No overtaking on the RIGHT HAND SIDE!
Most leaders can not see or guess who is going to overtake them to their right simply because it is a natural blind spot. This becomes a much more serious issue for many of us who dance close-embrace.
This common-sense and simple rule of "NO OVERTAKING ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE" frees us from wishing we had the use of either "X-Ray vision" or "Reading (those very silly) Minds" .
MilongaCat
The only cat who loves you back!
Staring is rude, gazing is OK, watching is certainly encouraged. "Bizarre" ... but it is not really. Think about it, well at least later, if you want to, and "No!" you don't have to!
- Just stay there and watch!... and watch a little longer! ...and then do some more! whatever you do, just make sure you don't stare...it is said to be rude.
I cried out aloud – it was through the widest of windows -
"Please don't walk on the grass!
Don't trample those! Please do let them be!"
Time ...just before another moon rise, cutting through the clouds
Once more...
the young blossoms greeting the dark...
Why do blossoms come of age so early?
Why would they not want to slow down?
Some never learn,
Some make friends with every breeze.
What is it about 'the death-wish' ?
- breaking these many of young hearts -
"... old news...", these tire my soul.
These burdens - too heavy.
- "How can we hold?"
- through the widest of windows - I cried out aloud:
"Blossoms! Beware!"
"Mind every breeze!"
"Don't play! It is a death-game...how can you see and not learn?!"
- In the morning after -
The massacred blossoms laid all over that lawn
I cried out aloud - through the widest of windows -
"Please don't walk on the grass!
Don't trample those! Let the dead blossoms just be!"
MilongaCat
The only cat who loves you back!
It is difficult but I will try what I can and speak of another controversial issue, namely "Who is teaching whom?!"
The other day, in a very amusing conversation with some friends we were informed that somebody who is to be known here as "The Character", has set up shop and is now teaching dancing tango. This individual who keeps insisting that "he dances with his heart" unfortunately has always failed to realise that "Tango is danced with our feet too" and that tango is not just for engaging the soul but the body too. "A heart alone, without some body, will sadly not do!" this never seems to have occurred to him to be true.
I, honestly, would like to give him or anyone else like him the benefit of the doubt. If their heart is moving with the music when dancing then perhaps in their mind they can not realise that the body and feet are being needed. The embrace, the techniques, the understanding of any partner's involvement, the connection, the balance etc in this "couple's dance" i.e. The Tango!, may look as secondary and as unimportant issues to them but they are essentials. If their mind tells them these and other similar essential matters do not require their attention then it is only in their mind that the truth may stand to be what it is seen to be by the rest of us watching them!
However, a heart, alone, moving with the music when the feet are still visibly and totally confused to what they are meant to do, will not suffice when it comes to dancing tango in public and even more significantly if one intends to teach the tango. I would have thought even a short few months for anyone to have been present at the tango scene would have been enough for this message to reach home but no, it never did. Instead there soon came "the t-shirt", the over exaggerated accent, the self-promotions, stickiness, the gluing of oneself to various venues, the DJ's desks, and to be seen to associate with individuals who run them, forcing oneself on others' generosity of time and attention when they are simply being too polite or even too embarrassed to shake such characters off.
As strange as it sounds we now hear that such a person has set up shop. Yes, He introduces himself as a "Tango Teacher", and that he is officially teaching tango!!!
Personally I am not against anyone wanting to make a few handfuls of bank notes from "any bizarre bazaar", be it tango or any other trade. If some one has some talents they are entitled and should be encouraged to use it. The rewards are theirs if they can get. In fact the more tango activities, classes, milongas, exhibitions, concerts etc there are, the richer the benefits and rewards are for all of us. However these should not be extended so thinly that taking people for a ride is to be seen as a talent and therefore for us to be fine with it.
On the other hand the shocking truth might be that this individual or people like him may really see themselves as qualified to teach in their own mind and by those who have never been taught. In such cases, these are acts which are at the very best due to self delusions, but I fear the worse that there is something else here at play, a fraud and a con.
