“Leading is hard”

Or “The consequences of thinking dance”

A: I have been dancing with a beginner a lot in the last few months. He is young, can't do that much as far as steps go and has terrible posture but, strangely, I have a wonderful connection with him on the dance floor. 

B: It is a common observation. Beginners have lost less of themselves to classes.

A: Leading is hard though. I know because I have started leading in the last few months. You have a lot more to think about

B: It is sure hard if you think :)

A: ...and your focus is necessarily outward 

B: That is indeed fatal. But understandable if you're not in a ronda but instead in a chaotic circulation of people struggling with steps that they have to think about.

A: I find classes as a follower the most frustrating things. And I end up just learning the lead part on the side. And then the lead and I work through it together when he gets stuck. Which I think is how it should be..? 

B: It should be much easier. Try it without the teacher! :) 

A: When I lead I just try to move the follower with me in very small, very simple things to the music. If I feel we can move together we can create things in small ways and without thinking about it too much. 

B: That's the trad way. 

A: I have no desire to learn steps, not now at any rate. I suspect that takes you in the wrong direction, ultimately. 

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A: I'm so tense....I've got all these things in my head that I ought to be doing.

B: Like what?

A: Well, I'm thinking about being more grounded. The teachers tell me I have to be more grounded. I'm trying to think about that.

B: It isn't homework you know. It's a dance.

A: Shall we just dance then?

B: It's all I ever had in mind… :)

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From a Facebook forum:

“In El Beso last week I stumbled then apologised. No problem said my kind, friendly, pleasant, competent, non judgmental, argentine lead. This is a dance, not an exam - we're here to enjoy it. Now there in a nutshell is the difference between dancing in BA and dancing in Europe.”

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A: I was at a very high anxiety level learning tango for quite some time. To try and socialise and dance, to try and switch off the brain and dance what I feel - these are real weak areas for me. It's been awhile since I've felt flow in my dance. Overthinking!” 

B: Anxiety is common in the scene in various contexts. Having gone to class in both roles & over the course of many conversations with different people I have discovered one high stress context for guys is in class. For girls, stuffing your head full of things to remember in lessons is incredibly stressful when, in the milonga, you try to remember all the things you are supposed to be doing: “Stand up straight! Reach up with the chest! Open the throat area! Be grounded! Connect! Loosen your arm! Don’t collapse your arm! Reach back from the hip! Move fluidly! Engage the core! Relax! I gave up and went to the milonga instead. Then I really did relax and then I started to learn to dance because dancing and thinking don’t mix. 

For girls it is also stressful dancing with guys with poor dance - worst, in class, but also in the milonga - or who solicit for dances or, worse, who try to tell them what they're doing "wrong". A third high stress context is a milonga with an unpleasant atmosphere. 

In the high stress class context students give teachers money in exchange for what amounts to a mental list of things the teacher thinks the students should improve. Inevitably people think about the things on that list when they’re dancing instead of enjoying the moment with their partner. It is a recipe for stress! That method is also undermining and disempowering - you need to come back to the teacher to fix all the supposed problems you think you have. 

And yet, if you asked twenty partners you enjoy dancing with what you needed to improve upon in your dance in my experience they say "nothing" or say different, probably contradictory things. If you are bent on that sort of focused "improvement" that is a far more realistic, reliable and useful way - if unnecessary imo. 

It is rare that I find “problems” that won’t be fixed in guys by dancing the other role and in girls by dancing with nice guy dancers. Far more long-standing and pernicious problems are created by learning figures and sequences of joined up figures, and, for guys, by giving the move or sequence (which comes from the teacher) priority over the partner - what they do and how they feel and respond. I think self-consciousness ruins this dance and classes - and other things - cause self-consciousness. But in dance we can lose self-consciousness and be natural, be ourselves with all the individual variety that suggests. Who wants the homogeneity imposed by figures? I reject the idea that says it is wrong to learn to dance in the practica or the milonga. Why is it wrong? I believe the best and fastest way and the way closest to real life is learning by doing. The milonga is fun, cheap, democratic and you have freedom of choice of the music to dance and the partner to dance it with. But I think the only way is to learn in the girl’s role first where it is about not thinking. 

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- Can you show me how to do those turns we just did!
- Turns? I’ve no idea! I don’t plan movement. I don’t think about or remember it. We just do what...happens. :)