Demonstrating a figure (though still with connection)

Such a great little speech in tango class today at the Dinzel Studio from Camelo, a Colombian tango teacher who is the son of one of my first tango teachers, Leyda, who lives in Cali (Colombia).

Here it goes. “If you have a lover, which of these two lovers do you want? Do you want the lover who knows all the positions from the Kama Sutra? Or do you want the lover who has a real sense of quality connection, who tunes into sensation, in the moment, with a real quality?” Everyone in the class chose the second option. “Maybe if you were a teenager you would want the Kama Sutra lover, but as you get older you know that you want the second kind. So it is with tango. You waste energy on all these figures. You lose out on the essence of tango if you don’t cultivate the connection.”

Figures are fancy dance steps. What matters most in tango is the connection. People get bored and try out more fancy figures in tango (or positions in sex) because they have not actually just tuned into the connection of the moment. To drop in. Breathe. And actually feel the connection. Which is what makes both things delicious.

Bravo! We don’t get speeches like that from our tango teachers in the States.