Looking around us here we can see that there are some highly skilled, dedicated tango teachers whom we know to have spent many years studying their trade, delivering the goods and polishing their acts. There are also those who may not be the best at teaching tango but at least they are very polished performers and appear where a public face of tango is required in the media. Perhaps there are some we can best call the unsung heroes too these are the teachers who have never managed to claim a great deal of public fame but, despite of that, their successful implementation of teaching techniques and use of knowledge have consistently produced very good dancers and we all take more pleasure with them at our milongas.
So... what are we to do with "the character(s)"? By entertaining the personal delusions of grandeurs of such individuals, or worse allowing the con-artists engaging their trade in our community, I am not sure who would lose out most. I do not have many ideas on how such enterprises or people can be stopped although I do know this that by ignoring these we will all lose out, in our own ways!
MilongaCat
The only cat who loves you back!
Diana Krall - Temptation (lisabon video)
It is the temptations that we keep asking about and the question still remains; "Can she resit?!"
He said he'd gone fishing. This made her laugh. He'd never been before despite the fact that he had always talked about it. He said it again " I could not join you dancing last night because I'd gone fishing!"
It was only the other week, last Saturday night in fact when they had danced in her place, in her sitting room just after their meal together. Naked. Together, past midnight, delicious. He sang to her through all those many of Armstrong's songs, singing along oftentimes: "It is true that it can only be you!.....", and he danced her through.
Translated by Edward FitzGerald (Fifth Edition)
When a mind thinks only of worshiping the messenger, it is impossible to discuss the truth of the message in hands.
Instead, let us just dance or listen to some silence or go and find some ordinary, everyday activities in life!
MilongaCat.
It was Jasmine. The aroma from the scented candles burning, the sounds of love cries by the bandoneon, and the gentle lighting that led the way into that milonga's dance hall, these reassured her. She felt they all said "Welcome!", her smile was a testimony to her feeling: most at ease as she reached the reception. She was able to find herself again," inside". It was good to see the familiar regardless of where she went, and in her opinion: most good milongas shared a universally familiar feeling in their welcoming format. This appealed to her sensitivities.
It used to be different. In the past, entering a new milonga hall felt like getting in line to go on a roller coaster ride. Scary, exciting, mostly intimidating at times but she knew she had to continue doing it if she was to get rewarded with her "tango-fix".
The excitement always began with the knowledge and fear of the fall (just like the roller coasters) there would be sensations of "Jump" which she could never say anyone can get used to. The jump is the moment that she'd go on with her decision to allow her vulnerability of becoming emotionally naked in front of others. When she would allow others to see her needs, desires and wants from them. There was of course always the highs that everyone seeks: A near perfect tango.
Many had told her of this addiction to the thrills of seeking The Tango Ghost for finding the highs. She could not understand these talks - not in early days of learning the dance, but she had learned of the ghost by herself. Now she'd do almost anything to meet with the ghost of tango. She had fallen for the charms of the ghost like everyone else she was hooked. To encounter the ghost and to be rewarded for her success in her trials needed her daring to increase with every attempt.
The gentle voiced woman at the desk asked her to spell her name again after she had collected her money and she sounded apologetic, a little hesitant in her request and hoping she had not sounded off putting or even rude to this attractive new visitor. "S..H..I..R..E..E..N" she repeated the letters, pausing enough between each to check the spelling of the letters being written into the book. She was used to these confusions with her name, it never bothered her.
-"Enjoy your evening!" the receptionist said, and guided her with her hand towards the changing area. There were others standing there talking of tango shoes and the weather.
In the main hall, the anxieties had not totally released her from their sharp claws yet, she knew that would take a little time yet. To find her feet and the feel for a new place always took a while. A new Milonga's lows and the occasional dizzy highs she knew had direct correlation to her own feelings inside, her bravery and determination although this was not always absolutely true.
Tonight was special. Regardless of what this milonga could offer by itself, for this evening her anxiety was of somewhat different nature; it was certainly not one of fear of the norm but one of expectations.
