Co-axing

Jean Jean Louis Théodore Géricault - La Balsa de la Medusa

- People want class said a friend. They want to be told what to do. 

- Those are exactly the people the person I learned from would say not to bother about. But I think it's harsh. The best natural dancer last week wanted a class. By my guide's logic I should just abandon her to the tides. 

Those are the people who then get ensnared in other people's classes and quickly, irretrievably ruined. 

- The problem, said the friend, is there is something toxic in regular tango dance class. It's that thing of focusing on the steps to the detriment of the connection, the music and the respect for other people in the space, which is never even mentioned.

She said the concentration in class was on the doing more than the feeling. She's right. Why do they do that? Because how do you teach people how to feel and why would you? She particularly disliked step sequences as though dancing tango is a choreography rather than an improvised dance. She also objected to people inflicting their rote-learned movements on partners at every opportunity and on teachers hogging  the spotlight with talk and demos as if the learning process were about them more than about the learners. These were all things we had talked about.

I remembered the beginner refugees from class  who came to the practica with the contortions they had been taught. The idea that we dance the music not the steps was a concept they had never heard. Until arrival at the práctica it was as though for these dancers, the music was just "background", like lift music. 

 My friend said You need to co-axe them. 

Co-axe? I said, unfamiliar with this new 21 century term that must have come from the business world. 

Yes, she said, amadouer, in French. You offer them class because that's what they ask for and if you don't do it someone else will. Then you won't have the kind of new dancers you like.  Then you co-axe them to your philosophy.

Ok, but co-axe?

She showed me the translation: 

Apparently they use thy use the English word in French too, but pronounced very differently!