Provocation

Sting, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

When, in 'The Apology', Socrates said,

"I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think," he was referring to the process not the content. 

I am that gadfly which God has attached to the state, and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you. You will not easily find another like me, and therefore I would advise you to spare me."

He warns that there may be pain and discomfort before there is the pleasure of insight. Sometimes we need to be provoked into self examination and reflection. But Athens didn't like the challenge, the uncomfortable questions, the instability and sense of insecurity they cause. The Athenians did kill Socrates and soon after Athenian democracy did enter a period of decline and turmoil.

Space

You yourself must strive.

The Buddhas only point the way.

                                             Dhammapada

Talking to someone about getting new dancers started by taking them to milongas he said "You don't actually need to take them, you know.  They can make their own way.  It was a lesson in holding back.  

*

While a teacher talks at a class, a mentor doesn't tell you.  They certainly don't tell you everything at once.  A few great leaders are able to connect with a group of people, to inspire them, to stir emotions that lead them to achieve or to join in some common goal.  But not everyone wants to be part of a group, even a group with a laudable aim.  In contrast, it is hard not to connect with someone who listens.  A mentor probably listens more than they speak.

I wish Instagram had been around when my kids were younger.  There are so many good parenting tips there.  

But something I did consistently, when my kids asked me how to spell something, was say "How do you think?" In fact, just after writing this, my now seventeen year old, whose forte is not spelling, wanted to know how to spell 'umlaut', for a crossword we were doing.  I still used the same approach.

Primary age, they would say, always with their eye on me  A...C...C.... and I would say nothing, so they continued. 

O.....M....A.....  whereupon I would shake my head, once but say nothing.  

U.....Another shake

E....The same again

A....and again

They would start to get frustrated but this passes as they apply thought.  They always got there. There were two lessons and the most important one was not how to spell accommodate.

*

A mentor makes space for a curious mind.  

*

   

It is a light touch that is needed, to help someone find their way, a guiding touch. Though I only saw it in action over one evening, Colin, who was a sensitive guy, had this.

Rabbit in the headlights

This piece might more literally have been titled "The effect of the dance class partner issue"

The problem with class is not just the whole contort-yourself-and-memorise aspect, the whole dance-is-thought rather than connection, music and movement.

Here’s why: when you have lived quite a long time or been on a scene a long time, of the many things you experience not all are honeysuckle and roses. When I was a few years new to tango I remember a teacher telling me that people you know in a community do die, long before I experienced it. Then you yourself witness people becoming ill. Some die. Many leave.

Alongside many moments of happiness and joy you also observe, or experience, people treated badly, cry, be traumatised by unkindness or indifference. A surprising number of people can act in awful ways and for those of us who are constitutionally deeply affected by our experiences, this is, trauma is the word.

At a recent class, harm was there, simpering, gushing, reeling everyone in. There was also a woman who I knew to be grossly, unforgivably tactless. Lastly, there was someone who had been a friend but had turned hectoring, eventually insisting I change all my values and preferences regarding going out, dancing, partners music. I tolerated this for far too long on the basis that they must think they were trying to be helpful. I tried explaining that I had my way and they had theirs but that I had much more experience in the world of the milongas and knew very well what I liked and particularly what I didn’t. When they began to demand I do what they said and became blatantly offensive I installed a figurative but permanent barrier between us as I do in all such cases. In the case of the harm, they just refused to accept the barrier, actually, literal barriers - many of them digital - which is what caused all the damage.

So the concern when you enter a room with history like that is largely the dancer partner issue. I had brought this up with another teacher whose class I had attended last year and been reassured and relieved by his response about choice and respecting limits. In that class, I knew almost no-one. There were no relational shipwrecks, no sharks I was aware of, the historical dangers were much less.

At this other, recent event, I knew, at least vaguely, most people. The first workshop hadn't require partners but I was interested enough in the teacher to be curious about the second, which did. I asked the organiser how that was going to work. The word “wars” somehow came up on my side by way of explanation.

I am regularly flabbergasted by how often people treat others as means to an end. With the Stalker, though I did not recognize it at the time, there were clues all along that our relationship was actually a relationships at all just a means to their own vaulting ambition. Twenty-first century kids might try to respin the exploitation of another as part of their own journey to "personal growth" but it isn't something that can every be justified.

A class partner seems to be seen by most as a mere vehicle for you both to learn something as opposed to another human being whom you value and with whom you have a meaningful interaction. We have understandably transactional relationships with people we pay or people of whom we ask the time or directions, or for information and are suitably grateful. This is not the relationship with a class partner because you need this person and you are going to bond with this person, however temporarily over something you consider valuable, like a learning experience. If you are in any doubt as to the value of it, recall that you have paid for it! But the relationship with the partner isn’t, or shouldn't be merely transactional. Likely we should be minimising those anyway, or at the very least be aware of the nature of our relationships with others.

“I’m sure you don’t have wars”, they said, lightly.

“Many!” I replied, only partly tongue in cheek. There was no point pretending, Some of us are known to be Knox-like, albeit quieter. They seemed surprised, but acted well.

“Cold wars”, I modified, then worried it sounded too nuclear.

They asked who I was happy to partner and after, pragmatically but on my part uncomfortably going through various names and darting off to speak with people, came up with one. This was generous. One doesn’t want to be such trouble. One also doesn't want to be foisted on someone unwilling either so I checked with the partner in question if she was happy with that.

In practise, after every exercise we in fact changed partner. This may not be the case for most people but for some of us it is frankly disturbing and not just because of being left with people you actively will not partner. Experience teaches you just don’t know who you are going to get. For me this really isn’t so much about how they dance, more about how they are as people. But then for me how you dance is all about how you are as a person or, if you prefer, how you are as a person is entirely expressed in your dance. It can be the great joy, that fast and wordless understanding of another being.

This is a why a practica is potentially so much better for learning - you choose to connect with someone compatible with the mutual agreement to try and learn something. The downside is most people use practicas to dance socially, there isn't enough of a culture that values mutual assistance or knows how to initiate it and you need two people who either can learn from each other or one is willing to help the other. None of this is easy to find, on top of which our culture is now such that unless it is done under the "volunteering" banner, helping someone freely has a become an almost bizarre and unnatural concept.

