The Cause of Tango's Gender Imbalance

Line up ladies and wait your turn.

Women MUST protect new (and sometimes gorgeous) tangueras -- the very women that are stealing dances from them.  Not protecting them will actually CAUSE a gender imbalance.  Gender imbalance is created by Tango Tomcats which scare off the new Tanguero Kittens, causing a chronic imbalance.

It works like this:
Let's say that I am a new male dancer, learning tango in a class.  My best chance to get better is to dance with my cohort of new female students.  BUT THE TEACHER or some tango stud is taking the new female dancers and showing them the way to tango nirvana.  Even if the good female dancers are willing to dance with me, I will struggle, as a new tanguero, with performance anxiety while dancing with the experienced tangueras more than with the new tangueras.  So I drop out.  I cannot compete with the tango studs.  Many of the women will drop out from contact with Tango Tomcats, but later find their way back. But as for me, the male dancer, I will find a venue in salsa or ballroom that develops a much better cohort of female dancers, or just give up on the dance scene altogether.  Now, this did not happen to me.  But I came to tango as an well-established salsero and novice ballroom dancer.  Also, I had a background in music.  But I am sensitive to the poor new Tanguero Kittens who come and soon are gone.

Many women know how to keep them coming back and taking lessons, but others are just looking for the next great tanguero to take them for a ride.  Now, that's my direct experience -- some pretty snotty tangueras helping do demotivate the young-at-dance.  It's as if the senior tangueros are colluding to maintain a gender imbalance!

Thanks to Tango Tomcats (and to a lesser degree some pretty snotty Tango Felines), the community has a lack of new males that is much worse than the new tangueras.  A smaller community will falter because of the built-in gender imbalance in that community.  But this goes on because of senior men and senior women doing nothing about it.  For their own good and the good of the community, it is important to do something other than wait for tango karma to strike the Tango Tomcat down with lightening as he is carrying his black and white tango shoes to his car.

When I wrote what amounts to a small book on Tango Etiquette, I did not think of it as a self-defense manual (for women) and tango community building manual (for new men) -- all in one -- but now I see it that way.

Los Códigos de Tango (Tango Etiquette) has been protecting new tangueros/tangueras for over a century. (Newcomer to tango will need to read "Tango Etiquette's Apendix B for beginners" for vocabulary explanations.)  The community should not see Tango Etiquette as the finer points of tango; it is the starting point.  Tango Etiquette is not "the finer points of tango" but the basis of tango -- what teachers and friends should be pointing out to newcomers about about tandas, cabeceos, and appropriate behavior at a milonga.   It will protect their advancement and make it hard for inappropriate behavior from predatory dancers to harm them. Here is a brief review in reverse order of priority:

1. The cabeceo:  The Tango Tomcat at his worse will not take "no" for an answer.  Tell him that you use the cabeceo (even it is just for him), and then avoid his eyes.

2.  The one or two tanda rule:  Unless you plan on saying, "sleeping with me is an option," do not dance more than two tandas in a row.  Make it one -- even better.  Thank each other and get off the floor at the cortina.  If you really liked dancing, make it clear that you would like another dance later on.  Fellow blogger, Terpsichoral, tells me that in Buenos Aires one clears the floor, and that dancing more than one tanda is rare.  Hmm, I wonder why! Buenos Aires is full of Tomcats, she says, but that's okay because the women know how to manage these furry creatures.  Exactly my point!  I am not out to neuter Tango Tomcats, just help communities neutralize them!

3. What to do when uncomfortable with a partner:   If you ever feel uncomfortable with a dance, thank the person and sit down.   Make no excuses or explanations.   This is not just for creepy dancers; sometimes it is as simple as a hold that hurts or someone is way too bouncy.  What drives me mad is the woman who is constantly behind the beat and hanging on me.  It is a tanguera's right to politely end a dance, and it is tanguero's great opportunity to grow as a person to respect her decision without holding a deep resentment. I rarely have ended a tanda, but that is the tanguero's right as well.

4. No Teaching on the dance floor:  I did not know this rule for a long time, but it is essential!  why didn't anyone tell me!  No, women were even asking to be instructed!  New tangueras plead for instruction; so it takes a man with restraint not to say anything to this damsel in distress.  But even though I say nothing, often I hear that I was a great teacher.  Now, I take the time to say -- "No man should be instructing you on the dance floor.  You and I were just dancing and we both learn a lot from that."  Does explicit teaching make a person a Vulture?  No.  But he or she is breaking away from Tango Etiquette by teaching or even talking.  What does the "conversationalist-while-dancing" tanguero have to say, anyway?  One good-looking tanguero in DC is constantly teaching or talking about himself.  I feel like asking questions about everything I over heard about his greatness between songs.  He is a classic Tango Tomcat.  He also does dangerous moves and goes from one favorite tanguera to the next.  He is not really a predator, though.  He seems to develop his newest love with women who really have seen his methods on seduction.  I do not feel sorry for his lady-of-the moment them for a moment.

