The Tango Baka

I Got My Pic in the Paper

2011-08-30T23:26:00.001-07:00

This is the article in the San Francisco Chronicle's Style Section on Aug. 28, 2011.

Dawn and Me Dancing to Tu El Cielo Y Tu

2010-12-07T12:27:00.001-08:00

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This is me and Dawn doing a performance at Stanford. on Dec. 3, 2010. While it isn't the first improvised performance I've done, it is the first one I have on video.

2010-02-28T14:38:00.001-08:00

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DUI at an SF Milonga

2009-02-14T23:41:00.001-08:00

There hasn't been a lot happening on the Tango front for me lately...hence my inactivity on this blog. Since my last post--way back in 2008--I've simply been practicing, dancing, practicing dancing, and practicing then dancing. Not much else, I suppose. I did, however, have one pretty interesting Tango experience during that period. I basically found myself, for the first time ever, DUI (dancing under the influence) at a recent San Francisco milonga.

Now, I'm not one to write about stuff like this often, but reflecting upon the experience got me thinking very much about Tango and it has led to a bit of an epiphany on my part. I decided to share with you some of my thoughts. At the heart of my musings is the idea of energy transmission from the leader to the follower. It turns out that, at least with the kinds of followers I already love dancing with, I need to transmit a LOT less energy than I previously thought I did.

At that particular milonga, a friend of mine shared with me one of the "special brownies" for which she is well-known in the community. For about an hour after I ate the thing, I didn't feel much of its effects. But then, around 11:30 p.m., it hit me. I was in the middle of a tanda with a friend when I realized I was losing sensation in my left leg. I tried to ignore it, but then in the middle of the next song, I started losing sensation in my left arm, as well! Being the athlete/martial artist that I am, I remember feeling a bit scared with what was happening--after all, I am accustomed to being in control of my body and being aware of what it is doing at all times. But there I was, in the middle of a San Francisco milonga with a beautiful woman in my arms, unsure if I'd be even able to stand during the next song, much less navigate the both of us safely around a crowded floor filled with marauding, clueless bozos.

I explained to my friend the situation, apologized profusely, then asked if it was okay for us to sit down. She said she had to leave anyway, so she was happy to stop. I waited for her to put on her shoes, walked her to her car, said my goodbyes as she drove off, then I returned to the venue.

Now, I fully intended to sit out the rest of the milonga, waiting for the effects of the brownie to wear off. But, alas, it wasn't to be. As soon as I re-entered the dance hall, a woman with whom I've always liked dancing because of her softness and patience cabaceod me. Without thinking, I went over to her, took her into my embrace then had what I could only describe as one of the most incredibly soft and beautiful tandas I have ever had. (I think I was actually drooling when we released the embrace!) At the tanda's conclusion, I remember blabbering what must've been an incoherent "thank you," then started off again toward my seat.

Still enjoying the vivid memories of the previous tanda as I walked back to my seat, I ran into yet another friend of mine, with whom I've also always liked dancing because of her super-soft and patient follow. After greeting one another, the next tanda started, and we took the embrace as well. My gosh, it was even more heavenly than the previous one! I'm not exactly sure what I said at the end of that tanda, but she said I was really nice, too! It must've been a bit awkward for the next 15-20 seconds, because all I could do was stand there speechless, smiling like the village idiot as she waited for me to say something. Finally, she just hugged me...then walked off.

To Be Continued ...

Martin Playing With His Balls

2008-11-12T01:14:00.001-08:00

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This is me when I went to Argentina. Part of the itinerary was to visit a ranch about an hour or so outside of Buenos Aires. I've seen "gaucho" malambo dancers playing with their boleodoras, but I'd never played with any before. So when I saw they had some for sale in the gift shop, I didn't hesitate to buy a pair and give it a go. DalRae took this short clip about 10 minutes into my experimenting with the things. At that point I was only twirling one ball ... about 5 or so minutes later, I was whipping both of them around simultaneously!

Because I've had some martial arts weapons experience, I thought I picked up some basic moves quickly. I still have a long way to go before I can do something even remotely similar to Roberto Herrera in this video of him and Pablo Veron.

DalRae and Me Doing a Milonga at a Milonga

2008-11-09T03:40:00.001-08:00

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Videos: El Pajaro at Sunderland

2008-10-29T01:13:00.000-07:00

Finally, I'm posting something from my recent trip to Buenos Aires!

This was the last full night I was there. I took a taxi by myself to Sunderland on October 4, 2008, while the rest of the tour group I was on visited another milonga in the center of town. When I arrived, I was treated to an amazing show by two dancers who I'd never heard of before (but I promise I'll never forget).

These are the videos I took of four performances by Diego "el Pajaro" Riemer and Belen Giachello at Sunderland. The date was October 4, 2008.

Performance #1

Performance #2

I don't think they intended to do four performances. After the second one they looked as if they were ready to stop, but then decided to do just one more ....

Performance #3

Then they were really finished and left the floor, but the crowd started clapping in a thunderous applause in unison for an encore. So the pair got up again, and without looking as if they broke a sweat, launched into this final performance ... once more time:

Performance #4

Coming soon: A Pair of Performances by Carlos Rivarola

DalRae and Me Practicing Again

2008-10-25T23:51:00.001-07:00

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Practice at Albertos

2008-10-11T13:18:00.001-07:00

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Video:Another Practice Video of DalRae & Me

2008-08-03T23:59:00.001-07:00

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This is DalRae and me practicing, this time at Sunnyvale's Starlight Ballroom again. I've been complaining to DalRae lately that I don't feel as clean or precise as I used to feel. Looking at this video, I think I may know why: I think I'm moving much more dynamically than before. When I'm dancing I know my feet are moving quickly, but I had no idea they're moving this quickly! At least it looks like theyre moving quickly. Now, if only I can keep them moving precisely, I might be more pleased with myself. DalRae's just started to really play with her feet, too. I can only imagine what we're going to look like once both of our feet are moving the way we envision they should be moving. I'm really looking forward to it.

In other news, I just got back from the Alberto's milonga. Only one collision tonight! But with one of the same bozos who always runs into me.

Non-Tango (Sorta): Sexy Beijing

2008-07-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

I was surfing YouTube for Tango stuff a few minutes ago and found this. Despite it's sub head ("Forever Tango"), you won't see much Tango, but I found it very interesting nonetheless.

Enjoy.

Video: DalRae and Me Practicing in Palo Alto

2008-07-05T20:08:00.001-07:00

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I recently started taking some night classes, so DalRae and I have had to find other places to practice during the week...our normal places close too early for me to get any real practice in after I get out of school. On Wednesday, we visited Igor Polk's practica in Palo Alto. His practica goes until 11:30 or so. This is a nice video we took that night.

Video: Me and DalRae Practicing

2008-07-03T12:24:00.001-07:00

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Non Tango: Those Damn Koreans!

2008-01-01T23:51:00.001-08:00

Haahahahaha.I actually meant it in a good way.

I skipped out on most of the Tango events this New Years Weekend because, of all things, I got hooked on a super-crazy good Korean drama called Jumong. Watch episodes 1-40 in like 5 days. 41 more episodes to go.

Tango Addiction: Pt. 1, Elena's Story

2007-12-15T19:36:00.000-08:00

Hey folks, it's been a little while since I last posted. Sorry about that. But believe me, I've been busy. Some of you may know I had a school assignment to write something ... the assignment, as far as I remember, was to write an article that could possibly be submitted for publication -- somewhere, anywhere. I started the assignment, but after getting sidetracked with a boatload of other things, I kind of gave up on my originally planned Tango article and instead wrote something much less involved. But luckily for this blog, I won't let the material I collected for my original story go to waste. Over the next few days or weeks, I'll be posting pieces of it after I'd edited it for blog purposes. Today's posting is the first part of many. (Elens is not her real name.) Enjoy.

Elena fiddled while Rome burned. A fixture of the Bay Area Argentine Tango scene for five years, she had become so immersed in the Tango community that on almost any night of the week, she could be seen in the arms of different men, walking and whirling atop darkly lit floors in the cafes, dance halls, and churches that are home to the region’s myriad milongas, or Tango dance parties. She may have been just one woman indulging in a passion, but as Elena, a small-business owner who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity, delved even more deeply into her diversion, her business of almost three decades slipped further and further into oblivion.

Elena runs a chain of fashion boutiques based in Palo Alto. The high-end boutique business is extremely competitive, she says, and caters to a select clientele that demands constant care and attention. The only way to provide the kind of service that her customers expect is with salespeople -- or fashion consultants -- who not only understand the latest fashions but who are also attuned to each of their customers’ personalities and needs.

High-end fashion boutiques need a special kind of staff, Elena says, and to retain the best, the businesses must coddle their employees as much as they would like their patrons to be coddled.

Until a year ago, everything was going well. Elena not only survived in the business for 27 years, but she also managed to expand her single store to three in the South Bay and Peninsula. “Things were going well,” Elena says. “But then I got into Tango, and I just stopped paying attention.”

About three years into her Tango experience, Elena’s employees started feeling frustrated. They were seeing less of her every day and were getting even less support. Moreover, as she started to raise the frequency of her mid-afternoon private lessons and leaving shop early for milongas, she became increasingly difficult to locate. Although she noticed the declining morale of her staff, Elena says she merely pretended to care; strangely, all she could think of was Tango.

Things came to a head in November 2006, when she decided to take a three-week Tango trip to Buenos Aires. The excursion may have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, for when she returned, her business was in full meltdown: managers and employees were quitting in frustration, customers no longer patronized her store because their favorite consultants were gone or leaving, and miscommunications led to an overall feeling of negativity among the employees who remained.

“My business basically had gone to hell,” Elena says. “I suppose I shouldn’t blame Tango, but if I wasn’t so into it, I don’t think any of this would have happened.”

Elena’s may be an extreme case, but she is not alone in her self-described addiction. According to a Web-based survey by Ashland, Ore., dance instructor Clay Nelson, roughly two-thirds of Tango dancers consider themselves either “Quite a bit” or “Totally” addicted to the dance, while only approximately one-third say they consider themselves to have “Somewhat” or “Definitely” addictive personalities.

The survey may be informal and unscientific, but random conversations with dancers throughout the Bay Area seem to bear out similar results: It’s just too common to find Tango dancers who describe themselves as either currently addicted to Tango or recently touched by an addiction. But what is it about the dance that makes it so addictive? Why do people like Elena and countless others get so obsessed with it? This is the subject of my series of blog postings/stories.

To be continued.

Two Videos: One Interview and One Joke

2007-11-17T13:55:00.000-08:00

I was surfing YouTube and Google Video (again) and came across two interesting videos.

The first a video of a TV interview about the Italian influence on Tango in Argentina.

The second seems to be a practical joke played on two women taking tango for the very first time. (i swear i gotta play this on someone!)

Video: Me and Olga Practicing

2007-11-08T02:17:00.000-08:00

Just another video of me practicing, this one with Olga at Steppin Out. Since my last posting, I've been working on my knee flexion, varying the spacing and timing of steps, embellishing with taps, and, of course, playing with the fundamental walk. I know I have a long way to go, but I hope the video suggests I may be on the right track.

A Change in Pace

2007-10-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

I returned from the naginata world championships in Belgium a number of weeks ago and have been rather slow to get back into the Tango scene: I haven't been showing up to nearly as many milongas as before, and I haven't really tried to set up too many practice sessions with my partners. In fact, I mentioned to a number of friends that I may have actually kicked my Tango addiction! Not that I don't like Tango anymore ... nothing like that at all. It's more that there's no longer something in my body compelling me to hit up the milongas or practicas every night; kind of like I no longer Tango because I need to, but I do so because I choose to. (Yeah, it was that bad.) Anyway, I've been very selective with whom I've been practicing, where I've been dancing, and on what I've been working. In other words, I may not be dancing or practicing nearly as much as before, but by being more selective, I'm getting as much out of my time spent in Tango ...if not more.