At the very first change of partner I got someone I can remember starting to dance some years after me. They began with a lecture on how to engage in the exercise. I felt a combination of inadequacy but more annoyance which I must have hidden because they continued unperturbed then behaved with such indifference during the actual movements that I just felt depressed.

I suppose one strategy in an environment like that is, at the beginning of each exercise, to proactively rush to find the kindest people or those you find most tolerable to partner but when you are already so overcome with doubts, the other option is to hang back with dread and misgiving, clutching the wall and see who is left. It was the tactless one so I went, unnecessarily, to the loo.

A long-standing teacher in the room, present as an attendee, seemed to have noticed. Was everything OK? I could have just decided to sit that one out instead of hiding in the loo, which recalled my early dance-class days when women would develop weak bladders as soon as a guy they did not want to partner came round. It was the frequence and awkwardness of these moments that eventually did for my attendance at class. But here I was again ten years later taking refuge in the toilet. This time I did sit out the rest of the exercise before spontaneously joining the kind teacher-attendee with their partner.

By this stage this world in miniature felt crushing. The explanations were comprehensible, The demonstration of connection or its absence, so visible in tiny changes of movement, was admirable.  The arc of the lesson and its relation to the theme was visible.  But in practice, with all this stuff to do with people going on, engaging with the content of the lesson was hard. Each change of partner was like being in a test with a blank page and next to no memory of the question. Rabbit in the headlights.

Partnering two other teachers and the main teacher I did learn interesting things, began to feel a little less under siege. I also partnered a friendly beginner, had fun and played around. But, emotionally, one of these workshops was more than enough.

Personalised learning

New salsa dancer dancing socially with an experienced dancer / teacher

This post continues a theme (see links below) of individuality & uniqueness. Being individual, not in the sense of selfish, but in the sense of unique, is about exploring and expressing identity and finding points of connection with the uniqueness of others.  That exploration means it is also about freedom.   

At the tango / salsa / bachata event we ran I danced with many new dancers and was asked often if I teach.  Smidgens of historical guiding and lecturing, teaching French, English and environmental surveying is doing nothing close to bringing home the bacon.  So, still needing more employment after having to leave my course, perhaps I should have said "only privately".  Instead I said, as had once been suggested: It's against my religion.   If you were to say to me, What is wrong with dance class?, ordinarily one of the first reasons I might give is It teaches people to think dance, instead of feel it or People learn steps and ignore the music and the partner or It promotes controlling and hierarchical behaviours.

But last night I relearned with emphasis that the reason dance class often doesn't work is because everyone is different.  This is true for many things we learn and why class in school can be such an inefficient, even harmful way of learning.  Everyone I danced with was entirely unique in how they danced and in what they needed from the partner.  Some new guys who trying guiding need you to transmit confidence to them.  Others need the beat.  Total beginners often need something: even the tiniest murmured suggestion of reassurance, encouragement, praise. Mostly people just need confidence which comes from reassurance, practice or both.  

Recently, a beginner kept hollowing his chest when guiding. Obviously, he felt nervous because guiding when you are new is not easy.   I need your chest, I said, swapping to show him what it was like to dance without connection in the chest.  Ah yes, he said, standing taller.  It is all connected: standing taller immediately helps with confidence, with breathing and hence relaxation and  provides the connection in the chest the person being guided usually wants. 

Everyone new though needs you to adapt to them, to some extent, to their feelings, essentially, in some way and that you cannot do in a class. 

Even with twelve years experience dancing tango, and dancing with beginners nearly every time I go out, it still surprised me that the best dancers were without a doubt two older women.  I will not have been alone in this surprise, showing we still have a long way to go to break down prejudice about age. They had a focus, connection and lack of self consciousness and nerves that usually takes longer and that was not yet present in the younger women.  

Gratifying was that all the new guys wanted to be guided, often closing their eyes.  Being dancers they probably understood that is the way to understand the dance or maybe they had seen those of us who already dance doing it. I was impressed the salsa teacher was willing to try dancing vals and tango in front of all his students, as a beginner. He had a dancers sensibility, musicality and sense of connection  and will pick it up quickly. He danced socially with new salsa dancers too which was lovely to see.

  

29.5.24:

Life's is largely a solo flight. Family, friends, partners come and go. The way education is assessed in the UK is by individual exams.  When you go to dance in the milonga, your choices, your dance ares yours.  We are not a hive mind, we do not live as one. So why is learning done as a group?  While there is some focus on collaboration, it is primarily for perceived efficiency, especially cost efficiency and the convenience and of the organisers and instructors.  

Personalised learning produces the best results.  One on one guidance, with space to explore and time to collaborate is invaluable.

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Individuality revisited (April 2023)

Authenticity (April 2023)

The frog and the nightingale: a cautionary tale (March 2019) 

Standardisation and individuality (April 2016)

Being unique: learning from children (December 2015

And there are pieces on the antithesis of individuality e.g.

How class dancers dance

Elbow whacking automata

Hosting tango / salsa / bachata

I knew it was Colombian independence day on 20 July and wanted to learn more about the country and have a party so suggested to a local Colombian woman I knew through salsa we have just that, a party with food.  After initial enthusiasm, with the hassle of finding a venue, the idea died. Meanwhile, another friend had already found a venue. Well, why don't we just have a dance party anyway?, I said. Tango and salsa?  Dundee has more salsa dancers than tango.  T's venue was the local ashram. I was in France so he set up the event, advertising it as tango / salsa / bachata.  Although the local salsa DJ is not a bachata fan, he does the same - otherwise I'd only have about 10 people here, he said. T set the entry at £2 in donations for the ashram, asked people to bring things to share and asked me to co-host.

The mix of dancers turned out to be a great idea. About 28 people, mostly salseros, came including the local salsa / bachata teacher.  I had not seen the venue until that evening. The lighting was not soft and there was a shortage of small tables but even so, people stayed, most til 11PM, the stated end time even though there was a shortage of leaders.  Many stayed beyond.