5.  The no-harm floorcraft rule:  Until I learned more from comments from women as I wrote about Tango Vultures, I realized that the biggest infraction on Tango Etiquette is the first rule of floorcraft -- cause no harm and protect (mostly the man but also the woman's role).  The Tango Tomcat causes great harm in the community, and he needs to be declawed.  If there is a true predatory individual in the community, his vulture talon's need to be clipped and he needs to be tarred and de-feathered.

Warning on the Package:
I have mentioned this before, but I will say it again:  My ideas about tango tomcats and vultures could cause harm to the community which is not careful about using terms, such as "Tango Vulture" for predatory behavior and "Tango Tomcat" for inappropriate behavior.  Some "red flag" behaviors are just a lack of knowing tango etiquette.  For example, even now, someone could spot me as a Tango Vulture, I realize.  "Ah, look there, the Tango Therapist is really a Tango Vulture himself!"  Some women come to tango and have the idea in their head that they want to dance with lots of space between them and their partners' bodies, but then they find themselves in a milonguero embrace with me.  They, in their own mind, might be dancing with a "Tango Vulture."  They don't feel safe, and they think I am "causing" this feeling.  I have the greatest compassion for them.  They may have been sexually abused, and this is bringing up these body-phobic feelings, or perhaps they just might need to go back to their salsa lessons or ballroom dancing.  But even there they will have to confront their body phobia when some accomplished International Style dancer puts his groin to hers and off they go on a lovely waltz.  Argentine tango now seems pretty tame.  I hope she comes back to Argentine tango, which with the right partners is therapeutic to the woman who has been abused.  But this also underlines the need to protect the community for the very small minority of men who abuse the right to embrace another soul.   Also, I have occasionally danced too much with a new tanguera, but since starting this series, I will have to avoid breaking the mostly unwritten "código" of one-tanda-at-a-time (which does not include friends and one's partner).   Also, until I knew the rule, I was terrible about talking or teaching on the dance floor.  I just didn't know! At first, I did it out of nervousness as a new tanguero and then later out of puppy exuberance for my new knowledge and love of tango.  Tango etiquette now is my basis for making tango a Safe Place, especially for those new to tango.


Photocredit:  http://axisstudiosdesign.com/byebyebirdiejr.htm

What to do with Tango Kitty Litter

The Tango Tomcat must face what now has become quicksand.

"Kitty Litter" is what I call the many new tangueras who fall away from tango because of inappropriate behavior in the tango community.  And who caused all the Kitty Litter -- all the newcomer tango kitties who have been "trashed"?  The Tango Tomcat; that's who.  He's the one who stalked too many new Tango Kitties as they arrived into the tango community with starry eyes, so fully in love with the joy of movement.  But they left when they no longer felt psychologically or physically safe.

Here is my challenge to tangueros/tangueras everywhere.  Staying in your own lane is not the primary floorcraft rule, as some people believe.  Staying in your own lane and being blind or a turning a blind eye is not okay.

Practical Things to Do
I was emboldened by this project by Clay Nelson's article on community building.   He had a short paragraph about predatory people, whom he called "toxic people."  He felt strongly that these toxic people could seriously damage the tango community if no action were taken.  He suggested that the men in the community gently confront any "toxic" person and if he does not respond that he should be shunned.  Easier said than done, but very concrete advice.

But even more than Clay, the private emails and Facebook messages tell me that this sordid subject must be addressed by more than just the men.   I assure you I would rather write poetry and about the magic of tango, but I feel advocacy for others is a part of my job as a tanguero.  Yet, it is not just a tanguero's job to promote tango as a Safe Place!  The first rule of floorcraft is NOT just "dance in your own lane," as I have said above.  So what is the primary rule of floorcraft?   The first rule of tango floorcraft is "cause no harm and protect," not only your partner but everyone on the floor.  Although navigation and this rule are mostly a man's job, women too have this job.  (See Tango Etiquette, Chapter 3, part II.)  This first rule in floorcraft is the rule of safety.  If a particular milonga's dance floor is unsafe, then many will not go any longer.  Senior tangueros and tangueras need to take an active role in making their community a Safe Place both physically on the dance floor as well as psychologically safe.  I would argue that tangueras are especially equipped to make the tango community a psychologically safe place.

Clay's article turned to the men to take action.  In my next blog,  I will suggest what the women can do, and what the consequences to the senior tangueras will be if they do not protect especially the new females in the community.

From much thought on this subject and many minutes talking to a tanguera, who happens also to be an expert witness at murder and partner abuse trials, I am convinced that any tango community which has a huge gender imbalance is caused by the both men AND women failing to take action to protect the newest women in the community.  Sure men have their role (mentioned above), but women need to guide newcomers by gently teaching tango etiquette to new tangueras -- right away.  Too many do not know what a cabeco until they have been dancing for years, or still are asking experienced tangueros to teach them on the dance floor.

Next blog:  "The Cause of Tango's Gender Imbalance":  why tango etiquette preserves gender balance in the tango community, and has a huge role in creating a psychological and physical safety for women.

