MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

Question: Do you have to be psychic to dance tango?
Answer: No, but it helps.

Here are a few of the magical mysteries that I experience in tango. Let’s explore.

Magical Mystery #1.

How is it that one can have an almost flawless dance, including complicated steps, with a totally novice partner?

This has happened to me on numerous occasions, and it is one of my special delights and fascinations.

Result: My partner leaves, excited that they can dance. I leave proud that I am a skilled lead.

Perhaps this is a bit presumptuous on both our parts. But what is the alternate explanation?  Is my partner psychic?  Do I have special mental powers?

Then what happens? Lessons!

They take a lesson or two, things get complicated, we lose the connection, and we can’t dance for the next six months from tripping over each other.

So much for special mental powers.

The intrusion of lessons and learning and practice creates two dynamics:

#1) It moves my partner’s focus from their body to their head, shifting their awareness from instinctive movement (unconscious competence) to thinking about what they are doing (conscious incompetence). Consequently, they miss the clues from our bodily connection.

2) It destroys trust. My partner, as a newbie,  trusts implicitly that I know what I am doing (they have no reason to presume otherwise) and trusts in their ability to interpret my lead (or at least doesn’t feel any pressure to get it right).

Then lessons. They find out instantly that I don’t know half of what they thought I knew and that there is a whole lot that they need to learn as well. Unconscious competence is no longer sufficient.

 Result:

• Implicit trust is destroyed.
• My partner loses confidence in her intuitive knowing and bodily awareness.
• The dance shifts from instinctive movement to learned, route maneuvers.
• We lose connection.

What to do?

There is no turning back.  One cannot recapture the magic of the first time. One has to jump onto this lesson/ learning treadmill with both feet. (Lessons and practice, practice, practice are essential, it turns out.)

But then – after practice, practice, practice – something even more magical and mysterious happens…

Magical Mystery #2…

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