Tonight, although she did not know what to expect but she knew that she had been waiting for whatever that was about to happen.
Was the expectation for a repeat of the familiar? She had so much wished and wanted that to be so with him. Would he send her heart racing to such stormy heartbeats that it would be almost impossible to disguise them in his embrace? The unfamiliar was always easy, she had learned about ways of getting used to them, and to set her defences into place to deal with them.
The nearly familiar can bring on a different game, confusions always get triggered with these only.
He walked in. She saw him and once again she reminded herself that "Attraction is not a choice but a force!", this was the reason that drove her anxiousness forward.
She watched him. She waited to see how long it took him to spot her among the crowd. He did search, his eyes would not settle anywhere for long. Once they looks crossed, his broad smile confirmed his pleasure in finding her. On approaching her before saying anything: A warm hug, the reassurance that she had wished for from him. He put both arms around her, and gently squeezed her into his chest. This took her breath away. For a very brief moment she had none more to give and as inhaled back again she felt her blood rushed into her face. Her skin felt warm, and she could sense the heat as it travelled from her cheeks to her ears then the back of her neck and finally disappearing gradually in the back of her spine. "What a strange sensation!" she loved it.
"I just got here too, a few minutes ago, I haven't had time to change my shoes yet, it looks really nice in here, it is good, what do you think?" she asked. He nodded in agreement, and soon added "I haven't been here before, I hear it gets very busy. Popular is good, no?"
She liked the informality in many such busy milongas. At least that was how they looked to her or any strangers who did not know of the inner hierarchies and games and players who operated in this or any other milongas.
They sat next to each other. "Shall we wait for the next set?" he asked, she was relieved to hear that since she needed to get ready in her own mind too.
A man headed for their table. Before he had made his request she shook her head and smiled hoping the man would stop his approach but he took no notice. He seemed determined to want to persist. He continued walking towards her seat and stopped only when he had almost stood over her head. she decided to speak first and said "Thank you!, I am waiting ..." but she had not yet finished her sentence when the man just as determinedly walked off away from their table trying to give the impression that she was not the target for his request after all. This made them both burst into laughter as that man seemed to hover over another table a few chairs away just to repeat the same.
There were times when she would walk into some new Milonga and she'd be getting such frequently requests to dance that the whole evening would pass without her knowledge of passing time, only her aching feet could tell her that it was time to stop. She cherished those occasions. In contrast there were other times that she could have been just a transparent object sitting down for long times and no man would look at her.
"Milongas are strange places with much stranger people dancing inside them" she used to say to herself, and now she said that again in her mind and meant it once more. It had taken her a few months to manage to come to terms with both the wonderful as well as the awful times she has had at some Milongas. While she was learning to tango she had also learned that it is not her and that there are some very strange people in milongas .
Fickleness, oddity, and peculiarity are integral parts of some individuals' behaviour in any crowds and milongas are no exceptions. It is only natural for these to exist, and we must all accept and get used to them. This was another lesson she had learned by herself about dancing tango that there are so much to learn that have nothing to do with the dancing at all.
The set changed. He stood up expectantly, and said "let's pray for some heartfelt-tangos now!" . They were not disappointed. She followed him and he waited for her to collect herself in front of him.
She smiled, maybe it appeared to be nervously. He did not. Instead he wrapped her in his embrace. She felt the sensation of the blood rushing into her face and travelling to her neck and down her spine once again. She hurried to place her face next to his neck and closed her eyes to calm herself. He was gentle like he was before. They swayed and moved in harmony. That had mesmerised her before.
He made her feel like a precious jewel held in a frame of a ring . She felt like she was some chocolate that was being tasted and constantly enjoyed. She melted. She felt held like a Jasmine whose petals were caressed with the summer evening breeze. He made her feel precious by being Tender.
She felt entangled, inside herself with him, and on the outside in his arms. She was no longer anxious, her soul was touched once more by the ghost of tango.