Hasta la próxima,
Mark


Photo credit of kitty quicksand.  http://catmas.com/blog/_archives/2006/10/3/2382906.html  [For animal lovers this cat is not actually in sand; he is sticking his head out from a hole in carpet.]

Whatever happend to Kasimir?

Kasimir never gets his fill

I have personal contact with the German man who authored "Kasimir the Tango Tomcat" back in May of 2010.   I translated his story about the tango teacher tomcat who had boundary issues with some of this students.  (Here is the link to his tango blog in German; I suggest you use Google Translate and visit his blog:  He has some wonderful clips from music that he reviews.) 

Anyway, I wondered what became of the tango community in which Kasimir was the teacher. Cassiel wrote me from Germany and told me that the weekly milonga dwindled to a poorly attended once a month milonga. In the end, Cassiel said, "[Kasimir] almost completely ruined the local tango scene." [Er hat die örtliche Szene fast vollständig zerstört.] Cassiel is a pseudonym, so he had the freedom to describe what was going on, but he also told me that Kasimir is an international figure. One can find Kasimir on the prowl everywhere you go.

Also  Terpsichoral, who lives between London and Buenos Aires helped clarify something for me. Buenos Aires is full of tomcats, she says! From her comment on Kasimir the Tango Tomcat, I realized the big distinction is how a one- or two-tomcat town can devastate a tango scene.   Larger tango "ecosystems" and urban women are more equipped to survive catty behavior -- or that is my best take on this furry phenomenon.

I promised a follow-up on what the community can do to protect itself.  I'll have that out tomorrow or Saturday, I promise.


Photocredit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/yukariryu/122530930/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Kasimir der Tango-Kater

The following post is my translation of a German tango-blog post from May of 2010.  Cassiel's posts are excellent:  Simply excellent -- over and over.  I started following his tango blog just recently.   I came on this older post because he gave us all a link to it on a comment that he made on Tango Vutures.  The link was simply a reference to "tango teacher."  When I clicked on his link I found the story about Kasimir, the Tango Tom Cat, the name he gave the teacher.  Somehow he did not have a single comment on his blog back in 2010.  Evidently this a subject that few feel comfortable about, but now the Vuture is out of the closet, or shall I say the Kat is out of the Bag.

Here is my  translation from German:

Kasimir der Tango-Kater

Getting Over Kasimer, the Tango-Tomcat

Recently, on the edge of the dance floor, I spot a tanguera (we shall call her simply "Eleanor") who bravely sat bolt upright in her chair and looked blandly through the dancing couples. It seemed as if she were not really present. Her face betrayed no emotion.  An attentive observer could only imagine what was going on in her thought.  To truly get a glimpse of her newly aquired personality, one would have to be aware of her history with Kasimir, the Tango-Tomcat.
You see, only a few weeks ago, Eleanor was still Kasimir's favorite tanguera and he danced almost exclusively with her. But now she has been replaced with the next tanguera in the line of waiting ladies.  Eleanor's new role tonight is just to watch as she is deprived of the favor of the gato-maestro's hold. Currently at the front of the line is -- we'll call her "Ku-t-pie" -- who is glad to be the present favorite of el maestro, el Gato de la Noche.

No question, Kasimir is a good tango dancer, and he knows it. He had enough time to perfect his skills and has had the opportunity. Kasimir is open, loose and often a little too loud. He is the heart-throb of many women. If he enters into his carefully composed exterior of a milonga, then his appearance has something messianic. Kasimir occurs in different outfits. Sometimes he appears in a bright suit, the sunglasses in his hair, and sometimes he comes dressed in extremely casual sports clothes.  Then again, he sometimes is almost inconspicuous in jeans and T-shirt. Many ladies watch him with longing eyes. Kasimir seems to have trained long and hard to ignore the swooning observers.  But perhaps a careful view of him would reveal the restlessness of a troubled soul. He constantly scans the environment and controls the performance of his carefully crafted persona, which must be exhausting. But he is well aware of the power of his persona, his mask.  In the same way, he moves navigates over the dance floor waves:  His leadership is pervasive, effective and controlled.  But there is a question if his control matches the the music.  Although this lapse is hardly discernible, the careful observer can see it:  It's the moment in which the music betrays his stormy inner life.  One will see Kasimir at a loss during a tango when the music offers a motionless waiting, a stillness upon the dance floor sea.  This is the moment when his troubled soul reveals itself -- the moment the music says "be still and know yourself."  [A little bit of poetic translation here.]

But we'll go back to Ku-t-pie. [She is not the only one who gets Kasimir's favor.]  Also waiting in the line of ladies is Lucinda, who presently sits and hopes for her chance with Kasimir.  Having completed his round of jovial, friendly, professional greeting, Kasimir finally comes around to her with an outstretched hand to her and asks for a dance. He dances with her tanda after tanda. And she sinks in the happiness of the moment, not knowing that this happiness will find itself with a high probability in the same trash heap of those who went before her.