It may be about time for this change of pace, too, as I think my Tango now needs a bit of maturity for me to get to that proverbial "next level." Rather than using simply my raw talent and unbridled enthusiasm for the dance to drive my practice and dancing, as I had been doing up until recently, it's about time that I start consciously focusing on technique, precision, and efficiency of movement. I've been told that I already have pretty clean steps, but in all honesty, although I have always been aware of good technique, focusing on perfecting it had always taken a backseat to focusing on the rudiments of the lead and follow. Simply getting a lead to work the way I wanted it was enough for me. Now that I have a pretty clear idea of lead/follow mechanics, I think it's safe to shift gears so that I'm not only ensuring my stuff works, but I'm also trying to make it work as smoothly and as beautifully as I can make it.

As I'd mentioned before, I've been taking private lessons with Romina and Marcelo for almost a year now. The original purpose was to get Tania and me (and others) trained for potential stage performances. As such, we've been drilling in performance routines and how to make them look good. These have been extremely productive lessons, as they have forced me to think about steps and timing in much more exacting detail than I would have been thinking about them otherwise. I also learned many unique moves that I've started incorporating into my social dance repertoire. (Romina and Marcelo's style isn't ostentatious at all, so even when I do choose to do a routine step in a crowded milonga, I'm not one of those ubiquitous bozos who does big, pretentious ones that put their fellow dancers at risk.) It was all good, but I requested last week that my teachers from now get a hell of a lot more nitpicky with me in terms of fundamental technique, style, and feel. I basically asked them to be like most of my martial arts teachers, who tell me everything I do is wrong!

Up until now, I think they'd been taking a relative hands-off approach to correcting me, and let me experiment on my own with what works and what doesn't. Unlike a lot of teachers I've heard about and seen, Romina and Marcelo aren't the kind to watch or dance with you for a while and give you a list of 5 or 10 things you're doing wrong or need to work on. At least they aren't with me. In my experience, they say very little, but show a lot -- exactly the way I learn best, because I learn more from watching and doing than I do from listening. If they tell me I have to work on anything for improvement, it's usually only the one or two most egregious problems they cite, which allows me to focus on correcting them, a few things at a time, rather then getting my mind spinning trying to remember the 3o different things they told me to watch out for over the previous three or four weeks.

I've asked for the increased scrutiny because I feel that I already have the obvious and major problems in my dance under control ... not that I don't have big things to work on anymore, but I'm already aware of the big problems and am well on my way to working to get them eliminated. My problem now are myriad, little things that I have to make better. And the only way I can address the tiny errors is to first have them identified. I don't have the experience yet to be able to see most of the little things I'm doing wrong, much less how to figure out how to address them, so I'm asking for them to turn up the heat on me.

In another, more interesting bid to get good (and have fun doing it), I've decided to shoot for competing at the Tokyo World Tango Festival (the Website for the 2007 event can be found here) in 2008. I'm not looking for glory or even a win for that matter. Besides it being an excuse just to go to Japan again, I'm simply using this event as a kind of kick in the butt that will keep me focused on improving my Tango.You see, whether I win, lose, draw, or even fail to go across the Pacific, I know the training I'll put myself through will make me a much better dancer in the end.

How will I go about preparing for this? I'm going to start by re-stressing the basics. First item on my agenda: getting a cleaner, smoother, and more powerful walk. There are many other things I've earmarked as needing improvement ... I'll get to those in due course.

I'm sure this will be an interesting Tango journey, albeit one that will be long and difficult. But like all journeys ... like everything in Tango, really ... I know you just have to take things one step at a time.

Wish me luck.

In the meantime, this is a clip of Romina and me after a private lesson I had a few weeks ago.

My thoughts on it are as follows:

Most of my steps were cleaner than they had been ... Marcelo afterward said he could tell I was much more aware of foot placement than before.
I rushed her sometimes after my pauses, which most likely means I did not give a clear enough signal to her with my knees that I was going to start again.
Musicality-wise, I was satisfied, but watching this, I get the sense that I'm missing a bit of "life" in the overall dance ... somehow I feel as if the real me, my "dancing voice" if you will, isn't apparent. Not sure if I ever had one, actually, and if not, I'm not sure how long it takes to develop one. Oh well ... in the meantime, I'll just keep plugging away.

Two Weeks Without Tango

2007-09-10T11:51:00.000-07:00

Just got back from my trip to Belgium. Was way too busy for Tango, believe it or not. And I don't even have withdrawal!

Gonna get some rest today, and maybe go tonight.

I'm back!

Must Focus ... Must Focus ... Musssstttt ....

2007-08-27T00:29:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I posted a blog entry that had me musing that given the choice between fighting and dancing, Tango was a no-brainer. Seems as if I've done a 180 since then. After engaging in some sparring matches lately, in preparation for the naginata world championships next week, I've come to remember just how much of a rush I got when fighting. It seems that for me, getting in the zone in a fight is just as enrapturing as getting in the zone while dancing.

No, I don't quite have that Conan mind set, but I can say I've gotten pretty damned focused on this naginata coming tournament. In fact, I haven't danced at all since last Thursday, as I've been busy training, fighting, hanging out with martial arts buddies, and preparing for my trip. Heck, I'm not even jonesing too much to get out on the dance floor in any hurry. I guess that now that Brussels is less than one week away, I decided it's about time I shook this Tango obsession (Riiiigggghhhttt).

Hehehe ... well, get this ...

I chopped off my pony tail.

I originally went in to the hairdresser yesterday expecting to trim my ponytail by two or three inches. I don't know what possessed me, but when she asked me how I wanted it, I said "flat top". She talked me out of the flat top -- instead telling me she can cut it in some sort of hip/stylish way that all the Koreans and Japanese young men like it cut. I told her "Do what you will to it, just make me look good for the fights." And so she did.

It's amazing how different I look. Some guys in the barber shop said I easily look 10 years younger. (Let's just hope I fight like I'm 10 years younger!)

Anyway, speaking of my trip ...

I leave on Tuesday. I'll be tied up with naginata events until the following Wednesday. My return flight isn't until the next Sunday, so I'll have a few days to dork around in Europe. Don't have any real plans as yet, but I was kind of thinking of heading to some milongas ... in Brussels, Amsterdam, or Paris. Anyone know anything about those Tango scenes??

Something in the Water?

2007-08-16T13:44:00.000-07:00

My buddy Dash and I were sitting on the sidelines in Cellspace last night, watching the dancing crowd cruising by on the floor. We were comparing notes about this dancer and that dancer, when all of a sudden he said something to the effect of: "That's what gets me ... It seems people are getting over the Tango learning curve a hell of a lot quicker these days!"

I looked at him like I didn't know what he was talking about.

He explained. It seems, he said, most of the people whom we both agreed were admirable (both present that night and absent) had been dancing only as much as one or two years ... some for only a few months! And considering their body control, musicality, patience, maturity, and whatnot their level of dancing is amazing, he said.

"When I started [five to six years ago]," he added, "it took people three to four years to get to the point where you guys now are in a few months to a year."

I don't know whether what he's saying is true or not, but I'm assuming he knows what he's talking about. He's been around the Bay Area Tango scene for a while, so I'll take his word for it.

Given this, I tried to form a hypothesis. I don't think the Bay Area communities changed anything in their water supply recently, so the answer can't be in what we're drinking. The answer has to be somewhere else.

I threw this idea out: Six years ago, I don't think there were as many experienced Tango dancers and teachers in the community as there are now. Because there is a larger corps of veterans dancing at practicas and milongas, discoveries in new students' learning processes come quicker. After all, the more experienced people from whom relative newbies can learn, dance with, and/or emulate the better.

I don't know. Just thought I'd throw out that idea as food for thought.

Seeing Orange for the First Time, Breaking the Code of Silence, and Getting Punched in the Gut While Dancing

2007-08-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

I went a few days ago to the Orange Practica at the Beat for the very first time. I was only there for about an hour and a half, but I had a chance to practice two or three tandas with a woman I'd dance with before but whom I hadn't seen in a while. I think I met her the very first time I went to Cellspace. She was just a beginner back then, but with such a great natural follow and balance, she rapidly became one of my favorites.

Although I love how she dances, I think what makes her most memorable are some of the things we say to each other while we're on the floor. Whenever we pair up, it seems we're always laughing and cracking jokes. Yes, I know, telling jokes at a milonga while dancing goes against all Tango traditions ... but then again, Cellspace itself doesn't seem very wed to tradition, so I guess it's okay. As far as Monday goes, it was a practica, so the code of silence didn't seem to be so strict.

Anyway, before I forget them, I thought I'd put a few clips of some conversations she and I had at the Beat.

ME: Doing a series of quick steps at double time to fast music.
HER: Looking down at my feet, giggles. Suddenly stops.
ME: “Go ahead, you can say it.”
HER: Quizzical silence.
ME: “You know, you were gonna say, 'That was awesome!' but then you thought better of it because you figured if you did, you'd give me a big head, huh?”
HER: Uncontrolled laughter

ME: Leading a pasada.
HER: Doing a pasada, knee coming awfully close to my family jewels.
ME: “Whoa! You almost kicked me in the gonads!”
HER: “I almost kneed you in the gonads. And believe me, if I wanted to you'd never have kids again.”
ME: “'Again'? How you know if I ever had kids before?”
HER: “I guess I don't know. I'm sorry. My bad.”
ME: “It's okay. I don't know whether I ever had kids before either.”

HER: “Wow! No one's ever done that to me before.”
ME: Smiles. “If you just gave me the chance, I'm sure I can show you a lot of things no one's ever done to you before.”
HER: Punches me in the gut.

HER: "You crack me up."
ME: "No. You crack ME up!"

Video: Romina and Marcelo Intensive Workshop Review 070811

2007-08-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

I actually didn't make it to this one, as I attended the San Jose Jazz Festival instead. But thanks to Gentaro, we have footage of the workshop review.

What is a Baka Anyway?

2007-07-29T17:48:00.001-07:00

I pointed a friend to this blog the other day, and in her email reply to me, her first question was: "What's a baka?"

It just dawned on me that a bunch of you might also want to know the answer.

So here goes ...

The word baka is translated from the Japanese. It literally means idiot, but sometimes is used to mean someone who's overly obsessed with or knowledgeable about something. In the martial arts world, we have a common term, budo baka -- budo being a loose translation for martial arts -- to describe the equivalent of a martial arts nerd.

The typical image of a budo baka in, say, the United States, is a Caucasian guy who thinks he's more Japanese than the Japanese. He often squints even in low light and takes on a strange Japanese-sounding accent whenever he begins to recite obscure historical and cultural trivia related to long-dead swordsmen or Zen philosophy. It's rare to find a budo baka whose fighting prowess matches his/her knowledge of history and philosophy.

Although I think I'm not intellectual enough to be considered a true budo baka, I chose the term as the name of my martial arts Web log and as my blog-writer name. When I started this Tango blog, I decided on the title The Tango Baka because even back then, I thought, I was well on my way to becoming one!

'Nuff said?

Video: Tania and Me Practicing

2007-07-24T03:19:00.001-07:00

Just us again practicing. This time at Stepping Out in July 2007. I like my progress, but i can see i still have a lot i need to work on.

Video: Silvio Lavia and Daughter

2007-07-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

A friend actually sent this to me a few months ago, with the comment: "Her father ruined it for everyone she'll ever partner with in the future -- I mean, no matter what kind of tango god she'll find herself with on the dance floor when she gets older, nobody will ever be able to dance like daddy."

