Progress

Tango progress happens for me in fits and starts. It's like I suddenly get a breakthrough to another level, then I plateau for ages before suddenly finding and shaping and varying how I do certain basic steps and all the times always working on making my walks like a cruiseliner cutting through waves-bladelike and never bobbing.

What I'm finding more often though is this idea of catching energies. Of taking the signal given and pushing the energy through from the receiving end (upper torso) into the expressive end (legs most of the time). Looking back at the start, I can barely remember what it was like to suffer through the basics-like how ochos were super impossible and even now, doing a solo ocho remains a very hard thing to do, what with weight balance and a movement that is designed to do everything to try and throw you off balance.

It's this flow, this ease of having music and movement come into one whole package that makes the best dancers so beautiful to look at. Ignoring technical steps and actual sequences, this final essence is what makes Tango what it is. It's present at the very start, when you're realising and discovering this idea of having a small signal result in very grand outputs. Then while you're busy struggling through learning actual format of steps, trying not to step on the foot that somehow got in your way, struggling with the embrace, struggling with the music and floorcraft, you lose sight of this energy, or at least you stop focusing on it.

It comes back though, it comes back when finally, you've grasped the tools needed to understand it. Then there's your reward. The exact power that made you fall in love with Tango in the first place. It grabs you, shakes you and yells, "you've found me again!"

I finish with a quote-
" Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.” 
~ Kurt Vonnegut