And what do all the tangueros make of this?  Surely some Tangueros undoubtedly will wonder how Kasimir does it!  How he so effortlessly captures the favor of the ladies!  Is it his verbal wit or maybe its his physical aura that grips the ladies?  But the mystery remains in Kasimir's little box of catnip secrets.  [They do not know the deal he made with his soul and the cost of such "favor."  Would they be willing to make the same deal over their own soul to have what Kasimir has?]  (Sorry, Cassiel:  a bit of of putting words into your mouth here.)

I should mention the another unfortunate feature of his personality:  Beware of his territory marking.  Let's just call it peeing on your leg. As a leader of the cat-pack, he claims the alpha position in a group. If a lesser tango-gato dances too long and too intimately with a tanguera, he must confront them on this rather forward behavior.  He must defend his role as leader of the cat-pack. As in the wild, so it must be at the milonga! His dealings with other tangueros is rather difficult. Somehow, he very often gives the impression that tango-size does matter with his not-so-hidden "length comparisons."  It's all so tedious.

Maybe we need to describe a few archetypes of hopeful and ultimately disappointed tangueras from his past so that the phenomenon is more tangible in order to understand a persona such as Kasimir. First let's mention Fanny, the frustrated: She has sworn him off after her great disappointment with the Kasimir -- her tango also died too. Then there's Farah, the Furious: In her sense of him nothing that would be positive to say of Kasimir.  But it has had a larger toll on her too, as seen in her tango, which has become noticeably more performance-focused and more hectic.  [For her the world of a tango of feeling has replaced itself with a tango of outward perception.]  And that brings us finally to Ina, the Indolent:  For ages she has continued on apparently without any heart-break.  She, [like a French wife of a politician] stands in solidarity with Kasimir [and his current mistress] hoping that he realizes one day that she is the only true [adoring] one.

Is there hope for Kasimir?  This question is not easy to answer. Certainly it will be difficult for him to leave the hunt of the latest Kitty even though this hunt leaves marks upon his soul. Precisely for this reason, his great performance slowly seems to have become more hectic.  Perhaps he will find that the the tango sociotop is not an endless ocean [on which he can sail his pirate's ship].  One day he will find that the waves he has made upon his own tango ocean will have him upon the rocks.  A cold and wet Kasimir then hopefully will get to know the real world of tango, the silent [and peaceful sea of] tango. Maybe he can find a new sociotop-- one of connection with another soul.






Photocredit link

PS:  Hats off to Cassiel.  I ask his forgiveness with some of my freedom I took in a few places in the translation.  If I had read his post before writing Tango Vultures, I would have used the softer name -- the Tango Tom Cat.

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/

Tango and the Music of the Spheres

Title:  "Music of the Spheres"

By far one the most beautiful dreams I have ever had was after a class on musical transliteration.  We would have to hear music and then write it out.  I can tell you that I was not very good at this, and am proudly envious of Toby, my son, who can recognize exactly what note or cord is being played.

Anyway, one late afternoon following my music transliteration class, I took a nap.  I dreamed that I, along with an entire room of people, were watching the music of the universe as it expressed itself in matched colors and tones.  The room was filled with rainbows, and we were doing our best to write down what we could get.  No one could get it all.  But we did our best.  We were all deeply in awe.

I did not wake disappointed but happy that somehow I saw the truth.  That God's universe is out there and we are just doing our best to piece together what we can understand.

This concept of a universal music is pretty much unknown now, but great thinkers up untill the end of the Renaissance in some way believed in Musica Universalis.  We modern and very self-important people have given up on Musica Universalis.

But imagine living in a world in which harmony presented itself everywhere.  A planet, moving along a finite path had its own own tone or group of tones.  This was the music of the spheres.  At the time there were 8 planets and they all were attached to a certain moving sphere.  The movement of each sphere had its own musical expression.

I don't simply believe in the "music of the spheres."  I know about it.  I was there.  I saw it.  And I experience it in tango all the time with my own tone and my partner's musical tone.

My compañera (the one who accompanies me in this path) has more than just a sense of the music playing as we dance, but perhaps even a sense of the the music of the universe (musica universalis).  Maybe her vision and fine-tuned intuition pulls me into new dimensions of musicality.  Maybe the music so fully guides us both that our musical auras intertwine and take us both to a place that we may naively believe to because of the other, but it was really a higher sense.  Maybe we have our own musical combined musical tones or phrase, and when combined with each they create a completeness and a wonderful harmony.  At the end of such a dance, she might say, "You are such a good lead."  But it really was her; it was us.  When I tell her that I cannot take the credit, she discounts my statement as false humility.  But it is true.

The music of the spheres includes all objects in relation to each to other.  That great tanda was a whole universe orchestrated together in that moment.  It was "the music of the spheres."  Perhaps we should not discount ideas that Plato so readily believed.  Perhaps this early cosmological theories that entwined astrology, mathematics and music should not have been so fully discounted.  I have chosen to join the Renascence Mind.  I hope you will join me. I promise you do not have to dress up for the part!