That remains to be seen. For now, however, it's just a joy to watch this little girl go. She's beautiful!

Check it out.

There's Something About Cellspace

2007-07-19T02:40:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is about Cellspace. Despite my avowed attachment to a decidedly disciplined, subdued, and more or less traditionalist style of Tango, for some reason, I really like the relative chaos of that venue.

Actually, with the word "chaos," I may be exaggerating a bit, as I don't think it's as bad as what I had heard it could be like. I remember hearing horror stories from people about what they've described as nothing less than pandemonium on the dance floor. Before I even set foot in the place, some people told me that with all the crazy boleos being thrown around willy nilly, I'd feel like a blade of grass waiting for some lawnmower to cut me down to size. Other people have insisted to me that what's danced at Cellspace isn't Tango. "It's something else," they'd say, leaving it at that. And still others simply say the dancing there sucks.

Well, I have a habit of not taking other peoples' word too seriously. Despite all their comments, I checked it out for myself earlier this year. Since then, I've been back almost a dozen times; and all but once I can say I had pretty good experiences.

Yes, on more than a few occassions, tonight being no exception, my shoes got caught in some of that venue's little cracks in the floor, causing me to stumble or otherwise make me look less than graceful to my partner or anyone on the sidelines watching. And yes, every once in a while, some really, really funky music starts blasting through the speakers, causing odd couples interspersed amongst the line of dance to break into Swing and/or variations of Swango. Moreover, you would think all of that, as well as having legs and bodies flying everywhere, causing collisions here, bumps there, and close calls everywhere else, would keep all but the least serious tango dancers at bay.

Well, it kind of hit me tonight ... I guess I must not be all that serious.

Unlike at other milongas, I don't seem to seek experienced dancers at Cellspace. Tonight, I only danced with three or four people in a two-hour span, and only one of them had more than a three or four months experience dancing. Despite the lack of experience, however, I was all smiles. With one of these beginners, in fact, I had five or six tandas, just because we were having such a good time screwing around and screwing up on the floor. And with another, we shared two or three tandas insulting each other and laughing as we danced.

Weird, I tell you. Really weird, because I never do these things at other milongas. Only there.

I guess there's just something about Cellspace.

A Rocky Start

2007-07-15T01:16:00.000-07:00

Rather than head out to a milonga yesterday, I decided I'd better remove myself temporarily from the tango scene and train for that naginata world championships I'll be entering in Belgium this September. The good news is this: I'm feeling much more focused than I had been going into the Shotokan Karate International Federation's World Championships last November. Now the bad news: My Tango feet are keeping me from being the complete BAMF that I should be at this stage in the game.

I'm okay when "Gonna Fly Now," "Training Montage," or"Going the Distance" from the Rocky movie franchise is playing on my MP3 player, but once any tango song pops up, instead of my feet exploding or driving forward, to the side, or backward, the song possesses them and compels them to do friggin' tango steps!

Oh, I just hope that when I'm out there in the squared circle in Brussels, facing off against the Belgians, French, or Japanese, some bozo doesn't start playing Piazolla's "Libertango" on the auditorium's PA system.

I'd really be in deep doo-doo.

Following a Pattern or Following a Lead

2007-07-13T12:49:00.000-07:00

There I was a few days ago practicing combinations and posture by myself at a dance studio, when a woman pops out of nowhere and says to me: "It takes two to Tango. Need someone to dance with?" Before I could say anything, she comes into my arms.

So what the hell? I dance.

I think I might have danced with her two or three songs before we stopped and started to chat. She says to me that she's been doing Tango for nine years, but in the past two years she'd gotten tired of the cliquish Bay Area Tango scene so she took up Hustle instead.

When I asked why Hustle, she answers that Hustle is fun ... it isn't anywhere near as complicated as Tango, but even with Tango, there comes a point when you don't get much variety from your partners.

"Sometimes Tango can get boring," she says. "All leaders have patterns, and if you dance with them enough you can figure them out."

I've heard other followers say that before as well. To which, I usually replied as I reply to her: "I don't have patterns, because I've never been taught any patterns. I do have some favorite combinations, though, but I modify them on the fly all the time depending on the situation."

She looks at me as if I'm full of it.

"You don't have the same patterns or combinations as other leaders, but it took me four minutes to recognize your repertoire," she says proudly.

I'm not sure if after nine years she's come to understand that good leaders adjust to their followers. When I'm just dancing -- as opposed to teaching the follower to do something -- I'm constantly making adjustments to my lead depending on how my follow is reading me. If she has a sensitive, patient follow, I can play with myriad options to each step. If she's not as sensitive or patient, in the interest of keeping the dance flowing, the regular steps is what she gets.

In the four minutes she spoke of, I was still in the feeling-out process; after all, I'd never seen or danced with this woman before. And when I was dancing with her, on many occassion, I felt her anticipating my next move. So rather than breaking the flow of the dance by forcing her to do what I wanted, I simply adjusted to allow her to complete her anticipated move. It was only after she explained to me that she started recognizing my repertoire that I realized what was going on: She assumes all leaders have patterns, and all she has to do is find out what they are.

If she decries the lack of creativity in leaders, maybe she should stop looking for their patterns and just concentrate on following. Because the thing is, if you look hard enough for anything, you'll probably find what you're looking for.

It Was Never Meant to Be

2007-07-05T23:32:00.001-07:00

I found out tonight that Norie is moving out of town ... almost all the way across the country, in fact.

This sucks. I'm so sad. I really had high hopes for us, too, as we've traditionally worked very well together and I don't think I've felt a stronger natural connection with anyone else I've danced with yet.

But I guess that's life.

That's Tango.

Video: Roberto Herrera and Vanina Bilous

2007-07-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I told Marcelo I really liked Roberto Herrera's style of dance, and I couldn't get enough of watching a video of him and Natacha Poberaj dancing. Marcelo told me that if I liked seeing those two, I should see if I could get some footage of Herrera and Vanina Bilous, who was, I think, the partner who Herrera is traditionally associated with. Just scanning YouTube today, I happened to come across such footage.

Marcelo was right. They're awesome.

How I Got Dancing in the First Place

2007-06-30T00:44:00.000-07:00

I originally wrote this in another, non-tango blog many, many moons ago. I decided recently to adapt it a little and post it here, too, because, well, I realized that the Tango Baka might be an appropriate place for it too.

It was in July 2005 ... and I was feeling good about myself.

I was, after all, on my first (and most likely only) date with Ms. LS -- a hot Taiwanese-American designer/Web master/architecture buff/educator/babe -- at the Stern Grove Festival, listening to the salsa band O-Maya turn up the heat on an otherwise foggy San Francisco summer day. She and I had gotten there an hour and a half before the show started. Even so, we arrived a bit too late to secure a spot on the level green around the stage. So from our seated position high in the surrounding wooded hills, we had to watch through the trees as the band began to play and the people below us began to party.

They jumped spontaneously to their feet and danced salsa, "walking" and gyrating their hips to the beat, spinning left, spinning right, and otherwise having a great time.

That’s when I noticed that LS had started to giggle.

"Look at them," she said, motioning toward the crowd. "They don’t know what they’re doing."

"Who?" I asked.

"Them," she said, pointing to a couple at the far edge of the field, near the stage. They were barely visible -- so, so small. "See how they’re knocking their knees? That’s because they’re not offset from one another."

I had no idea what she was talking about.

The woman looks like she’s teaching the man a simple dance step, LS explained. He must be a beginner, and they shouldn’t do salsa so close if they’re going to stand directly in front of one nother, especially if one of them is a beginner.

If you’re too close and your timing is off, then your legs will hit your partner’s, she added.

"See?" she pointed to the poor couple once more, who just got done, needless to say, banging knees again. "Now she’s given up on him."

We both laughed aloud as the couple sat down -- in dejection.

When we were through laughing, I couldn't help but to think about what just happened.

"Hey, that's pretty good," I told her. "You sound as if you know what you're talking about. Do you do salsa?"

She nodded.

"I used to teach beginning salsa when I was at UC Berkeley," she said. The image of this woman wiggling her hips popped into my mind. Man, I thought, it would sure be cool if this babe got up to dance for me. What a sight that would be!

But then, I paused to think: then she'd try to get me to dance with her! And I just don't do that.

It was right about then that she started giving me that look.

"No. No, not me," I blurted. "I don't dance."

"You don't do salsa?"

"Nope. Not salsa. Not anything," I replied. "I don't dance. Never have."

She stopped to look at me dead in the eye.

Then she said five simple words -- without a hint of emotion, without a hint that she meant anything more or anything less: "I feel sorry for you."

After she had turned back to look toward the band and crowd of dancers, I started to think I was somewhat of an oxymoron -- a Filipino man who doesn't dance.

I started the day happy, but for the next few days, like LS, I kind of felt sorry for me, too.

That was a Sunday. The following Tuesday, I enrolled in some dance classes.

Evolutionary Steps Explained

2007-06-27T23:34:00.000-07:00

I walked in 15 minutes late (again) to the weekly private lesson that Tania and I take with Romina and Marcelo. For the past two weeks, they’ve been working on milongas with us, a dance that both Tania and I have come to love but have very little experience with.

As soon as I got into the room, Tania greeted me with her customary “Hi, Gorgeous!” [an inside joke derived from a story I told her last year], then her face got a little serious and she said: “Get on your shoes quick. They’re showing us some crazy shit today.”

“Crazy shit”? I said to myself. Bring it on! I’m always up for a challenge.

Romina and Marcelo started off by demonstrating the step … and yeah, Tania was right, it was a crazy little move, but it was so cool. I fell in love with it immediately and started dreaming of possibilities as soon as I saw it.

Without trying to explain it in too much detail, it basically starts off with me leading my follower into a deep backward ocho. Then, after she completes the ocho, I walk her in a series of quick and tiny steps forward (which means I’m walking backward). I’m not sure if this is inherent in the step itself or if it’s embellished, but as the follower walks forward, Romina and Tania were throwing their hips around with each step, almost like a woman doing a Brazilian samba (as opposed to a ballroom samba.)

When Romina and Marcelo demonstrated it to me the first time, my mouth fell agape. I remember saying aloud: “Whoa! Where the hell you get THAT? I’ve never seen it before!”

Marcelo’s reply was quick: “Neither have I.”

I thought he was joking, but left it at that until after I gave leading the step a go. After a few tries, I knew it still needed a lot of work, but I was able to do it functionally with both Romina and Tania. So in a moment of downtime, I asked Marcelo: “Did you seriously make it up?”

“Of course,” came his reply, accompanied (of course) with that Marcelo smile.

After a second or two of silence, Romina chimed in.

“We’re always practicing together,” Romina said. “And when we do, new steps come up ... sometimes by mistake, sometimes on purpose. That’s how moves are created.”

It made sense, I told her, but the way I come up with many of the moves that only I do is by trying to imitate others -- like Marcelo or random people I see on YouTube. Many times, however, I can’t do the moves exactly like the person I’m trying to emulate, but in the process of trying, I come up with something almost as cool.

“That’s exactly how a lot of the different tango moves were created,” Marcelo said. “But just imagine in the age before YouTube, when guys would sit at milongas just watching other people dance. They might think something that someone did was really nice, and they wanted to do it, too. But they couldn’t rewind a video to study like you can now.”

So the results of their efforts were much more varied, he added.

Getting back to the step he just showed me, he said: “But who knows if we really made this one up? Maybe someone somewhere sometime came up with the very same move already.”

I looked at him quizzically.

He explained that it happens quite often in the tango world … some guy discovers a step, works it up, and executes it in some milonga or performance, only to have some old guy come up to him and say something to the effect of: "Wow! Who taught you to do that thing you do? I made up that step 80 years ago but haven’t seen anyone do it in decades!”

