice community of people:  It is a walking-embrace, searching for the soul that sometimes gets away from us.