Resource:  Musica univeralis  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musica_universalis


Photo/Art Credit:  http://bumwardoimortal.deviantart.com/art/Music-Of-The-Spheres-color-169935044
Musical notes of planets: http://www.sodahead.com/living/which-planet-would-you-most-like-to-visit-the-music-of-the-spheres/question-1258595/?link=ibaf&q=music+of+the+spheres&imgurl=http://www.earthstation1.com/MySpace/KeplersMusicOfTheSpheres.jpg

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/

Your Surrogate Tango Parent



"I am taking my tango money and going to a new
 teacher who teaches  candy moves and Barbie Doll ornementos!"

What would it be like if parents earned their money from their children?  "Mom, I think you are being too stern.  I am taking my money and I am going to live with Dad.  I like the elementary school near his apartment better anyway." 

Tango students are sometimes like children with money. And who are their poor "parents"?

Tango instructors:  their surrogate tango parents.

Even in the real world of true parenting, children very effectively modify the behavior of their parents. Often we think it is the other way around.  Sure, parents mold their children in many ways, but from the first cry for food and for the rest of their lives, children transform and teach and mold parents.

Tango students are like children in this way.  We students mold them more than they us in many ways.  Sadly, I would say that too much tango teaching has been molded by "naughty children" who have had too much power.  And of course, "power" here means "money."  If teachers don't do what their naughty children demand, they will go off to live with their stepfather or stepmother -- some other surrogate tango parent.  They'll take their business elsewhere.

However, the best real parents do not let the children take over or compromise the best path for their children.  The path of a good tango teacher is very much the same:  Insisting on teaching well takes a lot of guts and a sense of what tango really means to them.  Of course, if tango means "show time on the social dance floor," that opens a whole new topic, because now we have naughty tango parents teaching naughty children.  For the moment let's just say that  your teacher wants you to enjoy tango for its social, psychological, musical and yes, even spiritual dimensions.  That tango "parent" is worth of the 5th Tango Commandment:  "Honor thy tango parent that thy days may be long."

At some point we students must grow up, and change the all-too prevalent of naughty-tango-children syndrome.  This is also known as adult learning.  Our relationship will be dual -- teachers teaching us, and we will teach our teachers, but hopefully it will be a functional dynamic, as with any human relationship.  It looks like this:



The Larger Classroom
Teachers are influenced by not just one individual.  Their first individual or group class begins the process.  They learn the most from students who do not understand what the teacher thought would be easy.  If no one  in the class understands the teacher, then the teacher can be exasperated, but also the teacher will learn a lot from this humbling moment.  When I taught fourth-graders in Mexico, I threw out any test that no one did well on.  My test was failure, not the children.  It can be very humbling to be a teacher, and so it is with tango teaching.

As adult learners, let's reverse the way we look at teachers -- just for the moment if nothing else.  I have used and suggest these reversals:

1.  Have a lesson plan for the teacher:  For a private lesson, the practical thing for a student to do is to prepare for the lesson well.  How will you teach your teacher today?  Know what you want them to teach you.  Most students allow their teacher to tell them what they are going to learn and are not active, adult learners.  At best you have practiced what they have given you or bring some new idea.  At worst you insist on some direction that you are not developmentally ready for.  Here's an example:  The student says, "I want to learn how to do a wild-ass volcada."  The teacher says, "You need to learn to walk to the music!"  The teacher is now teaching you and you are no longer in charge because you didn't prepare or did not really understand your level.   Adult students should know that one learns to walk before one runs.  If your teacher has been taught to obey naughty surrogate children with too much money, they just might teach you that volcada and it will take many lessons because you were not ready for it in the first place.  How much did that cool volcada cost you?  $500?  And you still cannot walk that well.
  

Another reversal from believing you are now intermediate or advanced:


2.  Expect to stay a beginner:  The "beginner's mind" is an attitude of learning.  Once you think you are "advanced," no teacher can help you.  A wise teacher cannot fill "the cup that is already filled."


Here's the reversal of learning new steps:

3.  Add to your teacher's knowledge of steps:  Once you have really learned the basics, show your teacher some step that she has never seen before.  This is definitely a reversal of common wisdom -- showing your teacher some new cool step!  However, there are a million cool steps out on DVDs and YouTube.  Figure out some step that appeals to you.  A good teacher will fix it or tell you that you are not ready for it.  The BEST teachers might say.  "When will you actually dance that?  Are you planning on dancing on television or is this just to injure or kill people you don't like at a social milonga?"  If you are truly ready to drive the car responsibly, your surrogate tango parents will give you the keys.

4.   Go back to the basics over and over.  I suggest filming yourself.  Ask yourself:  "Why am I still bouncing around on the dance floor like  prom night at a special middle school for children with ADHD?"  Your teacher will help you with this (without medication, I hope).  Here are some more questions you might pose to a good teacher:   "I notice that my dancing has nothing to do with the music."   Dancing musically will be the work of a lifetime; so your tango coach/teacher has a lot of work to do.
 
Teachers need your help.  They need to stay on track.  So be a good student and prepare for your class on teaching them.  Remind them about how you need to learn to walk; how your evening is ruined by not knowing more about floorcraft; how you have a new step for them to clean up for you; that a video of yourself shows you are doing many things that look awkward."