Then, Marcelo added something that reminded me of a conversation I had with a martial arts sensei many years ago.

Humans have two arms and two legs, Marcelo said, and given that there are certain rules and concepts inherent in tango, there’s only a finite number of different things they can do with their appendages, so people are bound to discover steps that have already been discovered.

Unsolicited Advice for Struggling Tango Students

2007-06-26T02:03:00.000-07:00

These are things I offer as unsolicited advice all the time to people without thinking about it. I just thought it might be nice to put them down in a Top 10 list somewhere. So, here goes ....

(I know it sounds like something out of Miyamoto Musashi's book on martial arts strategy, Go Rin No Sho, and I'm sorry for that. Whether for martial arts students or aspiring dancers, however, I think the words might be helpful. If not, ignore everything I said.)

10. Identify the things that hinder the learning process and avoid them. I actually adapted this from a memorable quote in the 1985 movie "Better Off Dead". The character Charles De Mar said this while giving skiing instructions: "Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn. " Sounds silly, but it's only silly in its simplicity.

9. Do not get frustrated. Have confidence that given time you can figure out anything that’s taught to you. Frustration is a mental block that hinders your ability to learn.

8. Know that confidence is your best friend and overconfidence is one of your worst enemies. Be confident and proud of what you can do, but not to the point where you feel you don’t need to practice. Always tell yourself that you’re good, but add that you know you can be a lot better.

7. Do not rush the learning process. Unless you’re competing or performing and you have a set date for the event, you’re not on any kind of timeline. Be patient, and understand that rushing to learn too quickly most often leads to sloppiness.

6. Improve by playing with the things you know well and studying the things that you don’t. ‘Nuff said.

5. Do not idolize anyone to the point that you think you’ll never be like them. By doing so, you’ve already set a limit to how much you can improve.

4. Consider teachers and practice partners as teammates and friends, and treat them accordingly. If you can’t do so, then it’s probably the case that they’re not good for you.

3. Learn first with your eyes, next with your ears, always with your mind, and seldom with your mouth. Unless you’re a teacher, be a student.

2. Be consistent with your study and practice. You need consistent practice to improve precision, muscle memory, and coordination.

1. Don’t bleed on the dance floor. In other words, don’t do stupid things that will hurt you, your partner, or other people around you.

Some Favorite Songs 2

2007-06-25T00:36:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd post links to the songs I'm listening to most at any given time. Almost all of the links point to pages on TodoTango.com, one of the most extensive resources of tango information on the Internet. The quality of recordings varies greatly.

El Amanecer- Roberto Firpo
Malena -Trio Pascual Mamone

You will most likely need Microsoft Internet Explorer and the Windows Media Player plug-in to listen to the streaming music.

An Awesome Milonga Set, and Lauren's Official Opinion of Me Revealed

2007-06-24T01:38:00.001-07:00

I just got back from Tania's. She hosted another Tango party. It was actually a birthday celebration for her, Romina, and Marcelo, as well as an orientation for the group of 25-30 people going on the trip to Buenos Aires that Romina and Marcelo are hosting in a few months.

My non-food or wine highlight of the evening: a set of three or four milongas -- including one to "Ella Es Asi" -- that I danced to with Romina.

In my short two years of dancing, I've never danced with anyone who played so much with the music! It was really something new to me, too, because my image of Romina is that she's pretty conservative with her flourishing. But this time almost every step I led she embellished. I was embellishing a lot too, but it felt like she was doing it two to three times more than me! Moreover, everything was on time and absolutely nothing she did disturbed my lead. Exactly how embellishments are supposed to be done.

It was truly amazing.

To be honest, though, I couldn't see hardly anything of what she was doing, but I could feel her body kind of wiggling at times, so I knew she was doing something with her legs ... I also could hear a couple of onlookers laughing whenever I felt this movement. Heck, at one point, she was messing around so much that she decided to embellish just by shaking her head!

It was weird. But cool.

This set has to rate as the most awesome milonga set I've had so far!

Speaking of ratings ...

Lauren, the 8-year-old girl who I see and dance with at milongas every once in a while, decided to divulge where I stand in her ratings of leaders . She reputedly rates everyone who asks her onto the floor, but tells no one except her mother about what she thinks, so as to ensure her mother doesn't dance with bozos.

"You're an Intermediate-level dancer, Martin," she tells me. "And you have an annoying habit of making up your own steps as you go along."

"Man, you're harsh," I tell her. "But I promise to try harder next time, okay?"

"You should be happy," she replies. "Intermediate is a good rating, because in my book, only Marcelo is Advanced."

Video: Pablo Veron and Geraldine Rojas, Assassination Tango

2007-06-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

This is the way Rojas and Veron were supposed to look at the end of "Assassination Tango." I think during the closing credits of the movie, the editing sorta made the dancers look off beat -- well, mebbe not off beat, but kinda not so musical. I thought it looked kind of funny, at least.

But if you have the dvd and check out the special features, youll see this video, which, as far as I can tell, is unedited...and rojas and veron are on beat.

Enjoy.

Video: A Scene From "The Tango Lesson"

2007-06-18T02:12:00.000-07:00

I never saw the movie "The Tango Lesson," but after seeing this clip, I think I want to. So cool.

A Tangoless Weekend

2007-06-18T00:31:00.000-07:00

No tango for me on either Saturday or Sunday. What a rarity. Damn tired, I guess.

I did, however, find a hell cool video on YouTube. There's very little tango in it, but it features two of my favorite tango dudes -- Pablo Veron and Roberto Herrera -- performing at the same time on stage.

Veron's doing tap dancing; Herrera's doing malambo.

It's amazing. Check it out. (I cannot embed it here, so you'll have to click on the link.)

I got my first glimpse of Veron when I saw him dancing with Geraldine Rojas during the closing credits of Assassination Tango. I saw Herrera for the first time in a video of him and Natacha Poberaj doing a milonga to "El Lloron." I find them both amazing.

Tarragon -- A New South Bay Milonga

2007-06-16T01:00:00.000-07:00

The South Bay has a new milonga, and its opening night at the Tarragon restaurant on historic Murphy Road tonight was a kick-ass success. Between 80 and 100 people showed up, some from as far away as the Monterey peninsula.

I got there kind of late ... about 10:30, as I had naginata training in El Cerrito until 9:30. After my one-hour commute, Diego and Negracha -- visiting instructors from Argentina who also served as substitute teachers for Romina and Marcelo when the latter were in Buenos Aires last year -- showed up and performed three or four dances for the crowd just as I entered the upstairs room. Absolutely beautiful.

I got to dance with my former partner Carol. She's feeling very nice again, like when she and I were connecting after we'd been practicing for 2 or 3 months together late last year. Also, I managed to get Tania out to this milonga, too! Ended up kind of goofing off on the floor with her again (though not nearly as bad as a couple of bozo couples who seemed ignorant of all milonga protocols). We didn't mess around for long, however, as she showed up at the ripe old hour of 11:45 ... eheheh. Fashionably late, again. At least she showed up at all! Hell, Norie forgot about the milonga altogether!

My highlight of the evening certainly had to be the dance to "Poema" that I had with Melida. Damn, it's been so long since I danced with her that I almost forgot how good she feels! So soft, patient, and comfortable! *Sigh* I really was one lucky bastard to have the likes of her, Carol, Olga, and Tania for partners. Some of the best in the area.

Atsuko was there, too, but I had no chance to dance with her. :(

Tarragon has great ambience, thanks to the lighting, balcony, and bar. And the energy tonight seemed absolutely upbeat and positive. I sure hope this venue breathes some light into the South Bay tango scene, as I think it has the potential to rival or even surpass anything the area has to offer so far -- that is, as long as it keeps drawing at least the kind of crowd it drew tonight. I will most likely try to keep this a regular venue. I've always tried to keep my tango activities centered in Silicon Valley.

I'm wishing the organizers luck.

Video: Romina and Marcelo in Pacific Grove

2007-06-11T12:17:00.000-07:00

Here's the first of two performances done by Romina Hahn and Marcelo Solis at their birthday party celebration at Shall We Dance in Pacific Grove California. The live music is provided by Marcelo Puig and Seth Asarnow.

Here's the second.

Belmont -- And Then There Was One

2007-06-10T01:30:00.000-07:00

I went to the Belmont milonga tonight. It was the last of the "Together for the Tango" milongas that David and Nancy Mendoza hosted. After almost two years of organizing live music, DJing, and dancing for tangueros and tangueras from San Francisco to San Jose, they have called it quits.

"We're taking a break," Nancy announced to the crowd at the milonga. She explained that the amount of effort put in to hosting the milonga -- including the cooking, setting up, and breaking down of the event -- was just too much for them, and they're tired. Nancy, however, said they're not abandoning the local tango scene, as they're continuing to teach classes nearby and they're looking to start hosting a practica sometime soon on the peninsula. Apparently practicas are easier to host.

With this latest development, Elaine Kho is the only one left hosting a milonga in Belmont, on the first Saturday of the month. This is a far cry from when David and Nancy; Roberto Riobo; Romina Hahn and Marcelo Solis; and Nora Dinzelbacher took turns hosting milongas on every weekend of the month. All of them dropped out one by one over the last two years for various reasons.

I sure hope Elaine doesn't pull the plug, because I always liked the Belmont milonga. It might not have the best dancers around, nor is it the most crowded or glamorous, but it is a nice, quaint venue. And more importantly, it is basically where I learned to dance, because when I finally got the courage to venture into the world of milongas I initially went only there.

The good news is that Sunnyvale is getting a new milonga ... at Tarragon restaurant on Friday nights ... starting next week. Unfortunately, Fridays are my naginata nights, so I don't know how often I'll be able to show up. But I'll try.

But now, I should just focus on sleeping.

Good night.

Video: Look What I Found!

2007-06-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

Olga sent this to me. Someone took a vid of a milonga in Cellspace last week. I make an appearance (with Lisa) from about 0:09 to 0.23.

I look like I'm hunching a little more than I thought.

Hahahah. But still fun.

Some Favorite Songs 1

2007-06-07T20:05:00.001-07:00

Just thought I'd starting posting links to the songs I'm listening to most at any given time. Almost all of the links point to pages on TodoTango.com, one of the most extensive resources of tango information on the Internet. The quality of recordings varies greatly.

Tu el Cielo y Tu - Carlos Di Sarli
Loca -Donato Racciatti / Olga Delgrossi
Gloria - Donato Racciatti / Nina Miranda

You will most likely need Microsoft Internet Explorer and the Windows Media Player plug-in to listen to the streaming music.

Almost Couldn't Be Happier

2007-06-06T01:42:00.001-07:00

I just came back from El Valenciano. It was one of those rare nights when I was able to dance with almost every follower present with whom I wanted to dance. Atsuko, Arona, Mayumi (man, I hadn't danced with her since the first time I danced with her last September!) ... thank you so much, you made me a happy man tonight.

If only Norie, and Coleen were there ... then it would've been perfect. Missed you guys.

Anyway, at the end of the night, Mayumi asked me to give her friend a ride back to his hotel in Belmont, which is on my way home. He's a Chinese guy living in Japan who's really American (as it was described to me), but he's currently on a business trip from Tokyo.

I had an interesting conversation with the guy (a conversation I've already had with others).

After telling him about my loss of heart for competing in karate tournaments, he asked how I could give up something I'd been doing my whole life.

"Man," I say, "What would you rather have in front of you: a warm, beautiful woman in your arms who smells nice and is trying hard to please you or a big, ugly freak with hairy knuckles trying everything he can to knock your block off?"

"Well, when you put it that way," he answers, "I guess it makes sense."

