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This was based on a draft from years ago about choosing your own teacher.
Would you not always prefer a natural dancer who is listening to the partner and the music, to some individualist who is thinking about their dancing and what they learnt in class? Surprisingly, not everyone does. Most people, indoctrinated through dance class and through watching dance shows in milongas that have nothing to do with what happens on a social floor speak about levels and technique.
There is a huge gap between what happens in the milonga (social dancing) and what happens in shows (performance) and yet the shows are adverts for what the show dancers want to teach you in class.
Anyone with a gram of experience in the milongas or an ounce of sense regarding physical safety knows that the drama you see in a show does not translate well or safely into a milonga unless the venue is huge, the attendees acrobatic and they have enough respect to keep well away from others. A high stiletto swingeing through the air can draw blood like a knife.
Moreover, what you see in a show by no means converts easily to class either. It can and should appeal to students of choreography but not to social dancers. Another gram of sense will show that nearly all dancers in the milonga use a limited repertoire of maybe half a dozen moves. So class attendees pay all the money to learn the tricks but then don't use them. Why?
Sometimes I wonder if there were simply more people at some milongas would the shows just die out? Wouldn't it just become so blindingly obvious how what happens in a performance is totally unrelated to social dancing and just feeds some fantasy in peoples minds?
I will never forget someone in the Netherlands in about 2013 telling me, after I had been wowed by some performance, that no, they didn't like dancing after a performance as everyone was trying to ape or impress the teachers and the dance floor turned into a riot.
That's what happens when ego gets mixed up with social dancing.
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