The joke about the three stages of many tango students are:

• Beginner
• Intermediate
• Tango Teacher.

If you start realizing the pain you have put your surrogate tango parent through, you won't want to start having children of your own at an "early [tango] age." 

The next time you see your surrogate tango parent, say:  "Thanks Mom!"  or "Thanks, Dad."  You might be surprised that they understand what you mean.  They may love you, even if you have been at times a naughty child. 



Photocredit:  Child with money  http://kidsandbills.com/kids/10-ways-to-teach-your-child-about-money/





Tangosutra for her eyes only!

Is your tangosutra for "her eyes only" or for the crowds?

In earlier posts I have mentioned teachers who perhaps were not spectacular on the dance floor but great teachers.  The teaching couple in Austin who had by far the biggest single impact on my dancing are Stephen and Marty.  They and a few of their students would find each other at the snack table during performances at festivals or at a milonga.  It was a great time for us to hydrate and nibble on some strawberries or chase the last of the grapes around the plate while the rest of the tangueros/tangueras put on their sweaters and adoringly watched the awesome tango performers.

Stephen and Marty were not alone in this aversion of performance tango at a crowded-floor festival or milonga.  I also experienced the same thing in Washington, DC at the Tangosutra Festival back in October when I first arrived in "D'C-ity of Thieves." At Tangosutra the instructors* didn't steal a moment of dance time from us.  They purposely decided NOT to perform at the festival for philosophical reasons.  They explained to us that they were there to teach and model appropriate behavior for social tango and not show off or do the very thing that should not be done on the social dance floor.

An Embarrassing Moment
At the Thursday opening milonga in DC, I went over to a man whom I never had seen before, and I was praising him for his floorcraft.  I felt so comfortable next to him, I told him.  I heard his accent and realized he was from Buenos Aires.  We continued in Spanish, and I finally realized that he might be an INSTRUCTOR.  Oh my God, who would have ever guessed that someone next to me who is practicing the best of floorcraft would be a tango instructor!?  It was a tango-miracle. :-)

This unknown (to me) caballero, Maximilano Gluzman, ended up being a great instructor, a great tango philosopher and a consummate gentleman.  Later that night and into the festival I noticed others with excellent floorcraft that night -- Sabá and Krebs -- who were also instructors.  Much of the training we had at that festival was about musicality and floorcraft.  One interesting class that Maxi had was on what the community of dancers could do to protect themselves with "rogue dancers," endangering others on the social dance floor.

I do not mean to say these instructors at Tangosutra were not great dancers.  But tango is all about dancing just for your partner; so don't ask me, ask their partners what it was like to dance with them.  They dance in public, sure, but "for her eyes only."

*The Honorable Faculty at Tangosutra Festival last October:

Karina Colmeiro & Felipe Martinez
Mariana Galassi with Juan Cruz Masotta
María Olivera & Gustavo Benzecry Sabá
Silvina Valz & Oliver Kolker
Sergio Alessandro Buslje
Joaquín Canay
Maximiliano Gluzman
-And-
Alex Krebs

PS:  I wish not to disparage tango performers who have a range of talent and can dance the full spectrum of tango.  Tango Fantasía has it place.  Visual tango draws new dancers to the tango community, and I love to watch videos of truly great performers.  Great performers like Murat Erdemsel and Daniela Arcuri balance themselves off by being great teachers of a spectrum of tango not just performance tango.  My next post will address the fuller-spectrum teacher, and I will suggest Albert Schweitzer as one of the best examples of a multi-talented teacher.  Tentative title:  Tango Jocks vs Tango Teachers.

Developing Originality

There's nothing new under the sun?  There is you!  Wondrously unique.

A philosophical and somewhat cynical view of the world says that "originality is dead" and that there is nothing new under the sun.  Well, that is a cranky-old-man view of the universe.  Once we start getting older, we too easily can intone what the stoic biblical writer said:

“That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.” – Ecclesiastes


The same writer said that there was a season for everything:  A season for war and a season for peace, as season for tango. . . well, not tango, but the other things.  You see, tango is new and original!


This is your season to be original.  


You have learned what the masters have done, but now it's your turn to be more of who you are and not just copy greatness.  If you are a young person at heart, everything is new from your perspective.  And isn't that the perspective that should be central -- not what others have done or said, but what you are discovering all for yourself?  Just because someone else has been to  Laguna Arenál in the Cloud Forest in Costa Rica, does that mean that you shouldn't discover it all for yourself?


My earlier post on the insight I got from a conversation with an artist friend has had immediate results to help me understand my own path in tango as an art.


The day after I posted The Unbalanced Tango Faculty, I was dancing at the "Milonga de Los Santos," in Washington DC, and a few new insights about originality in tango came to light.  In Friday's blog on the "unbalanced tango faculty," I imagined a fictitious university called "The University of World Art," and I imagined that tango had its own college -- "The School of Tango."   I was thinking that my expression of tango was mostly in the area of recognizing and valuing the social aspect of tango.  I mentioned that I was a small-time teacher in this fictitious university.  I portrayed myself only interested in the social tango and the connected tango walk insofar that a simple expression of tango would help me as a trauma therapist (using tango therapy).