Some people expressed scepticism about tango at first but after trying it changed their minds. I heard again and again that people had enjoyed watching others dance tango too.  That is the way in: for people to see what the dance is like, without pressure and then be persuaded to try it.

Sometimes, I have gone to salsa and tango dances and been totally ignored.  Most recently this was to a salsa event in Mango, on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow where Tango Bar is also apparently now held in its new incarnation. An individualistic group ignores new people.  A warm community dances with them, gives them an "in".  I like events where people are welcomed and new people and visitors are invited to dance.  I find it surprisingly uncommon but that is the atmosphere I enjoy and would want to be host to, because the atmosphere comes in large part from the host/s. 

A: I have to say I didn't expect the salsa people to get into tango that much

B: Yes, but that's what happens when you have a friendly atmosphere & good leaders.

A: Yes, exactly.

The great things about a free or nearly free event is that because you are not doing it for the money, you can be entirely authentic in your welcome.  Sometimes people have turned up to my free milongas and practicas to whom I have perhaps nodded rather than embraced, but then I don't have to pretend because I am not taking their money.  Money is still necessary, sadly but the freedom money buys is not necessarily the most important kind. Real freedom brings more peace and is probably lost less easily.

Discretion

Temperantia (1872), by Edward Burne-Jones

Much of this piece was drafted in February 2015. It was that year or the year before that I was taught ("learned" he would say) that the milongas are places where we don't ask too much information.

It was surprisingly difficult to find an image to represent tact or discretion or even diplomacy. There are candidates from history but many are controversial or I knew too little of them. I liked the sound, though, of the goddess Eulabeia, "the spirit and personification of discretion, caution and circumspection" (Wikipedia).  Other sources combine these traits with an avoidant and religious personality. But Eulabeia seems to be virtually forgotten now and I could find no good representation of her in art.  Similarly, Sophrosyne is a Greek virtue of excellence of character and soundness of mind. There is a paucity to the English "temperance".  Greek seems so much richer in its lexicon of virtues.

At university, in the chilly north of England, for pocket money I worked for two Italian brothers who set up and ran restaurants. They were energetic, clever and furbo although you may recall I am not a fan of this trait. In Italy it seems to be somewhat admired, not unlike the way Spanish seem to regard picardía.

 We were setting up in the restaurant one winter’s day when some young women walked past, clearly on their way out for the evening. They wore short dresses, high heels, no coats. The thing about this country, said the younger brother, who was clever, a Master of Wine who spoke English with almost no trace of an accent but whose Italian culture pulsated through him, ...is you can tell so much about someone by the way they dress, or if not, then as soon as they open their mouth.

Around the same period, when I was about twenty one, I waitressed at a basketball summer camp near Bologna that was run by some Italian friends.  My friend and I were both six foot tall and slim.  Alongside her Masters in Economics she modelled lingerie for Versace and the world famous Italian fashion companies.  We turned heads wherever we went, especially as we were sometimes accompanied by tall, young, good-looking basketball players.  My hair was very short, white blonde.  Italian men would raucously call out “Eh, bionda!” making me blush and my friends laugh. Bionda was the second Italian word I learned.  The first was binario.

At Bologna station, dazed by the heat, the language the general foreignness and the whirlwind of the previous week - I was supposed to be in France -  I waited for my friend to pick me up. Some young men called Bionda! across the main hall. What does that mean? I asked my friend who was several years older and recently married.  "Blonde"  she said, looking at me with a mixture of amusement and concern. Discreet the men were not.  It was part of a public game that is now roundly considered harassment. 

Once, at a restaurant, the new Italian friends handed me a mobile phone, which in the early 1990s, were still not common.  Italians, that culture of fa' vedere, of fare bella figura, of being seen, had them first, of course. Someone in on the joke, unseen, called the phone, making it vibrate.  The shock made me drop it before it was caught by one of the dexterous basketball players. I was generally wholly naive and the friends thought it hilarious that any girl, especially one so gullible and ingenuous would be allowed to travel alone in Europe at all, never mind to a country so obviously full of "wolves".  My parents wouldn't let me do that said a strapping twenty seven year old Sicilian who stood at least 6'2. 

After work one day the camp staff were chatting together in Italian. They all had other jobs when not at camp.  Playing on that same theme of unworldliness, suddenly someone asked me, Secondo te, che lavoro fa, lui? They were asking what I thought one of the coaches' day job was. Non ho la più pallida idea, I said in my new Italian.  Not the foggiest.

He’s a dustman, they replied and everyone laughed, including the guy himself. The point being, no-one would have known and in that context it was irrelevant.  I have long appreciated that sense of social anonymity.

In the milonga, there is usually at least an informal dress code at the bigger events so dress distinguishes people less frequently than at least it used to in society. And since the dance is usually wordless, accent need give nothing away either.  In the milonga, it is how you dance that counts.  

Many people come to get away from the rest of life, so the milonga is a refuge, a haven, where we don't ask too many questions and certainly not directly.  

There is another, more obvious reason.  Those who, in the milonga combine their love life with their public life, have to be at ease knowing that in that very visual, social environment, people may know about that life or guess it. Without due care and attention he may become known as a guy who at best enjoys women or at worst preys on them. She may become known either as a woman who enjoys men or as one who is gulled by them. When men and women spend a good part of their social lives in the milongas, in the embrace of the opposite sex, things can ensue. So it is also understandable that many want those arrangements kept extremely private. A country that makes no big deal of telos,

is bound to be pragmatic. Telos is a lunfardo word, Buenos Aires slang, the sound of “hotel”, reversed, meaning a “love hotel”. It is no surprise then that well understood behaviours have evolved in the bigger, busier, milongas of Buenos Aires around, for instance, not dancing more than one tanda enseguida, not holding on to her hands between tracks and around the discreet timings of separate departures by single men and women from the milonga.

I learned early, first names only - and bear in mind that it may not be their actual first name. Years later I understood the person from whom I learned this, who I had known for years, had their own good reasons for liking this habit. In the traditional Buenos Aires milongas, many people are known better by their nicknames. That anonymity gives both freedom and a sense of belonging. It gives you whatever you want it to give you and that in itself is a freedom.

