New experiences

Atrevida, my Spanish friend called me, years ago.  I am recently back from five days sharing a gite with three strangers and for someone protective of personal space perhaps it's true.  I don't know how it is that a cautiously inclined person is known as adventurous but I enjoy trying new things.  

The photo is of a hike I had never done before through some local tunnels.  Trying to get to them was fraught, someone brought too many children, they were not properly equipped, on a bakingly hot day we had insufficient water for our numbers, we lost the route, eventually had to turn back and to this day I think I saw a ghost.  But it was a memorable day.  New experiences often don't feel that fun at the time and are better at a distance.

For years I have said that tango dance class actually inhibits them from dancing. Also, that dancing tango movements to alternative or non tango music feels somehow wrong. I didn't feel that though until someone told me.

In some ways I had a very strict tango “upbringing” that indelibly marked me, maybe that trammelled me in some ways and yet that might be unfair because no-one forced me. Then again, when we are new we are malleable. This is why I like to dance with beginners, to get them before anyone else does, before they are ruined by dance class. I remember my mum saying that was why she liked teaching the youngest in primary school.

It is also true that most of the lovely dancers I know have come through tango dance class. But I have said before my belief that they have become good dancers through a lot of social dancing, so, despite class, not because of it.

Perhaps then it was a teenage rebellion phase, ten years later that took me to a tango - contact workshop, in my imagination, a free movement, let-it-all hang-out sort of thing, with alternative music.  Though actually, the impulse to go was more an intuition, something that kept bugging me for weeks, right up to the day itself. Dance class, alternative music, free movement that isn't dancing tango, that might not involve partners, why would you do that? The prospect worried me, so much so that I couldn’t face going in cold to a whole afternoon.  I sent the guy a voice message saying that I was nervous, that classes stressed me out and that I was worried about being forced to dance with people in a class.  I said I didn’t mind dancing with women so much, but I absolutely didn't want to dance with guys where the choice wasn't mutual.  I was worried that guys I see in the milonga and don’t dance with, which is most of them, might see me as cornered and fair game.  

The reply came back:

Te entiendo y comparto lo que decis. De hecho una parte de la clase es acerca del consentimiento, de saber poner límites y poder elegir!! Todo el tiempo estar eligiendo, y que nadie se lo tome personal. Me parecen muy bien tus reflexiones.. que te escuches y respetes! Tambien, está la posibilidad de venir con alguien a la clase y no cambiar de pareja... esas cosas obviamente están permitidas

[I understand and share what you say.  In fact, part of the class is about consent, on recognising limitations and on choice.  We choose all the time and no-one takes it personally.  I like your thoughts, I hear and respect you.  There is also the option of coming to the class with someone and not changing partner - that’s obviously allowed.]

So far, so good. I inveigled an hour from a friend, away from his dogs, and we walked there together to join the open practica which was short, maybe half an hour. It was immediately obvious that I was very far from my comfort zone, as indeed I had expected, but it is one thing to imagine a different reality and another to be confronted with it.