However on Saturday night, a tanguera friend, Carol, commented that I do a lot of "steps" that no one else does.  She had said this before, but this time I was more aware of the value of originality from my conversation with my friend, Alex.  As a trained artist, a painter, Alex had mentioned "originality" as one of the three things that art instructors obsessed on.  The other two were skill and the expression of some social theme or value.


Why Originality is Natural
Think snowflake.  Original. Unique.  Each brain, each soul, each person is unique.  Therefore we should fully expect that we all have the innate ability to develop originality.  But there are obstacles to this natural fact.  I think I know why originality is sometimes stunted -- not only in tango or any art but also in much of how we think:


We copy too much. 


I have discovered this all by mistake in tango.  If I had a lot more money, I would be taking private lessons and more group lessons so I could copy the masters.  However, at the moment I hardly can pay for milongas; so dancing with others has been my "School of Tango."  The "faculty" consists of teachers like:

•  Classic tango composers, such as Biagi and di Sarli,
•  Lots of tangueras, with their own unique response to my attempt at accompanying them on the wooden path,
• Watching others dance live or on film clips.    

Picasso's work you may have never seen:
He knew the basics first.  

Don't get me wrong; I have had some very important teachers, and I mention them in my meager, low-budget Tango Résumé.  I value teachers because I learned this from being a musician and a late-blooming athlete.  Great musicians and great athletes often continue getting coaching throughout their lives.  Both Pablo Picasso and Tiger Woods learned from their talented fathers, learning the basics from the start.  Without coaching, surely both would not have done well with originality and a higher development than their initial coaches, and then later their continued growth with truly great coaches.  Especially for people like me who have less talent, we need more time with the masters.   I know that I have a deficit in having good coaching, but also, it has unwittingly pushed me to listen better to the tangueras with whom I dance.  Often they have danced with great tangueros, and they respond in different ways than I expect.  Because of this, for example, I have learned to do a triple volcada and other "1000-dollar moves" because I am paying attention to how these ladies respond.  Also, even a beginner tanguera can allow something that I would have never thought of without her.  What a great "School of Tango"!


So value the basics and copy the best, but then eventually develop your own style.  This is easy.  The task is philosophical and psychological.  First, we must value originality, and see it for its natural value.  The biblical writer was 90% right and 10% wrong.  And the 10% has transformed the world he knew to the one we know.  Secondly, let's face the facts!  How can we deny our own brain's uniqueness, and thereby allow this uniqueness to play itself out along with other influences from others?  I know many  musicians who did a terrible job of copying other musicians, but people liked the way they played.  Originality sometimes is the outcome of not being a very good copycat.  Technical skill along with listening to the music and your partner will bring originality to your dance.


Ultimately for everyone the the "teaching faulty" should be the music and the many tangueras/tangueros and coaches with whom you can co-discovered a new expression of art.  Has it been done before?  Who cares if it feels new and is new to you.  So try to experience originality as a child does.  "Becoming as a child" or having "the beginners mind" is the cornerstone for the artist who values originality and the wonders of life.  


Back to Carol's Comments:
After our first song of the tanda, Carol told me, "That was wild!"  I wasn't sure that "wild" was good.   She assured me that "wild" was good.   "Well, the music made me do it!" I said.  Osvaldo Pugliese made me do it.  I had very little choice in the matter.


Then during the very next dance I discovered a new turn I had never done before.  I will call it "vuelta de ochos caminandos de Carolina" (description below) because Carol inspired it.*  So originality is listening to who you are, who she is, what the music is saying and coming out with something new.  Perhaps the move might be new ONLY TO YOU, but who cares if someone else has done it if you stumbled onto it all by yourself?  Others may have seen a pristine waterfall in the Amazon, but if you stumble upon it yourself, then you too have "discovered it" just as much as Cristobal Colón "discovered" America in 1492.

At the milonga be original
unless you see this sign.

So go out and discover your own New World of originality, your own "America."   But if you do, dance with the Natives and then go home.  You don't have to take over anything or kill anyone.  It's bad tango etiquette.  If only the Spanish and Pilgrims had known tango etiquette the world would be a different place!   












*Attribution to the music and partner:
Magic moments and discoveries must be recognized and appreciated -- like blessings.  I highly suggest that you recognize the music and your partner's role in this magic if you want to develop "Good Tango Karma."   




Very obscure foot note about the move I named after Carol:  
The description of this particular move is a series of about three or four back ochos for her while the man is doing ochos caminandos.   The name "caminando" is because both are taking the same amount of steps (walking together).  The man has his right foot forward (when the turn is counter-clockwise).  A clockwise turn is difficult in close embrace but is possible and requires the man's left foot forward.  The man must over-step the last part of the ocho (on the unison fourth step) in order to make her pivot to make a full circle.  If you have any questions or want to see this, I may record this and put it on YouTube.