Why resurrect this piece now? Because recently I chatted with a guy I had seen and who had seen me several times.  We had even, a few weeks prior, had a brief conversation about dancing.  There were only a few of us in the room on this latest evening. After chatting with a friend I went over to see introduce myself properly.  I was interested in the distant history of his country, about which I was reading at the time.

- "We've met before," I said.

- Oh, have we?

 - Yes, I said, taken aback.  With my height I am neither easily missable nor forgettable.

- I meet so many people...

Our local milonga scene is not so big.

Still, we chatted. Later, I asked him why he thought men from that country were sometimes considered macho but good dancers, not unlike what was sometimes said of Argentines. He denied this, saying there are many reasons people are good dancers, not least [that old chestnut] technique.

He invited me to dance to good music. I had heard the warning bells, but he was reckoned one of the better dancers and I was curious. We had danced one track, if that, when, on the dance floor, he asked bluntly, What is your job? The question catapulted me back to La Marshall, the gay club in Buenos Aires in 2016, to the question “And what do you do?”.  But this guy was no gauche newbie. He had danced tango for years. I stared, in shock and disbelief and then, as the pause lengthened, because I had long ago prepared answers to questions like these, I weighed the options and gave him one of them.  We regarded one another for several seconds more then began to dance the next track. I wondered if he was envisaging me in the uniform of my stated profession.

Later, I recounted the story to a friend.

I thought about saying "proctologist" but wasn't sure I'd be able to keep a straight face. Besides, when you're embracing a stranger in dance, it isn't necessarily the image you want to leave in their mind.   So I said "traffic warden". 

She looked at me.  I have known this woman since 2012. And are you a traffic warden? she asked.

No, I replied, 

She laughed and laughed.

"Let's..."

Diversions apart, for the last few months, the subject has been, you will recall, an exploration of the ideas of imposition, freedom, invitation, refusal, boundaries. Let us continue to nose forward.

Footnote: I do a little voluntary teaching of English, belatedly perhaps, since the language has been my most enduring passion. Yesterday, Marta said (in Spanish): But what is this "let"? Is it "allow"? Is it "leave"? It is "rent"? When we say "Let's go!", ¡Vamos!,  what kind of "let" is that? 

"Let" is a word fundamentally associated with permission, which is not quite freedom, but getting there. I'll let you take the car.  Or it suggests a proposal for some shared activity: Let's go.  Of whom though are we asking permission?  Perhaps it is an incantation to the universe: Allow us to go / May we go; or perhaps it is to one another:  All being well, let us go, may we go, may we eat, may we drink to that.

Actually, "let's" implies an impetus more on one side than the other, a leader, an instigator.  "Shall we..." suggests more of an equilibrium.  But sometimes a relationship needs that impetus. It depends on the personalities.

Freedom is often thought of collectively - "a free society" - or individually "You are free to go". Rarely do we think of freedom as a joint activity and yet this perhaps is where it is most delicate. Let's dance..., a proposal, Shall we dance?, a suggestion; May I kiss you - will you allow me, although in all but one case this request has always struck me as a misreading of an atmosphere.  The exception was from a man suffering from PTSD, for whom everything was different. 

There is a nuance of difference in the two words, "proposal" and "suggestion". In any case,  we agree to dance, to meet, to engage in some joint activity freely - and can step away at any point. But it is there, in that space of engagement and freedom that special things can happen.  

Marriage is not quite the same.  Marriage or a partnership where there are children, is - arguably - an agreement to stick through things, even when we may not want to, even when we would rather be free. Some find that agreement brings its own rewards.

It astonished me when a friend, a man I know well, who doesn't like travelling alone, announced not long ago that he was departing on a Mediterranean cruise with a woman he barely knew - in a shared cabin. He is easygoing but nevertheless, anticipating this arrangement struck me as having all the elements of a fiasco.  It felt rather like watching someone build a Jenga tower.  Yesterday he showed me the photos. But are there none of the woman you went with?

Ay, qué mujer tan rara, he replied. She had been odd, had taken all the space in the cabin for herself, she had criticised his choices in food, in drink, in how he spent his time. 

I left her to it, barely saw her, he said.

Did you still manage to enjoy the trip?

Absolutely! I made friends, chatted, had a wonderful time.

Well that's good! And now would you travel alone?

I still prefer to travel with someone but if I couldn't find someone, now I would go alone.

He would not have done that before and he is no spring chicken. An experience of control led him to value the pleasures of freedom. Evidently this is something that can happen at any age.

Decades ago, in my twenties, I went on a summer day trip to a beach with a man. The journey from London was hellish - hot, tense, traffic jams. It was before good internet on phones.  I was driving, he couldn't navigate. But we got there, Littlehampton I think. The sun shone, the sky and sea were blue, I wore a pink dress. There are no photos from that day but I see it in Technicolor.   His eyes and hair were dark, his demeanour, wry, as ever and yet, for once and at moments he seemed to relax. In that fragile balance, possibilities expanded. The boundaries of that day were different because we normally met in bars and restaurants in grimy, grown up London. And then it all vanished on the way back. He mentioned he would have liked to have taken the train back over the South Downs. And suddenly, there we were, both stuck in the car again, stranded as it were, on a salt pan, freedom having evaporated in the contrast between a reality and a desire that things were otherwise. 

Sometimes the footnote becomes the main event.

Freedom: a cornerstone

Groyne, Monifieth, Angus

There has been a loose direction for a few months and with diversions, arising from what happened in February. It started from the themes of coercion, control, imposition, manipulation, force, stress and has nosed towards the attendant ideas of refusal and acceptance. 

The possibility of refusal or acceptance comes from "freedom from" those noxious subjects, from which comes "freedom to".

It is only once there is that freedom that one can make independent choices and from that, that there can be a possibility of good things happening.  So, I want to restate that “the absolute cornerstone of milonga culture is freedom of discreet invitation and equally discreet acceptance or refusal.” 