Happy Birthday, Romina and Marcelo

2007-06-03T02:32:00.000-07:00

It's 230am, and I just got back from Shall We Dance in Pacific Grove, on the Monterey Peninsula. In honor of Marcelo's (today) and Romina's (next week) birthdays, Mike, Terry, Tania, and I performed the routine we'd been practicing since last October. This was the first "big" performance we did. The previous two (at Steppin Out in Sunnvale and in Marcelo's studio in Lafayette) were basically dress rehearsals for this one.

Things went very well, though there was a mix-up at the start of the music, so the two couples initially weren't synchronized. I think we went one or two measures before we were all on time again. I goofed a little again in the same place I took Tania off-balance the first time. But this goof-up was smaller than last one's ... and because last time's goof-up was almost unnoticeable, this one should be imperceptible, too. Other than that, not many gaffes at all.

If I were to venture a guess, I'd say 100 to 120 people attended the birthday party/milonga/performance. Many people made it from the San Francisco Bay Area to celebrate, so I knew a hell of a lot of people there already -- Carol, Alfredo, Brent, Frank, Tammy, Mabe, and probably more than a dozen more. The floor had about 20-25 couples on it at almost all times, and an almost equal number of people sat and stood on the sidelines. But I didn't take notes while I was there, so my figures could be way off.

Anyway, I noticed something about my mind set in the last two performances: I wasn't nervous at all. Unlike at Steppin Out, I experienced no butterflies or weak knees in Lafayette or Pacific Grove. I just went out there and danced. In fact, I think I may have been in a zone, because I only have clear memories of certain points in the routine. Other than the two or three trickier parts, the rest of the routine is all a blur.

We were still at tonight's party when I think I figured out why I was so unperturbed. Tania has some sort of calming or soothing effect to her. It seems she's very comfortable in the spotlight and doesn't radiate any kind of nervousness or tension. In fact, her smile throughout the performance not only was genuine, it seemed downright infective, because I noticed myself smiling a lot more than I think I wanted to. (I was going for the Miguel Zotto cara fea look, but ended up being just goofy me.) I think I sensed subconsciously her total lack of tension, and this put me at ease.

Not that I think I needed to be put at ease to perform well, as I am accustomed to being in the spotlight, too. There were many times in my martial arts career when I found myself performing or fighting in front of crowds numbering in the hundreds, even thousands (the 1997 Okinawa Karate Kobudo World Championships, for example, had 14,000+ people in attendance). The huge difference between how I traditionally handle the pressure and how it was dealt with during the routines is this: In the competitions, I have nervousness and accept it, but I've also learned to subdue by force of discipline and training the negative impacts that the tension might have on my performance; during these tango performances, I had no nervous tension whatsoever.

As I was giving Tania a ride back to her hotel, I talked to her a little about it. She said she actually tries to put her partners in as much ease as possible whenever she dances. She competes in West Coast Swing, and during competitions, she said there's nothing worse than a nervous leader. "Screws up everything," she said. So she says she just tries to make her partner comfortable when they go up. How did she do that with me? I can only guess it was her smiling more in the routine itself, because other than that, I didn't notice her doing anything differently than before.

The rest of the milonga was incredibly fun. After our performance, Romina and Marcelo went out on the floor and performed two dances to live music that I can only describe as inspiring. Every time I think I'm getting closer to looking like Marcelo, the bastard pulls out one of those crazy performances of his that makes me feel like a tango peon again. Back to Square One for me, I guess.

Tania and her boyfriend, Richard (former West Coast Swing world champion), then did a WCS performance for us. Geez, that was amazing, too. Almost made me want to start WCS. Almost.

Had many fun dances with Tania during the milonga. She and I are connecting more and more every time we dance. She hasn't put me in the zone yet during a social dance, as I think we goof off more than anything, but that point, will come soon, I'm sure.

Had a great tanda with Romina. I think I'm finally moving well with her consistently; before, I never knew why, but it seemed as if I was moving a little too slow when I danced with her. In Lafayette on Friday and in Pacific Grove tonight, everything seemed nothing short of beautiful.

I also had a great many good tandas with a half a dozen other followers. I think one of the best though may have been with Brooke. I actually met Brooke last Monday at Steppin Out. After Tania and I finished up a practice session, an attractive brunette came up to me and asked if I do tango ("duh"). She said she did it, too, originally in Hawaii but now in Monterey. Before we could continue the conversation, however, Tania and Richard demanded my attention, as they were going to do a WCS demo for me. When the demo was over, the brunette was gone! I never even got her name ... until tonight. Almost as soon as I walked in the studio, she came up to me and asked: "Didn't I meet you earlier this week?" I got her name, finally, then we danced. Oh, she's nice. Been dancing tango six years. I took it very slow and simple with her. Just enjoying the feel. She's very patient and sensitive. Definitely someone I'll dance with again ... that is, if I run into her again.

Oh yeah ... I'm not sure if he was screwing around, but Marcelo said he has plans for us going forward. Because Tania and I started dropping hints to him in the past week or two that we want to do a milonga routine, he says he'll work to put one together. Then he brought up something he and I had been half-joking about for months: doing a guy-guy routine, complete with sticks, martial arts fighting, and dancing. That would be so cool.

Gotta go.

Romina and Marcelo will be gone for a week or two. They're taking a trip tomorro (today) to Italy. Happy birthday to them!

Where's the Love?

2007-06-02T01:54:00.000-07:00

Some bastard (or bastardette) stole my wallet tonight. At least I think that's what happened. We had another performance at my teachers' studio to warm up for tomorrow's "big" show. I got there straight from naginata class. I didnt want my partner to feel lumps in my pants when she rubbed her legs against me (damn, I love this dance), so I took out my cell phone, car keys, and wallet and put them in my shoe bag as soon as I arrived. I set the shoe bag down where everyone else had their stuff.

The studio is small, and the people who go there are a close-knit community, so I figured my wallet would be safe. I guess I was sadly wrong.

Well, when the evening was over, I went back to fetch my bag. Keys were there. Phone was there. But no wallet.

Damn.

Made tonight suck. At least the performance went well. And yeah, my partner looked good again.

Partners, Part One: All You Have to Do Is Ask

2007-06-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

Aside from maybe private lessons, there’s nothing better than practice partners when trying to improve in an activity such as tango. I’ve mentioned before that at one point I had five of them. I firmly believe that because of the many focused practice sessions I had with them I improved much quicker over the course of a year than the average student without one could have done in that same time period. This is the first of a multipart blog post in which I talk about my thoughts on practice partners.

The best advice I can give along the lines of getting a partner is simply this: Ask.

Whenever I tell people about the benefits of having partners, almost invariably they say something along these lines: “That’s all fine and dandy, but no one wants to do this with me.” To which I reply: “How do you know? Have you ever asked anyone?”

Their answer, predictably, is almost always “No.”

It’s very simple: You’ll never know who wants to practice with you if you don’t ask.

Of course, you shouldn’t ask just anyone. First, if you’re serious about practicing tango, you might not want to get people who aren’t tango dancers already. My first attempts at securing tango partners ended in utter failure. You see, about seven or eight months after starting to dance, I knew I needed a steady practice partner, but I didn’t have enough confidence in myself that I thought anyone would want to do it with me. So I asked a couple of women with whom I trained in karate. I figured that if they did karate, they had the certain training ethic that I needed in a partner … you know, discipline, focus, and respect and all that. Unfortunately, they didn’t work out, mainly, I think, because they were approaching tango as something fun to do, not as yet another activity they needed to work hard to get good at. If you take time to find someone who is already doing tango and has expressed a genuine desire to get good at it, that’s a good first step.

My first partner was Norie. I met her while I was drunk at a milonga last year (long story). I had dropped my karate-buddy partners by then (or was it that they dropped me? hhhmmm) and was looking for someone else. After a few drinks at a local milonga I noticed that a new woman, Norie, had walked in the door. Emboldened with alcohol (I’m naturally shy), I asked her to dance. She said Yes. After the first dance I noticed we had a connection. We danced maybe two or three tandas. And afterward, I walked with her back to her chair to talk. When she told me she’d only taken three or four classes before that night, I couldn’t believe her … she was moving so nicely, and, more importantly, we were moving so nicely together. When she told me she loved tango and just wished she could understand it more deeply, it sounded like the words of someone who might be open to the idea of practicing. So I kdispensed with my shyness and asked her if she'd be interested in practicing with me; I told her I was a relative beginner but had the same goal of hers of getting good.

She didn’t last long as a partner, however, because after two months she left on an extended trip to Japan. But her agreeing to partner with me did absolute wonders for my confidence. Someone actually thought I was good enough to invest some time and energy into to work together and get good. After Norie, I wasn’t afraid to ask others to be my partner if I felt we would be a good match. I’d gotten a number of rejections, but I’d also gotten a number of hits.

Also, it gets easier to find partners after the first one. Once you have one, I think (if you're earnest about practicing, and not just screwing around) people can see the difference immediately, as the improvement rate brought about through focused training is phenomenal. And the better you get the better the chances are that people will want to practice with you ... not only that, but the better you get, the more skilled the people are who you might agree to practice with you.

Some closing thoughts on this matter: There are a lot of people, both leaders and followers, who want to get good at tango. The smart ones know that to get good they need practice and that focused practice is the quickest way to gain skill. And practice partners are a great way to get regular, focused training ... without having to pay for private lessons.

This is the first of a multipart blog post in which I talk about my thoughts on practice partners.

Three Cheers For Tania

2007-06-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

Tania recently gave me 1.5GB worth of of tango songs (1,300+ songs in all!). I'm just now starting to scratch the surface of the gift. What an addition to my growing tango library.

Thanks, Tania.

Here's a video of us practicing a couple of weeks ago at Starlite Ballroom in Sunnyvale.

Memories of the Very First-Time

2007-05-30T02:55:00.000-07:00

I met Norie yesterday for the first time in a year. For those of you who don't recall, she was my first real tango practice partner. Basically, she started it all, that crazy drive of mine to find partners and practice with them. But she left for Japan last year after we'd been practicing only two months together. She said she'd be back in a few months, but I hadn't seen hide nor hair of her since I think last June.

Anyway, she's been back for many months now, but says she was pretty busy with school and finding a new place to live. Apparently, things have settled down for her and she had a bunch of friends over at her new digs for dinner yesterday. Lots of food. Lots of chatting. Lots of alcoholic beverages. And, of course, lots of dancing.

Great night. Was feeling good.

Why does it sound as if Norie is so important to me even though I'd only known her for only a couple of months and she left me hanging for a year? I know I sound like a romantic kid longing for his first love, or simply like I'm a wussy with no life, but I never really stopped thinking about this woman because she was the first person I danced with with whom I felt one of those "tango connections." At least that's what I thought it was. You know, that feeling you get in dancing when you and your partner seem to be moving as one? When you can do no wrong because everything feels so right? Where time just kind of seems to stop and no one else is around you, even though the floor may be jam packed?

She definitely isn't the best follower I'd ever danced with; she was, after all, a rank beginner last year. And she's not the one who's made me feel the best during a dance; I've had some dances with women who've also put me in meditative states -- many times much, much deeper than Norie.

Norie, however, was the first.

Hell, I don't even know if she felt the same way about our first dance, nor do I care ... all that matters to me was that after dancing with her I understood what tango was supposed to feel like. And for that I'll probably never forget her.

Less is More

2007-05-27T02:21:00.000-07:00

I lost my job due to a layoff recently and immediately took up some writing courses at a local community college. As these classes meet Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I found myself unable to go to my regular Tuesday and Wednesday tango classes, and I also have had to drop four of my five tango partners, whom I used to meet on those four days. This means I've gone from practicing 13-15 hours a week to maybe two or three hours a week, and I'm going to only half the number of milongas I used to. Moreover, almost as soon as I was laid off, an old karate heel injury started acting up on me again, basically rendering me a gimp for a few weeks. As you might imagine, with all these setbacks, the quality of my tango was bound to change.