Light bulb photo credit:
http://davidmichaelangelosilva.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/originality-is-dead-but-its-okay/  

The Unbalanced Tango Faculty

The Tripod of Tango: Skill/Social Value/Originality

I realized something about tango during a conversation about tango and art.

Alex, a painter and graphic artist friend of mine, told me about his experience in a prestigious school of art in California.  He had a great instructor, who pointed out three schools of thought that pervade at most large schools of art.  His mentor told him to look for three types of teachers who have their special focus:

1.  The Obsession for Skill as an artist.

2. The Obsession for Originality as an artist, to do things others have not done before.

3. The Obsession for Social Meaning -- to create art that speaks to the larger human condition.

This same teacher, however, pointed out that no matter which school of thought you followed, the artist will die poor if he or she does not create something aesthetic that others can understand.  Skill, originality and a social meaning have no value if people cannot understand it or are not drawn to the artist's intended message.

Skill by itself has no soul.  Originality can be simply weird or too visionary for it to be appreciated.  Social meaning can be a preaching stump for some "enlightenment" that will only embarrass the same artist in 20 years.

Imagine now if we look at tango as it is taught and practiced today throughout the world.  We hear so much in classes about our stances and balance.  So, one might think that tango, as an improvisational dance with intricate balance issues and changing of individual and shared axies that tango itself would be taught in a balanced way. But it is not.

One might think tango as a socially rich dance with an intricate social etiquette, that it would be taught with a balance of technical skill, social sophistication and a keen eye for original expression that values the larger social picture. But it is not.

One might think that tango as a remarkably original art form as we see at the highest levels of the performing arts (unlike in ballroom dance which looks more and more the same at the highest levels) -- that TANGO of all art forms would look like a tripod, a very balanced structure of Originality/Skill/Social Value.  But it is not.


At the University of World Art: 
The school of tango's faculty is unbalanced 

Our schools of the Art of Tango are very lopsided.  The majority of our teachers in tango are following the Obsession for Skill path. 

This is the sad state of affairs for tango.  Imagine if a school of jazz -- perhaps the most improvisational music since baroque -- just worked on skill, intonation and theory!  Imagine if sociologists, community activists and social rights organizers were mostly interested how well their plans could be implemented rather than how many lives were positively impacted!  Imagine if the school of Arts & Sciences at any university had no faculty member interested in the principles of exactitude and technique to add to the social impact and original expression of the arts? 

The School of the Art of Tango has an overwhelming faculty obsessed with Skill & Techniques.  The head librarian has all the steps ever created all neatly cataloged.  Sure, the teachers may be very balanced as dancers with originality.  In fact they may be sought out as performance dancers because of their originality and musicality as their most salient strength.   They may love their work for the social connections and the social meaning of human connection between dancers.   However, they do not help their students with floorcraft or community building.  Instead, they teach steps they most like or what their students want to copy.  They teach without pairing it with a particular piece of music that spawned it.  The Skill & Techniques Faculty may dance well in close embrace, especially when dancing just for fun, but they teach open embrace because social connection is secondary to opening up and showing one's skill with sacadas, ganchos, vocadas, colgadas and boleos.  Skill is what the vast majority of teachers hammer.  You will NOT get good grades in the School of Skill & Techniques if you dance musically while in close embrace.  No cool scadas, colgadas, volcadas?  You'll get a C and not be allowed to perform with the top students upon graduation.

Practice what you preach
Okay.  I too am an unbalanced teacher.  I admit it.  My ability as a teacher is only to get people to walk, to listen each other's souls and the music.  I am a very lopsided teacher.  My methods are only focused on connection because I use tango as trauma therapy.  An amazing thing happens, however, in therapy.  People learn to dance well and fast.  Their musicality is outstanding.  But my focus is all about the social aspect first.  That is my bias, my own obsession as a non-tenured teacher in a small, windowless room at the School of Tango.  At my closet-sized office, I have over my door my own "tripod" of balance.  Although I do believe in the balance of Skill, Originality and Social Value, my little sign reads:  "The heart.  The soul.  The connection of two."  Yet, doesn't this sound rather primal too?  To me it sounds like what tango was and not what it has become.  It sounds like a Buenos Aires with no dance studios and tourists. 

The world of tango teaching is not all bad out there.  Tango is resilient.  Often the people who once just loved Tango Nuevo with a strong electric bass and drums and were "step collectors" magically fall in love with the classics, the social embrace and the simplicity a musically inspired tango walk.  Also, teachers of social tango abound who know about the art of balance.  You must find them (or be one yourself).  Excellent skill-focused teachers respond to their students too; so tell your teacher that you want to develop your own expression of tango; tell your teacher you want to develop a way of dancing that will connect you socially to people for the rest of your life.  I have had had some great teachers who taught from the heart and practiced a balance of social value/skill/originality.  Without them as my guides, I would not enjoy tango as much as I do.

While out on a search for your teacher, look for balance.  Balance looks like a tripod.



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Photo Credit, and to see the artist's work go to:
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/tango-kimberly-eshelman.html