Day 79: Tango

I skipped last week's lesson, which made me question my desire to continue with tango lessons. Beginner level is too easy for me -- the reason I love partner dancing so much is the challenge of it all. I want to always be on my toes (literally and figuratively!). It's completely mentally stimulating and makes my brain and my body work as a closely-knit team, all while testing my ability to surrender control completely. Ah - it's brilliant fun!

(Can you tell I've been teaching from a British text book? These damn phrases are starting to rub off on me...)

Thankfully, tonight's class was awesome. :) I got to dance with the student helper from the advanced classes a ton, and also with Julio, who's my favorite person to dance with in the class, because he is the only one with a solid, great connection and lead. I usually don't like dancing with the student helper because his lead is so vague, but tonight he started playing around with the steps on me and I couldn't get enough. The most amazing part of partner dance is when the lead starts to clearly test you. They'll throw step after step at you, seeing if you can decipher it, seeing if you can keep up, seeing how much you're truly following them versus trying to guess what's about to happen.

For the most part, I did wonderfully, and he noticed. This guy is probably younger than me, completely silent and stoic, and I can't quite figure out why he's a dancer. But then, lots of good dancers I've known are the quiet, awkward type... so... Anyway, at one point he actually nodded and smiled when I followed him correctly on a step I'd never been taught. Hell. Yes. We continued dancing and inevitably I did a step wrong. I looked up to giggle at him and shrug, but he immediately said, "Oh - my bad! That was an advanced step. Sorry." I politely informed him that I wouldn't mind at all if he'd like to continue doing advanced steps and throwing me off a bit, because these six steps that we've been taught are beginning to bore me. He giggled nervously and went back to the basic. ARG. >_<

Anyway, I left tango class feeling invigorated as usual. :) No way I'm quitting my Tuesday ritual. Partner dancing is one of those things I just adore and stimulates and challenges and awes me. Maybe in January I'll start taking two lessons a week so that I can start taking intermediate classes with Julio. I rather dance classes be ridiculously too hard for me than ridiculously too easy... ;)

XOXO