Quite surprisingly,though, it seems to have changed for the better!

It's not all in my head, either. My teachers, Romina and Marcelo, commented on the difference almost immediately during a private lesson in which I seemed to be doing everything right (for once). A former partner told me a couple of weeks ago that suddenly it felt like I'm dancing at a whole different level, as if I'd added a whole different dimension to my dance. "It's like you're the same guy I've always danced with," she said, "but you're also someone completely new and different." Last Tuesday, after dancing with a woman I hadn't danced with in a month, she stepped back and simply said, "I can't believe it, but you've gotten even better." And finally, my partner remarked the other day that she's noticed a huge difference, as well . "You've improved so much in the last two months," she said. "I want to know who it was who injured your heel so I could send that guy a Thank You card."

The last comment was in reference to how I forced myself to move with an injured foot. My heel was such that I'd feel a sharp, stabbing pain going up my leg whenever I put any weight on it. Normally with such an injury, I'd just completely lay off it, but we had a performance coming up for which we needed to practice, so I willed myself to continue tango. I'm pretty confident in my body control and awareness (or pretty stupid, depending on how you look at it), so I continued practicing despite my injury -- trusting the power of concentration to allow me simply to move more slowly and keep the weight off of my heel and on the balls of my feet. I guess I pulled it off, and those two changes, have made a huge and noticeable difference. The injury, apparently, basically forced me to move how I'm supposed to move in tango anyway: slowly and weight forward.

Another factor may be at play, too: my tango may finally be starting to mature. As I'm often apt to do, I'm now speaking in martial arts terms, as the idea was most recently brought to me by way of my naginata sensei.

From the very beginning of my naginata training, everyone remarked how quick and sharp my moves were. Even as a beginner, I was as fast as the fastest fighters in the United States ... and I looked almost as clean. Also, with the knowledge of fighting and ring management that I brought from a couple of decades doing other martial arts, I was, even at the outset, a force to be reckoned with in any naginata match. There were always, however, a couple of guys who used to always kick my ass big time (and still often do). I was quicker than them and moved almost as cleanly, and my sense of timing and strategy were on par with them. In training, I'd often get the better of them 50 percent of the time, but in competition matches, 9 times out of 10, they'd smoke me. And get this: the two guys I'm talking about are 60 friggin years old!

My sensei tells me this is the fighter's maturity that's coming into play. My "youth," quickness, and natural fighting acumen may get me through practice sessions, but in matches, which are supposed to emulate life-or-death duels, a fighter's life experiences are brought to bear. She says that the best fighters aren't necessarily the most fit or most talented, but are the ones who've had to overcome more obstacles -- not even fight-related -- to get where they're at.

She calls it maturity. It might also be heart.

Is that what's happening to me? A layoff? An injury? The threat of indigence? If life's hardships and obstacles can make better fighters, can they also make better dancers?

I really don't know. All I can say is that for some inexplicable reason, my already surprising improvement rate -- facilitated by six or seven months of practicing almost 15 hours a week -- has suddenly become even even more surprising when my life went to shits, and I cut down practice time to one-fifth of what I had been.

This really may be a case of less is more.

A Tango Quote

2007-05-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

"Your friend sucks at tango. She must be a good student [in school]."

A tango teacher in Buenos Aires, said this to Hana, a woman with whom I danced recently in San Francisco. When the teacher said this a few years ago, Hana was a high school student on a family trip to Argentina. It was the introduction to tango for Hana, her family, and her friend.

Not sure what the guy was getting at, though my guess would be he was expressing the notion that tango is something you feel, not think about.

My First Tango Performance: Part 2

2007-05-24T01:31:00.001-07:00

Okay, I managed to see myself on video doing the performance again. Unlike my initial review of the event, I liked what we did! As I thought, with some separation from the event, I can see it wasn't that bad after all! I actually did look much sharper than I felt. And the major gaffes weren't as noticeable to the audience as they were to me doing them.

The timing issues weren't that obvious because Marcelo seemed to be off at exactly the same points in the routine that I was. Not sure if he did that on purpose or if it was coincidence. Whatever the case, I think the routine was definitely presentable.

I got a video by Gentaro sent to me by way of Olga. It's not too clear, but a later update of this blog entry will have a better version.

Video: Geraldine and Javier

2007-05-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if he originated this, but Marcelo said it to me while showing me an interesting step: "In tango, the feet are always trying say something ... and it's usually 'Look at me!'"

With that said, I'd like to paste two of my all-time favorite videos here. Both are by Geraldine Rojas (no kidding, right?) and Javier Rodrigues and I think both are perfect examples of what Marcelo was telling me.

The first is absolutely mesmerizing. When I first saw it a month ago, I swear I watched it for two hours straight every day for weeks.

I've been watching this second one for a long time now. Studied the hell out of it and I'm just now starting to understand what Javier is doing with his lead. The couple really is incredible. Too bad they've already broken up. :(

My First Tango Performance: Part 1

2007-05-23T02:16:00.000-07:00

Whew. My first-ever tango performance is over. At just after 10pm tonight, they called us to the floor at Steppin Out in Sunnyvale to perform the routine we'd been working on since last October. Mike, the leader in the other couple, suddenly fell ill minutes before we were called up. As we were awaiting our queue, I heard him tell Marcelo, "I'm sorry, I can't do this tonight. I'm not feeling well. Put on my coat and do this for me."

At first Marcelo told him he had to do it, most likely thinking that Mike simply had a case of the nerves. They both retired to another room for a minute or two to talk...then Marcelo emerged to ask a question.

"How do you guys feel about doing this routine by yourselves?" he asked Tania and I.

Turns out, Mike says he was really sick. He denies it was a case of the nerves, as he's done a number of performances before, so nervousness shouldn't be the problem. But his partner Terry seemed to think there was no other explanation. Either way, we had to figure out what to do, and fast.

The routine was designed for two couples: Mike and Terry and Tania and me. But Tania and I had learned a variation of it that would allow us to do it by ourselves if we needed to. Unfortunately, we hadn't practiced the variation for the last few weeks, so we told Marcelo we just weren't ready.

Marcelo put on a coat and stepped in for Mike.

The show went on.

How did we do? I wasn't too pleased with our performance, as I didn't think it was anywhere near as sharp as our recent practice dry runs. I may change my opinion in a day or two after I've distanced myself temporally from the event, but from what I remember and what I saw in the footage after the event, neither Marcelo nor I looked very smooth or sharp. A number of people in the audience said it was great, but I felt as if I'd performed a lot worse than I expected.

It was kind of interesting out there on the floor. I didn't have that very intense butterfly feeling i used to get before going in front of an audience, because I think years of competing in karate had allowed me suppress most of the anxiety that used to ride roughshod over my nerves. However, once the music started, I began experiencing that same heightened sense of hyperawareness I get when I'm fighting in a match.

You know, I felt every iota of tension in my arm. Felt a slight, nervous weakness in my upper leg...and then my knees. Relax, i told myself. It's nothing different than fighting: stay calm, stay alert, will yourself to do what you need to do despite the distraction of nerves. And when i screwed up, I had simply to tell myself not to let it get to me...stay focused. Despite my best efforts, however, I screwed up a little more than I thought I would. Most of my mistakes were imperceptible to anyone who doesn't know the routine: a missed mark here, bad timing there. But atleast at one point I took my partner completely off her balance.

Thankfully it was really what amounts to a dress rehearsal, though, for a bigger performance in Pacific Grove in June.

The great news is this: My partner looked simply ravishing. And she didn't look or feel nervous at all. I think that now this maiden performance is over, we have a bright future ahead of us.

I will most likely get and post a video of the performance sometime next week. In the meantime, I am pasting a video of a dry run we did a week ago. We have many videos with many combinations of partner (tania/me & mike/terry, romina/me & mike/terry, tania/me & mike&romina etc...). I chose this dry run, however, because in my opinion, we had the least amount of screwups.

Romina is my partner here, and Terry is Marcelo's partner.

After the performance Romina, Marcelo, Olga, Tammy and I went to Valenciano in San Fracisco. It was my first time there. It's a beautiful venue with some of the best dancers in the northern hemisphere.

I was very impressed: all of the followers I wanted to dance with for a long time were there...but i only had time to dance with one or two. I didnt get a chance to dance with Mayumi or Atsuko. :( oh well. Next time.

Video: Pablo Garcia and Mariana Dragone

2007-04-30T03:20:00.000-07:00

i came across this video last week. like almost all of the videos i post here, i cannot stop watching it. dragone actually pops into the sf bay area every once in a while ... this is the first time im seeing this guy, pablo garcia, but damn i like the way he moves.

dont worry, il haf copy flowing on this site soon. working on some entries right now.

Video: Tango With Sticks - Marcelo Solis

2007-03-28T12:34:00.001-07:00

Okay, here's my teacher Marcelo Solis hamming it up with a pair of sticks after a tango class at Steppin Out in Sunnyvale. I'm at the end of the video; he's handing me the sticks as I tell him to give me five years and I'll be able to do that, too. (I think Marcelo would love that to happen; that way I could still practice even in the case that I piss off so many partners no one would wanna dance with me anymore.) ;P

Anyway, after the video cuts, he tells me: "She's a good follow."

I answer: "She's a little on the skinny side."

Enjoy.

Video: Juan D'Arienzo historical footage

2007-03-07T01:00:00.000-08:00

A recent tango conversation

2007-03-04T15:57:00.000-08:00

I go to the Stanford University tango club practica last week and happen to partner up with a woman whom I'd never seen before.

After we dance a few songs, she suggests that I give her as much feedback as I can. And so I do. The comments I offer are nothing out of the ordinary: "relax," 'wait for the lead," "slide your foot rather then plopping it down," etc...

After each dance, after each comment, I notice she's moving remarkably more smoothly, so I asked her if she was feeling it, too.

"Better?" I ask.

"Much, much better," she answers with a big smile. "You're good! Are you a teacher or something?"

I couldn't resist: "No, but I saved a lot of money on car insurance by switching to GEICO this morning."

Photos by Michael Cohen

2007-03-02T23:11:00.000-08:00

Finally, some photos of me doing tango. The photographer, Michael Cohen, just showed up one day at Steppin Out in Sunnyvale and started snapping shots during our after-class practica.

The first photo is of me and my partner Carol. The second is of me and my partner Olga. Sorry, no poses. :)

Photos courtesy

http://hustlepix.com">hustlepix.com

Video: Geraldine Rojas and Carlos Gavito

2007-02-25T01:09:00.000-08:00

I've been watching this for months. Just putting it up now because I thought I already did. Sorry. An incredible performance by Geraldine Rojas and Carlos Gavito.

Non-Tango: So I'm a Wussy

2007-02-21T17:10:00.000-08:00

A friend sent this video to me. Chinese pop music video. (I used to study Mandarin.)

Almost made me cry.

*sniff-sniff*

eheheheh

Video: Romina and Marcelo at Cafe Mama 2

2007-02-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

Video: Romina and Marcelo at Cafe Mama

2007-02-20T00:37:00.000-08:00

Video: Zotto and Plebs

2007-02-19T17:40:00.000-08:00

I have no idea when this video was taken, but I'm sure it must've been long, long ago, as the couple no longer dances together.

I don't know exactly when I came across their names, but it was only a few weeks ago that I saw videos of them on YouTube. I was struck by their very simple, elegant steps. There's nothing fancy to what they're doing; in fact, I may know almost all of the steps they used here, and I'm a relative beginner; but they execute these steps with a unparalleled grace.

I don't know if this is choreographed, but it certainly doesnt look that way. To me, it looks simply like two people enjoying the music and the moment with one another on stage.