Freedom in the milonga and in life  can be alarming when one doesn't know what is possible, when one lacks experience, essentially, or guidance.  In life too, freedom can be overwhelming. But freedom leads to creativity, to connection, to magic in ways hard to describe, precisely because freedom is not about boxes and labels and pigeonholing. 

With notable exceptions humans are adaptable, intuitive, aware of their surroundings and good at improvisation and yet the signs put up by controlling types would lead invading aliens to believe that we are a species whose fundamental moronity is at odds with some of our great ideas, inventions and achievements.

Particularly tickling are the signs whose absurdity evokes an obvious pathetic belief, on the part of those who decided they were necessary, in their own importance. In the photo above, the groyne was blindingly obvious and not high. The danger was more in falling in the rocky descent to the beach; or from the sea itself, or from the nearby firing range, onto which, due to a surprising lack of signage, I nearly walked. But the council clearly disliked the expansiveness, the potential for freedom of the beach, the notion that it might, who knows, give people ideas. The council, then, disliking its own absence in a place largely rule-free, felt, as it so often does, that it must be at least seen to be present and controlling. These people never realise that such signs - until we come to accept them - only serve to undermine their so-called authority, mockery being the fastest and most degrading route to a fall from power.

Freedom includes freedom to explore and so much of what happens in the milonga and in life is about discovering ones preferences and avoiding what one dislikes with tact and ease and confidence. Some of the most interesting observable behaviour and some of the best stories from the milonga are around these subjects more than the dancing itself. 

"Graciousness"

You would think that looking down is enough to signal that you do not want to dance just then but sometimes the culture of a particular milonga is such that it can be thought by some acceptable or not uncommon to invite a woman by walking up. Sometimes poor seating without clear lines of sight, or poor lighting provoke the same.  

I was mortified recently.  Before the práctica I had arranged with an experienced dancer to help her practice "leading".  Between hosting, DJing, dancing with beginners and, if I'm lucky, a tanda or two with my favourite dancers I don't have a lot of time; besides, when I can dance is determined by the music appropriate to the different dancers.  So I found myself with a free moment and went up to her to see if she wanted to do her leading.  Despite our arrangement, she was clearly taken aback.  This isn't a mistake I will make again.

When (usually a guy) walks up, some think "presumably the woman will be gracious enough not to refuse".  Older people often tell you that was the English way, at say, dances in the 50s. But a man who has cornered a woman between obligation and embarrassment is hardly giving her a choice. He is presuming she wants to dance with him. In the worst cases she is manipulated into thinking she must want to dance with him because despite her instincts, she somehow does not refuse. Why doesn't she refuse? She doesn't want to appear impolite.  The guy bets on, capitalises on, takes advantages of exactly that.  That's manipulation.

Men sometimes graciously dance with women who mistakenly think they have been invited by look, when in fact the guy was inviting the woman in front of her. Usually, he will dance first with his intended partner and then with the woman who thought she was being invited. So why shouldn't women be similarly "gracious"? But that is like comparing apples with oranges. Besides, as a guy once put it to me, "most women are embraceable". The same is not necessarily true the other way around.

Imposition

Johnny Hughes

Freedom was the title of the first post in this blog back in 2014. Agreement and consent are the social friends of freedom. I have written often about its antithesis e.g. Obligation.

Grown up milongas (as opposed to the kindergarten version) are, above all, places of choice. Dancers come and go when they like, nobody probes for full names or even real names, or into personal circumstances.   Women don’t mug guys for dances and guys don't do walk-up, hand-proferring invitations.  Neither “begs” for dances through conversation.  Most of all, they are places where no-one imposes themselves on anyone else.  There is no use of force. 

When one person forces themselves on another, physically, psychologically, socially, any way at all, it is hard to think of more grotesque, dangerous or sickening behaviour, even more so when it is thinly disguised within a civilized setting.

The absolute cornerstone of milonga culture is freedom of discreet invitation and equally discreet acceptance or refusal. This all happens by look (the inviter's cabeceo, the accepter's mirada). It is also one of the most obvious codes (accepted milonga behaviours).

Some people don't truly understand this code. They can't cope with it, but are alert enough to have learned its importance. These types look for stratagems to get round it. This is manipulation: they will manipulate people to get what they want. People who are deaf and blind to the many freedoms that make a good milonga are those who impose themselves on others, who try to oblige others to attend to them, who use others to satisfy their needs. 

Why don't these people adhere to the code like everyone else? Because perhaps they are impatient to dance or ambitious in dance, because they are not at peace, because they are insecure. They need attention, all the time. Consider: what happens to these people if they do adhere to the code but don't manage to dance? They will not have a perhaps understandably disappointing evening, they won't, more resourcefully, instead of dancing, enjoy the music, or the spectacle or the company, or the conversation because that is too objective - it wouldn't be about them. No, this person will have a calamitously bad time because they are not getting that attention. This is a classic narcissistic personality. Their reaction? Probably histrionic, moody, emotional.

How do they get round the code? Both men and women will show off, in their dance, or their clothes or their behaviour. They will demand attention. Until recently while I recognised (except when, catastrophically, I didn't) the danger signs of these types I never really understood why - because I didn't need to. I just avoided them.

So what happens if they don't get dances? Instead of just shrugging, accepting it, not taking it personally, moving on, they will be hostile and resentful, especially if they have been turned down. This is another sign of the immature personality.

Young and pretty female versions might do the indoor equivalent of standing on a street corner. They flirt and chat not for the pleasure of that but as a stratagem to pick up dances because they can't truly relax, find peace in the milonga. They feel awkward unless they are dancing all the time. They don't realise how transparent they are to experienced dancers and so they pick up the dregs they deserve.

To get round the code, men just walk up which fulfils this pathological need for attention in the most obvious way. They aren't patient enough or able to get a dance the accepted way. They get the praise they need simply by getting a woman to accept their proffered hand while the rest of us cringe. The guy who walks up isn't simply a bad dancer, he is sending a warning about his personality.

I have written often about that diabolical triad that motivates so many:  money or power or status.  They are found in these controlling, demanding narcissistic types. Such people are constitutionally unsuited to good milongas.  They will never fit because these traits seem to be hardwired into them.   The focus on money and power are both types of ambition but both of these are really about status.  Attention seekers are just childish versions of adult status seekers.  And status seekers are essentially, profoundly insecure.