Remarkable.

Video: Roberto Herrera and Natacha Proberaj

2007-02-19T17:07:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd share this video with you. I've been watching it for a few weeks now and haven't yet gotten bored of it. I especially like the playful quality of the routine...And, of course, the musicality and technical mastery of both dancers is clearly evident. Though I'm pretty sure it's choreographed, it's almost indistinguishable from an improvised lead-and-follow dance. This is also one milonga performance that kind of got me interested in working on milongas -- I used to hate them.

Anyway, enjoy.

It's set to "El Lloron" by Hugo Diaz. (im trying to get a copy of the song. If any of you can help, please let me know. I love it.)

Tango Update -- 3. On a Recent Trip to Japan

2007-02-16T15:08:00.000-08:00

Before last week, the last post I entered in this blog was dated October 2006. Here's the third of a multipart update.
(Hanging out with new tango friends in Shibuya)

I may have mentioned that I went on a trip to Japan in November. I competed in the Shotokan Karate International Federation's World Championships in Tokyo. I didn't do so hot in the tournament. But I did happen to get some tango time in while I was there.

I managed to hang out with two groups that shared the a studio in Shibuya.

I didnt know this until recently, but the Luna de Tango group I visited had a bunch of dancers who competed and placed at that year's and the previous year's World Tango championships in Buenos Aires. Because the class I attended was a milonga class and I wasn't yet accustomed to milonga yet, I just did my best to follow along.

Another group I hung out with, for a practica one night and a milonga the next, had a bunch of dancers who I considered to be about the same level as those I would find at some of the milongas I frequent here in the San Francisco Bay Area. generally pretty good and some very good. One observation: I don't know what it is, but I've found that the Japanese followers I've had the chance to pair up with in the United States generally have softer-than-normal follows. That's not to say they're all skilled … it just means that in my very limited experience even beginner Japanese followers I've come across seem more likely to wait for and move with my lead than other beginners as a whole. I wondered if it had something to do with the stereotypical "submissiveness" of Japanese women. I didn't know, but I thought it would be interesting to see if I got the same impression in Japan.

Generally speaking, I did … at least that was the case. I had a couple of really nice dances with women there who seemed taken aback by all the steps I was throwing at them (I wasn't throwing many difficult ones, and the ones I did are simple to me and nothing out of the ordinary to people I dance with here all the time). On more than one occasion, in fact, some of them actually gasped during a dance "muzukashii!" (difficult) and "omoshiroi" (fun). I don't know why they said "difficult" because they followed perfectly and beautifully everything I led. At least they said it with a smile.

More interestingly, and what has become a joke in some of the tango circles I run in now, a number of people at a practica I attended in Shibuya came up to me after the session and asked if I were Argentine. Of course, I'm not, as I'm American. But one of them went further and said to me: "Forgive me for saying this … it may be rude, but You're gorgeous." :D Totally made my day ... actually, made my whole trip!

Upon my return to the Bay Area, after hearing some of my stories, Romina sent me a song called "Big in Japan" with an e-mail explaining that she thought it was a perfect song for me!

Tango Update -- 2. On Performance Lessons

2007-02-16T15:00:00.000-08:00

Before last week, the last post I entered in this blog was dated October 2006. Here's the second of a multipart update.

On performance lessons: I cannot begin to tell you how much I've gotten out of these privates with Romina and Marcelo. The routine is a simple, playful one set to "Mi Dolor" [click here to listen to the song, from TodoTango.com].

Actually, I'm not certain if I should describe it as "simple." It has a few combinations in it that when Marcelo first demonstrated them to me, the only thing I could say was: "Holy crap!" After doing the whole thing for three to four months, there are still two or three spots that give me trouble. It has some incredibly intricate-looking steps that require a solid command of balance, timing, and distance, but the overall routine doesn’t seem overly dramatic … there's very little posing and only one real jump.

I've been trying to incorporate some of these steps into my regular social-dancing repertoire. I figured that as long as I don’t do the bigger ones, I shouldn't look like a show-off ass on the floor.
My partner in crime for the performance is Tania. For a while I was worried that we weren't a good match. Unlike with my other partners, I didn't feel any real connection with her. I know it wasn't because of lack of skill on either of our parts, as I think she's an incredibly good dancer and I'm not half bad myself.

I think by last month, though, I was worried that I was feeling a bit robotic whenever I danced with her. It wasn't right. I figured this must be mainly because we don't really dance with each other … our only real contact has been the performance routine. Well, in the last few weeks we'd been getting together a bit and just dancing. It's so fun dancing with her. I kind of get carried away, in fact. I think both of our playful natures come out such that we're just screwing around on the floor, albeit with good technique, if you could call it that.

The downside is this: Because the few times we've been able to get together, we're just social dancing, we seem to be screwing up a lot when we do our routine in front of Romina and Marcelo. But I think they, like me, don't worry so much about that … as long as the connection between Tania and me is developing, everything will turn out for the better.

Tango Update -- 1. On Partners

2007-02-16T14:52:00.000-08:00

Before last week, the last post I entered in this blog was dated October 2006. Here's the first of a multipart update.

On partners: Norie is no longer one of them. I believe she's back from Japan, but we have yet to meet. In the meantime, I picked up another two! Actually one and a half, but who's counting? ;P
The first is Melida. This woman is an incredibly skilled, soft follow. Almost every time I dance with her, there's no other way to describe the feeling but "comfortable." She'd danced for five years in Michigan before she moved here just a week before I met her. I saw her for the first time at a milonga in San Jose before I went to Japan. I had danced a couple of beautiful tandas with her. The best of the evening, in fact.

While chatting with her later that night, she said she was looking for a place to practice tango. I, of course, recommended Romina and Marcelo. She showed up the following Tuesday and after dancing with her in class again, I just figured I had to ask her if she would like to be my partner, too, at least until Norie showed up again. Lucky me, she was totally game for it!

The other partner I picked up is Lata. She started dancing with Romina and Marcelo in San Francisco a few months ago. She's nowhere near as experienced as someone like Melida, but I sense a talent in her that I hope to bring out. Unfortunately, because I'm so busy with my other partners, work, and martial arts, and because she's busy with her work, we haven’t been able to set aside a regular time to meet yet.
Hopefully things will change soon.

Video: Olga and I Practicing

2007-02-14T12:59:00.000-08:00

Olga and I practicing after class in Sunnyvale.

Video: Romina and Marcelo Workshop Review

2007-02-12T12:47:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since my last post. I'm sorry, but i've been crazy busy lately. Since my trip to Japan, so much has happened in my tango world. I promise to write about it soon. But for now, I will simply post a video clip of a demonstration that Romina and Marcelo gave for us; it is a review of the concepts and steps they taught a small group of students at their Feb. 10 intensive tango workshop in San Francisco. The workshop concentrated mainly on sacadas, boleos, and interruptions. very interesting steps ... I found them to be pretty difficult, but pretty simple-looking...not very ostentatious or dramatic at all.

Just the kind of steps i like :)

On practice partners

2006-10-06T15:59:00.000-07:00

So, I now have four (count them: 1, 2, 3, 4) tango practice partners! Lucky me.

I hear that at a certain point in ones tango experience, it would be good to have private lessons. I agree with that, because there's only so much you can absorb in a general class before continued improvement demands specialized and indivividual attention. Equally important, if not more so, in my opinion, is a steady practice partner. I've heard people say that the very best way to improve is to dance with as many partners as possible ... that way you get widest exposure to the types of dancers you will meet at milongas. I would tend to agree with them only partly. Dancing with a variety of people is fine for exactly that reason -- getting a general knowledge of who is around you; but in order to study movement, to study deeply your lead or your follow, and to experiment with new steps, there is nothing better than a steady partner.

For one, the partners have an expectation that stuff will go wrong and that a practice session may entail 30-40 minutes of doing mistakes over and over again until a step is done properly. You can make 20-30 minutes of mistakes with different partners, too, but you would never know if the change in result was a matter of the adjustments you made or if it was a matter of your partner being different. With a steady partner, the number of variables in an experiment is reduced.

For another, the partners gain a sense of consistency. I meet all of my partners on a consistent basis. Conistency is the key to improving in anything. And improving in a partner activity generally means having consistent partners. I know that if i had an idea I wanted to work on, I know I can count on my partner(s) (who I also consider a teammate) to be there for me.

Moreover, a consistent partner affords the practitioners the luxury of repetition. The more you do something, the more confident you become at it. By having someone to practice with, you can repeat and repeat as many moves as you want to perfect. That way, when you go to a milonga and dance with a stranger, the moves you'd been wokring on with partners will come out decisively, clearly, and confidently ... like how theyre supposed to be done.

The abovementioned three are by no means an exhaustive list. I think i just touched on the first three that came to mind. With that said, I also understand that the partner is only part of the equation. Dancing with a variety of partners is also important, as this prepares one for the heterogeneity of dancers at milongas. Moreover, a good teacher is also extremely important. And last but not least, an individual's own desire to improve is key. If you had all of these other things you would still improve, I'm sure, but I think the progress will be slower than if you did have someone with whom to work.

The first person I had overcome my natual shyness to ask to be practice partners was Norie, a very attractive Japanese woman whom I met while tipsy at a milonga in Belmont. Yes, I know it could have been the wine speaking to me, but while dancing with her I thought she and I were moving extraordinarily well together! Anyway, thanks to the four (or seven, depending on how you want to count them) glasses of wine I'd had that evening, I was able to muster enough courage to ask if she's like to practice with me on a normal basis. She said yes. Things went well for about two months, then she disppeared on me! She went to Japan for her summer vacation. She said she'd be gone for a month -- that was four months. Hehehehe. I emailed her about two months ago asking if shes still alive.

She answered that shes really busy still in Japan, but will come back soon to dance with me. That was two months ago. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. Yeah, I'm still patient.

The second partner is Carol. She and I meet on Tuesdays for class with Romina and Marcelo, and stay afterward to practice by ourselves from 9:30pm to 11pm. Over the four months or so that we've been doing this partnership, I think we've both developed a real connection with each other.

My third partner is Tania. I've mentioned her before. I think she's one of Marcelo's best followers. And I'm flattered that Romina and Marcelo paired me with her for a little project that the teachers have in mind: They want to train us as performance tango dancers! If you were to tell me five years ago that I would today be training to be a tango performer, I probably would've given you a mae-geri to the face and told youto stop blowing smoke up my behind. Funny the twists and tiurns that life throws at you.

My latest partner is Olga. I meet her on Thursday nights. I first danced with her after one of Nora's classes at Starlite. I was impressed with how well she was following. I was shocked when she told me she'd only been doing tango a few weeks! A few weeks ago, I asked if she'd like to practice with me on Thursdays. Fortunately, she said yes.

My First San Francisco Milonga

2006-09-03T02:32:00.000-07:00

Went to my first San Francisco milonga tonight ... at the Golden Gate Yacht Club. Boy, how impressive.

I planned on going to the milonga in Belmont. When I got there, a friend's friend was outside of that milonga looking at a map.

"Do you know how to get to the Golden Gate Yacht Club?" he asked.

"I've never been there, but i kind of know how to get there," I replied.

Heshows me the map of San Francisco, points to a spot on it that's clearly labeled "Golden Gate Yacht Club," and asks: "Is this it?"

"Sure is ... you going?" I say. "Because if you are, I'm going with you. I always wanted to go there."

I hopped in the car, and off we went.

I've got to tell you ... I was pretty impressed. There were some pretty good dancers there. And some good pretty ones, too. Most of the leaders were damn smooth. The women didn't over-embellish much. The couples adhered fairly closely to the line of dance. It was quite intimidating at first. But I got a fair number of dances in.