What are the characteristics of people who invite by look, who don't use stratagems, who don't impose themselves on others? Respectful and empathetic certainly. Altruistic? Undemanding? Understanding? Calm? Quiet? Patient? Grounded? Observant? Take your pick. They are all excellent models of behaviour. These are signs of listeners, people with an outward focus that is not on themselves, good partners in conversation, in dance and in life.

Harm

Secreto
I learned today that someone I knew, not well, but over many years, someone I appreciated, who was always cheery, who always asked about my boys, who seemed absolutely fine, recently took their own life.  They had retired and I hadn’t seen them for a few years.  I asked after them and that’s when I heard. You just don’t know what is going on with people, what burdens they bear, what secrets they are trying to manage. How does it come to that?  Is it a turning-in on the self, a retreat from people? There is no doubt it is the darkest of secrets.

Walking home, with this on my mind, the lovely tango Secreto began playing through my headphones.  In the story about this song, the man nearly kills himself but is saved by a friend. The song is about a happily married man, living  a straightforward, family life. His secret is that he falls hopelessly in love with another woman.

Quien sos, que no puedo salvarme
muñeca maldita, castigo de Dios…
Ventarrón que desgaja en su furia un ayer de ternuras, de hogar y de fe…
Por vos se ha cambiado mi vida - sagrada y sencilla como una oración - 
en un bárbaro horror de problemas
que atora mis venas y enturbia mi honor.

Who are you that I cannot save myself
cursed doll, punishment from God…
A storm that in its fury tears apart a past of tenderness, home and faith.
Because of you, my life—sacred and simple as a prayer—
has turned into a barbaric abomination of trouble
that clogs my veins and clouds my honour.

That phrase, 'Muñeca maldita' has a particular ring, in Spanish.

A recent post was about people finding refuge from class in a practica. Another early track is the sweet Mi Refugio, by Orquesta Adolfo Carabelli, a piece full of wonders, previously mentioned here. It was covered in another danceable version by  Carlos Di Sarli. I have particular affection for the sensitive piano accompaniment in the Carabelli even though the instrument sounds as though it's on its last legs.  

Refuge
The práctica I run is my refuge of sorts, from tango dance class, from industrialised tango, particularly from the kind of second rate music I don't like to dance to and that is played too much here in Europe.  Also, I suppose from controlling types, from sign-in lists on the door, from chilly, sink or swim atmospheres.  I have written about difficult times in the milongas, times, alone, where doubt creeps in and self-confidence fails you. But it was in my own refuge that I came to harm. 

Contrary to my generation’s stiff upper lip inheritance from our wartime parents’ generation, even while I find the self-obsession of Gen Z toe-curlingly revolting, it is time to say I am not that fine, not since 12 February when I ran my second practica of the year.  It is time to let in some light and fresh air on my own secret about being harassed. I harboured it for weeks from New Year because I didn’t want to burden my dancing friends or cause discord in our nascent tango community.  But the harassment increased and ultimately put me in hospital. My health has been damaged and I have had to give up the new career that was going to finance the hole in my pension since I stopped work to raise my children and focus on my family.

I have felt a need to tell this story, not particularly to the police or friends or family (though I have had to) because it is stressful reliving that harassment each time I have to tell it. Perhaps if I write it, not just write it down, but speak out, even in some limited way it will unlock the prison I have been in since this harassment began.  I need to move on and until I tell the story, it feels as though I can’t. But this person has proven themselves dangerous so this is not so much about those six weeks of harassment and how it came about. It is mostly about the aftermath.

Someone who had learned the dance from me, at my practica, and from the people I introduced them to and in the places I took them to, became fixated with me. They used a different word.

There was no charge.  I helped them freely because I love when people learn the dance from other social dancers and because I would like there to be a local tango dance scene.  But after a few months their behaviour turned unsavoury and downright alarming.  I withdrew contact and when that didn’t work, blocked them.  That didn’t work either.  I told them my reasons, thinking that would give them the “closure” they demanded but that still didn’t work.  In the end, over six weeks, they tried contacting me via at least eight different channels. 

I contorted my life to avoid them, initially cancelling my events, avoiding places I knew they would be, believing their reassurances that they were going to leave tango and leave me alone but they kept trying to contact me and turning up at my events. 

The next time I ran a practica, 12 February, this individual turned up again, more than half an hour early when they knew I would be setting up.  That date will henceforth be metaphorically bordered in black for me edged with the words:  control, manipulation, egotism, lies, ambition, narcissism, disguise: warnings of harm and a rejoinder to myself not to have to learn that lesson again.

I said: What do you think you are doing?  How can I make it any clearer?  I don't want to see you, or hear from you and I certainly don't want you at my events.  I don't want you, your friends, your music, your anonymous comments on my blog, your food.  I want nothing to do with you and I want you to leave me alone. I told them to leave immediately.  

But they refused, even after I put their bags outside the door.  I asked, increasingly distraught: Have I been unclear? Do I look like I want you here?  Do I look like I will ever change my mind? I felt totally trapped.  My horror, shock and disbelief and the stress of the situation clouded my judgement which would have been to call security.

They later said in another message from yet another channel, that they would never "corner" anyone again. But even that message talked in chillingly controlling language that they were "not going to allow another miscommunication" - as if, after everything, there was still some future. How could anyone be so blind, so deaf, so insanely intent?   

I had told myself that weeks of blocking them repeatedly, as they found new channels of harassment, was not bothering me much but that constant pressure must have been having an effect.  As I asked and then begged them to go and they insistently refused I felt a stabbing pain in my chest. My Fitbit showed my heart rate had doubled from 70 to 140bpm.  I was scared and in pain.  My hand sought my chest.  My face burned and I felt my cheeks.  Look at my face, I said.  You must leave. I wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like.

Any normal person would have got help and made themselves scarce, seeing the effect they were having but, extraordinarily, they still refused to go.  You are bringing this on yourself was all they said.  What I most remember is the total lack of emotion in that bloodless face.  Later came the realisation this wasn’t about an obsession with me, about care for me, whatever they might say.  It seemed a vampiric need to get what they wanted, needed, could take for themselves. 

I had to stop setting up the event and, since they refused to leave, I was forced to leave to sit in another room to try to calm my heart. I went back to get my phone.  To my astonishment I found them setting up their food at my event.  What do you think you are doing?  I said again.  Leave! But again they refused.  I felt too unwell to argue and again I had to leave the room and the music I should have been preparing. 

I returned at 3PM when people were expected.  That individual were still there, lingering by that martyred offering of food.  It was obvious I would be too busy welcoming my guests to be able to get rid of it. The thought of that food sickened me.  Shortly after the event started, that individual did leave, to my enormous relief. They had been there for about forty minutes.

But the damage was done.  I got through the event but my chest ached all afternoon.   Still I still said nothing to friends, but they were concerned.  Are you Ok? You look overwhelmed, one said. 

At the end of the event, before people left, the harasser returned to pack up their things, knowing the questions it would raise:  Why wasn’t X here?  Did they provide all that food?

The next day I still had chest pain, and now crippling muscle pain in the left shoulder blade, neck, collarbone. I had had the same physical experience I had had last summer in Italy after being physically and psychologically trapped by a manipulative older woman, although I was in so much discomfort that I didn't remember until later.

To the same friend: 
Seems I have a powerful reaction when cornered  / trapped.  Similar thing happened in Italy last year when I got COVID. My millionaire employer tried to trap me in her property, surrounded by a fence, locked gates and roaming rottweilers and to blackmail me.  Got chest pain (albeit not with the dangerous statistic they found this time).  Took about two months to get over that.  

Another friend: “You attract sociopaths, don’t you?” I hadn't prompted them with the descriptor but the same one had occurred to me.  Don’t you see though, that when you try to withdraw from their games, that’s when they get nasty, try to trap you?

I hadn’t. I had told the harasser the day before that they were ill, needed help, but in the end it was I who fell ill.

Danger
This time it was more serious.  By the evening of the day after the practica I was in A&E still with the chest pain.  The doctors were concerned the electricity going through my heart was too slowly.  The number  they measured was so high it led them to think I had had a heart attack, an overdose or a biochemical imbalance, none of which they could subsequently find evidence for.  The concern though was that my heart could tip into arrhythmia.  From there, the danger was cardiac arrest.  

They were concerned about stress and recommended I call the police for help with the harasser so I did, there and then in the A&E cubicle while I waited for test results.  It didn’t look like I was going to get out of hospital.  I cancelled work the next day and decided to tell some friends what had been going on.  Once I did these things, I felt relief. 

Hours passed.  The doctor decided to repeat the test that had given the worrying results.  To their surprise, the number came down to within acceptable limits, but far above what it had been in the summer.  I was desperate to go home and they let me go, with a recommendation to repeat an ECG in a week. 

Aftermath
The chest and intense muscle pain continued through the week.  I had to stay off work and lived very quietly over the next week but when I repeated the story to the police, to friends and family I felt worse, reliving it.  Unsure whether I could take prescription painkillers I turned to alcohol, not much, but something, every day. Towards the end of the week I had trouble getting a full breath. I knew this was probably anxiety, maybe due to the continued chest pain. Why wasn’t it going away? Was I going to get that high number again?  How would I know?  Aware how hard it was to get a GP appointment I decided to wait til the next ECG scheduled for a week after the first attack.

I took walks, could bear no music stronger than the soft, reassuring voice of Argentina's national folk hero, Atahualpa Yupanqui, whose songs and solo guitar were like balm to the soul.   

The next ECG came back satisfactory but, contrary to initial advice, no one was available to discuss the results.   I had to make a decision that day about what to do regarding my course because you can  only miss so many days of placement.  I still felt terribly unwell and had questions about the worrying number from A&E.  I paid £50 to see a private GP for 10 minutes to understand the ECG results but all they could say was that the number was within normal limits. They said I should be examined by my own GP . I still couldn’t get an appointment. 

The pain continued into the second week and wasn’t improving.  Eleven days after my practica, I was able to see my GP.  He explained this dangerous number was associated with stress but that the danger of arrhythmia was when this number was prolonged. The danger area is above 460.  In A&E my number was 520.  After I made my stress-reducing decisions while in the hospital it reduced to 430.  A week later it was about the same. The previous summer, it had been 300.   

He said while the ECG was reassuring, it would be reasonable to repeat it in time.  So what was causing the chest pain brought on by that confrontation? I asked.  Stress, he said again. Nevertheless, that clarity was helpful. I felt the pain in my chest lift a bit.  The sky was blue.  The spring flowers were everywhere, the heather was blooming.   It was a good day.  I put on salsa for the first time, fun, uplifting salsa. 

Future
But I have had to leave my teacher training course. I still feel too unwell and in any case have missed too many days of placement from chest pain and the attendant problems. I went in to A&E still planning my next day's lessons but came out profoundly sobered by the physical damage people can inflict. I put in six months of profound hard work.  The previous October, for the first time in 16 years, I put my work first instead of taking my son abroad for a formative cultural and linguistic experience because I had to submit an assignment. I submitted two of these at Masters level receiving a grade of First Class.  It has all been for nothing. Six months of work, my future career, my imminent financial independence, it has all gone.  But if that person had not come there that day, or even if they had left when asked I wouldn’t have got the chest pain, ended up in A&E and so on.

Twelve days after later the chest pain and severe muscle pain on my left side continued.  I still had trouble breathing.  I felt knocked for six, lost my appetite, got upset easily, tired easily, was anxious near people, even walking in to town.  I was anxious too if left in the house alone while I had the pain.  

Towards the end of the second week I decided to go to salsa, anyway, knowing with relief that person would not be there because they were away. I thought it might do me good, knowing it might be my last chance before they came back.  But sometimes when I found myself chatting to people my heart started racing and I had to leave to stand outside, stretching and breathing and lowering my heartbeat.  This had never happened before.

Nearly three weeks after that ill-fated day I now get chest pain mostly if I think about what happened. This is why I need to get this story out and draw a line under it.