There were some beautiul women. I didn't get to dance with any, though, as the pretty ones were almost all good ... and because they were good and pretty, they were in demand all night.

Anyway, it was a real eye-opener for me. Now I know why people say San Francisco has a great tango scene.

They're Baaaaaaccckkk!!!!

2006-08-16T15:53:00.000-07:00

My tango teachers are back from a long trip to Argentina. Romina has been gone for just over three months, Marcelo for just over one month. They performed at a tango dinner show in San Francisco a few days ago. I had almost forgotten how beautifully they moved. Quite inspiring.

Are we having fun yet?

2006-07-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

Is it wrong to try to get skilled at tango? Apparently, for some people it is. I was on a train coming home from a dance class in San Francisco when I ran into a woman whom I hadn't seen in a while. I don't remember her name now, so let's just call her Ms. Train. Anyway, she recognized me from a tango class we had both taken months earlier. Now, seated next to one another, we strike up a conversation.

Because of scheduling conflicts, Ms. Train says, she stopped going to the dance hall in Sunnyvale where we met. But, she continues, she started taking classes at another place on a different night.

She asks if I'm still dancing. This is about four or five months after I started -- well into my tango addiction. It is also around the same time I start to understand the whole concept of leading, so I'm no longer stepping on my partners' toes during each and every dance.

I'm sure visibly happy when I tell her that not only am I still taking lessons, but I'm getting increasingly confident I'm going to be pretty good at leading. Given my passion for the dance, and given my history of immersing myself in whatever I've set my heart to, I say, there's no way I'm not going to be pretty good at this.

Sagelike, she says, "The point of dancing isn't to get good, Martin. The point is about having fun."

The first thought that comes to mind is something like "Did you learn that line in grade school?" Somehow, she got it in her head that engaging in a drive to improve oneself and having fun are two mutually exclusive things. Her attitude isn't unique: I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say those words -- if not to me, then to someone within earshot.

And, honestly? The attitude confuses me.

Now, I understand there are times when people in some recreational activities get so obsessed with attaining an objective -- a trophy, prize money, fame -- that they lose sight of the enjoyment they derived from the activity when they got into it in the first place; their problem, however, is that they're beset by the same false logic as Ms. Train: They think that enjoying oneself and getting better at something are mutually exclusive.

"What if I like training?" I ask her. "And what if I have more fun doing an activity as I get better at it?"

I explain that the better I become, the more varied steps I can do. And even if I don't learn anything fancy, stepping on my partner's toes isn't my idea of having a good time. The more skilled I get the less I step on partners' toes.

"I don't mind if someone steps on my toes," she replies. "And I would expect him not to mind, either, if I stepped on his. We're there to have fun."

"So you're telling me I shouldn't try to improve?"

"You should just have fun," she says.

After a few moments, I tell her that I find a lackadaisical, happy-go-lucky approach to be unacceptable in an activity such as tango, in which so much of the enjoyment that comes from a dance is having to move in unison -- mind, body, heart -- with your partner. And gaining the ability to move in unison with a partner takes skill. You're either one of the gifted few who were born with that skill, or you're one of the countless many who need to work at it.

I understand, however, sort of, what she is saying. If someone steps on my toes I shouldn't mind, because, after all, toe-stepping is just part of the tango experience; that said, I would also expect that if I stepped on my partners' toes she wouldn't bite my head off, either. But if I knew the partner didn't care about whether she continued to step on my toes I certainly would mind; likewise I would expect her to get pissed at me if I continued carelessly to step on hers.

In short, a partner who isn't so skilled at dancing but wishes to improve is one thing, and I would gladly dance with her to the best of my ability (and hers) without hesitation. But a partner who isn't skilled and doesn't care to improve is someone who I'd rather not dance with at all. There's no point to it. It won't be fun, and there's no improvement to look forward to.

Ms. Train advocates a masturbatory mindset, one that's selfish and wholly self-gratifying. Tango is not a solo activity ... or, rather, like sex, it shouldn't be. True tango involves partners. And when each dance is begun, each side of the union should try not only have a good time, but should also try to make his or her partner's experience enjoyable as well.

I tell her about something my teacher Marcelo said to me over dinner one night.

I was telling him how, after three months of tango, I still didn't want to go to a milonga. He said I was leading well enough and wasn't sure why I was so hesitant to go. I told him that, first of all, I'm naturally shy. Second, I still felt as if I didn't have enough skill to lead a partner without screwing up big time. And third, even if I could dance a song without messing up, I didn't want to bore my partner death.

"I just want my partner to have a good time when she's dancing with me," I told him. "And I don't think I can do that yet."

He smiled at me, then replied: "Martin, with an attitude like that, I guarantee you're going to be a popular dancer. Your partners will appreciate it. That's what tango's all about ... the relationship between the partners. Just take your time."

Ms. Train had a different take on the conversation.

"I feel sorry for you," she says. "You've probably missed out on a lot of fun activities throughout your life just because you thought you weren't good at them."

I do admit that I've given up on things I felt that I wasn't good at: salsa being one of them, and of course mathematics being another. But I'm far from someone who's been too afraid to try something new. My hobbies/passions/experiences are pretty eclectic. They include 25 years of many different martial arts activities, three years of car racing, five years of living abroad in two different countries and traveling to many others, gaining the ability to converse in a couple of foreign languages, writing, wine tasting, drawing, guitar playing, and now tango.

I've had a blast doing all of the activities. No kidding, huh? I wouldn't have been doing them if I didn't find them fun. In many of the activities, I also am considered fairly accomplished: world championship appearances in three different martial arts, a world champion title in naginata, national champion titles in three martial arts, journalism awards, art contest wins, etc. Mentioning the list above was not meant to brag by any means, rather it was meant to illustrate that one can be very serious at improving in an activity and still have fun in the process. If you enjoy the process of training and practice, the accomplishments will take care of themselves.

I can accept that there are people -- Ms. Train among them -- who don't want to (and therefore don't need to) put any serious effort into improving at tango; they're perfectly content to derive whatever pleasure they can get out of the dance with only what they already know, and have no aspirations to delve deeper into an extremely deep dance. But I sure wish that those people who care nothing about improving themselves would just stop trying to convince those of us who do that mediocrity is all we should aspire to.

It's been a while....

2006-07-12T12:45:00.000-07:00

Actually, it's only been a week or two that I haven't gone to a Tango class or milonga. I was at Sonoma State University all last week for a naginata seminar and tournament, and the week before was spent mostly training to get myself in shape for what would be some important matches.

Even with the knowledge that my chances of making the US naginata team rested with my ability to put on a good show at the tournament, I had high hopes that I would be able to train at the seminars all day long, then escape to Nora's Tango Week milongas at night. After training all day long, however, at night all I wanted to do was eat, drink, and BS with buddies. So I pretty much missed Tango Week altogether.

Oh well. There's always next year.

I finally was able to go back to a Tango class last night. In the after-class practica, I paired with a woman I'd never seen before.

After taking the embrace and moving around the floor a little, I realized she needed some help. First of all, she held her right hand rigidly -- I reminded her to relax. Second, she did not come to the collect position -- the most basic position there is -- when I led her to it. She looked frustrated, so I said, "It's okay, just put your feet together." She stopped, and very defensively said: "Are you a teacher? I mean are you a professional? Because I don't listen to anyone if they're not. It gets too confusing."

Upon hearing this, though I continued the steps, my mind went into overdrive.

Who the fuck was this woman? She doesn't listen to any non-pros or non-teachers? Was I being rude?

After thinking about it a while, I just figured that she could screw off. Even if I was being rude, which I decided I wasn't, there was no reason for her to say that. I was there to practice (nothing i was leading i hadn't done a million times before) and she was there to learn (if she couldnt come to the collect position, she must've been a beginner). And if she would not do as I led, and if she refused to learn how to do things correctly, there was no reason I should be practicing with her. It was a waste of my time and a waste of hers.

I thought of telling her to fuck off right there and then, but opted instead just to wait till the song ended, give her a polite "thank you" and walk away to find someone with whom i could work with. I also figured that theres no way I'm going to dance with her again.

Her loss. Not mine.

Bitch.

Video: San Francsico Tango Life

2006-06-24T00:04:00.000-07:00

Here is yet another cool Tango Video I saw on Google Video.

Some kind of short (5 minutes) documentary. The club scene is shot in Valenciano, one of the premiere Tango spots in the city. I've never been there yet, but a couple of fellow dancers have told me it's an awesome milonga venue ... but the dancers who go there are so damn good, "it's kind of intimidating."

Video: Fabian Salas

2006-06-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

I discovered this clip on Google Video a week or two back. It's of a perfomance by Fabián Salas and Cecilia Gonzalez who dance to Pugliese's "Gallo Ciego."

Salas is one of the cofounders of a style of Tango now commonly known as Tango Nuevo. I've seen other tangueros perform Tango Nuevo -- many of them incredibly good as well -- but this guy seems to move completely differently.

Perhaps it is because, as he says in this ToTango interview, he mixes a lot of traditional Tango with his new style. I really don't know, as I am just a beginner at this. Nonetheless, enjoy.

There can never be enough high heels and fishnet stockings!

2006-06-23T16:00:00.000-07:00

I came across this article today on Bloomberg.

Kind of makes me wanna go to Argentina now.

Tango Revival in Argentina Spurs Sales of High Heels, Fishnets
June 21 (Bloomberg) -- Tango is undergoing a renaissance in Argentina, land of its birth, as dancers from Europe to Asia flock to the South American country to learn the steps and try out the new ``milongas,'' or dance halls.

Sales of fishnet stockings, high-heeled shoes and slit- thigh skirts are soaring as a new generation discovers the art of romantic dancing. The capital's tango radio station has quadrupled listeners in four years. more...

Argentine Tango and healthy brains

2006-03-31T22:27:00.000-08:00

This isn't new news, as it came out in November 2005, but i decided to post it here anyway. I think the one thing the writers didn't really address in this release, however, is that the geriatrics in the experimental population are in danger of developing an addiction.

A press release from the Society for Neuroscience

At McGill University in Montreal, Canada, researchers have found that the sultry moves of Argentine tango dancing can help the aging brain. “Our findings suggest that tango may be better than walking for improving the execution of complex tasks and the ability to move within a restricted area without losing one’s footing,” says Patricia McKinley, PhD.

Video: Romina & Marcelo Tango Perfomance - milonga - 060325

2006-03-31T22:03:00.000-08:00

Romina Hahn and Marcelo Solis are my tango teachers. Here, the couple performs the second of two tango dances at the "Together for the Tango" on March 25, 2006, in Belmont, Calif. This is a milonga-style tango.

Hahn and Solis are Bay Area-based Argentine Tango instructors. They also co-host the weekly "Together for the Tango" milonga; taking every fourth saturday of the month. This was the last milonga they will host before taking a three-month trip to Argentina starting in April.

This is the second part of a two-part post.

Part One: Video: Romina & Marcelo Tango Perfomance 060325
Part Two: Video: Romina & Marcelo Tango Perfomance - milonga - 060325

Video: Romina & Marcelo Tango Perfomance 060325

2006-03-31T22:00:00.000-08:00

Romina Hahn and Marcelo Solis are my tango teachers. Here, the couple performs the first of two tango dances at the "Together for the Tango" on March 25, 2006, in Belmont, Calif.

Hahn and Solis are Bay Area-based Argentine Tango instructors. They also co-host the weekly "Together for the Tango" milonga; taking ever fourth saturday of the month. This was the last milonga they will host before taking a three-month trip to Argentina starting in April.

This is the first of a two-part post.

Part One: Video: Romina & Marcelo Tango Perfomance 060325
Part Two: Video: Romina & Marcelo Tango Perfomance - milonga - 060325