But, aside from the pain, my heart still flutters about in my chest,  flighty as a bird only nothing like as romantic.  Since the pain has eased, it has been replaced by constant palpitations.  I ignore them, knowing only time will fix this but they haven't improved yet. I still have muscle pain on my left side in my back, neck and along my collarbone. I have had to turn down offers of contact or activities with people I don’t know well, not trusting them and am especially nervous around those I think may not be wholly stable.

A friend who knew about the two entrapments, last summer and this year remarked:
You must be giving out the wrong signals unintentionally?
...provoking the rejoinder:
It's my fault!!!!!???

But I know I shouldn’t have to defend myself.

In a letter regarding my course withdrawal, a course leader had talked about the "resilience" required for teaching.  I know he meant well, only that it would be in my best interests to be fully well before any return, but it could also sound like: "end up with heart problems and you're obviously not resilient". I can't imagine returning. I feel so fragile now. I had a really successful first placement and passed. I was one of the better student teachers my mentor said. I enjoyed the discussions about literature and social issues with colleagues and pupils, but since 12 February there is no way I could now handle that pressure or that of an assignment.

Yesterday, a teenager accosted me in the street, looking for trouble to impress his friends.  I ignored them and no harm done.  But even as I knew teens sometimes do this I remembered my friends' words and those of the course leader.  Is it really my fault?  Do I attract these people?  Do I give off "manipulate me" signals? Does heart trouble mean you're not resilient, not as good, worth less?  Thus self esteem crumbles away and the damage of abuse is compounded by ignorance and insensitivity.

I have worried for my safety and that of my family.  Upon my arrival in the harassar's town to run my event, even though I believed they were away, I feared they would appear around every corner. I walked into the bar in the building where I hold the event.  In a horrible reversal of the situation where the lover believes they see the beloved everywhere, I saw people sitting at tables wearing the same colour tops the harasser would wear. My startled gaze jumped doubletakes from table to table.  My nerves jangled warnings.  Good Christ! I thought, When will this end? As I set up the room last weekend, I kept watching the door, starting at shadows.

Life is circumscribed now.  No outside work. I am too jittery to drive much. I don't feel ready to start from scratch again and seek private clients for language work. Even my social life, which was around dance, has been curtailed. The thought of going to any tango or salsa event fills me with dread in case the harasser is there. Even if they were not, that dread and worry embitters the experience. My heart jumps about just thinking of it.  I still worry the harasser will turn up at my own events because I know they don't take no for an answer.  I have seen that they don't know when to stop.

A:  I've developed an avoidant personality of late, especially regarding folk I don't know.
B:  That's not like you from what I've seen!
A:  Indeed, no. 

My trust in people, never too robust, hangs by a thread. Saddest is the impact on helping others. I will never again do that so freely, nor enjoy someone's development in the same way because I have seen how they can take that gift, twist into something ugly and damaging.  It will always be at the back of my mind.  Might they...? How unstable are they? How dangerous? It staggers me that all this harm was caused by a mere chit, albeit with the energy of someone three decades younger. I am a shadow of the self I was.

In the play “An Inspector Calls”, a family, separately, all interact, in negative ways, with someone who, under the cumulative assaults of these disparate individuals, commits suicide.  The family members try to absolve themselves to each other.  The Scots novel, "Scabby Queen", also portrays the characters who interacted with each other and with a woman, who, at the start of the book, we discover has killed herself. She seemed to turn in on herself. 

Therefore, it is important to speak out. I am not sure how important it is to whom you speak.  But it is important not to be left in the dark with abuse and harassment and bullying. It is important to let in the light and the air.

Many people still think: You are not responsible for your effect on other people.  What they think, do, feel, has nothing to do with you or what you do to them or say to them.  Somehow, our society, for the most part, believes you cannot harm someone in any significant way unless you touch them.  Or unless it is in clearly defined categories like domestic abuse or sexual harassment, both of which can be verbal. What a bizarre and foolish misapprehension it is, for this same damage of one person by another clearly extends more widely.

I had read not long before that anger is a punishment you give yourself for someone else’s bad behaviour. I am sure there is much in this.   Yes, I was profoundly and irreversibly disappointed but more than that, I could not fathom how someone would force themselves, psychologically, on someone else, still less turn up where they knew they were not wanted.  In physical terms we call that rape, or assault.  Outside domestic abuse situations, or in rare, difficult-to-prove cases, at work, we don’t yet fully accept the physical damage someone’s words or actions can do without actually beating you.  Would that in the future the psychological and the corresponding physical harm someone causes another is treated with the gravity that today is accorded to physical attacks. 

This could have happened anywhere I suppose, at work, at some other club. But it happened in the world of tango, where I go to meet people, connect, enjoy their company and to help them if they look for that.  It happened in the room I use for my practica, that is now tainted with that memory.  People I have told since have been supportive.  I realise I am not alone in seeing how certain individuals use all their wiles to get what they want.  I have people who will help me if they try to turn up again.  There is security in the building.  The police have said I can phone. There are at least three layers of defence, plus now more people know and just that helps.  It is extraordinary to me that I now need to think this way.

A:  I have realised that when it comes to bullish undesirables, no matter how fine the packaging, what you actually need is bouncers or security - ideally several levels of it in case one doesn't work in case one doesn't work.
B: I found that out a looooong time ago.

I wonder though, how might things have been different had I told someone in my local community, earlier?  What if I had asked someone to be with me that day, in case they turned up, if I hadn’t tried to cope through six weeks of harassment on my own, if I hadn’t held on to this dirty secret alone in the metaphorical dark?  There would have been no confrontation.  I wouldn’t have got chest pains nor ended up laid up for weeks with a fear of people that leaves me shaky and unable to cope with situations I won’t be able to walk away from.

If there are two main conceptual preoccupations in my life, these have long been freedom and death. Freedom starts with 'freedom from', before it becomes 'freedom to'. That includes freedom from harassment.  Confronted with the deliberate infringement and circumscription of that freedom by someone else, it has thrown the fragility of life and good health into sharp relief.