"Tango Provocateur"
A Short Story by:
MilongaCat
The Jubilee tube line was as busy as ever, even at around 9 in the evening all seats were occupied. The train driver's voice burst in with much the same information again. The public announcement system was annoyingly loud, crackling and intermittent. "....Due to an incident at....this train has to wait here ....the control signal....we will...moving shortly....soon as....the London Underground apologises .... inconvenience...!"
Since they had become stationary the heat inside the compartment had been gradually building up. It was freezing cold weather outside but inside, in that tunnel and right then, it felt hot, hot enough for everyone to want to loosen their thick winter coats, overcoats, shawls, scarves, wraps, etc. The air was stuffy, and uncomfortably stale to breath. It felt hot .
It was not easy for her to ignore their looks and stares. She was getting these attentions mostly because there was not much else to amuse some people's minds with. Many had stopped reading the free newspapers scattered around and behind their seats. To occupy their mind and to distract themselves from the wait everyone had begun looking around. To bring to an end to feeling anxious, people always look for some distractions, and she felt that she was it now. She was now the object and the reason for their distraction.
She had sat crossed legged to the left and with her thick overcoat spread to her right with one hand, and with the other holding on to her rather large bag dangling to the other side, trying to be patient. But she was aware that she did stand out. Without a doubt, amongst them she looked odd. Well, she would have looked odd among any crowds other than her own because of the way she looked.
Her dark red miniskirt, the thin black silk top showing off her well sculpted figure at its best, the lift-up bra gave her a cleavage that most women would simply envy and most men could not avert their eyes from, with her high heel shoes adding flavour to her fishnet stockings which covered her long legs and matching her elbow-long gloves, these combined with her well made up face - they all came together successfully to portray an image which many fantasies are made of for both men and women.
Nobody would believe that this woman with her classic 'provocateur' look is the very aloof shy woman who is an Information librarian. She works in some old family run construction company and her entire working hours are spent getting pestered by visitors who are often the most irritating individuals with their mind numbing conversations being about requests for files, data , stats and numbers and that their lack of respect for her "data request procedures" do drive her to near insanity on some days.
Her life used to be her work. Routines were safe. Nothing much happened other than that. Going home - leaving from work, only meant being in time to catch up with hours and hours of American TV soaps - courtesy of a very good deal from a cable company. She proudly boasted about its hundreds of channels whenever she managed to get a chance to show off her diligence on spotting this amongst all others advertised. The 18 months long contract and the fact that such an offer was no longer available to other customers made her feel good.
Socialising revolved around the odd get-togethers with her university girlfriends. The routine was that they would meet up at some convenient location not very far from their homes and go on to one of the multiplex cinemas, have some pizza/pasta before or after the movie, and they would fill all the gaps in between with gossips about the story lines of the TV soap characters which they all followed religiously. Being in very similar jobs and from the same backgrounds ensured that there was not much difference in what they all did with their lives. The odd appearance of a boyfriend material person in their lives did never seem to stretch for long enough to carry much weight in their conversations. They had learned to leave that be.
She changed. She discovered Tango. Her parallel life was born a few months ago, and now she was living two lives.
Readjusting her overcoat on her lap, she closed her eyes and imagined herself dancing with him to his favourite tango. Piazzola and him transformed her world to where she intended to go. She could not help herself but smile. She choreographed him leading her as before. She had done this for almost all of this last week. These thoughts elevated her soul and mind. She was not bothered at all how they curiously studied her and looked on. She was glad now that she had planned to be early, and regardless of these delays she did not fear arriving late.
After another 10 to 15 minutes and a few more pointless announcements, suddenly the train jolted and they were on their way.
Would he dance her again as she had day-dreamed him doing and would he find her in his heart to be his tango provocateur?
"Tango Provocateur"
A Short Story by:
MilongaCat
Y los años van sin poder soltar
And the years go by without releasing
los recuerdos del ayer
the yesterday's memories
así mirándolos pasar y volver
seeing them going and comming back
los recuerdos del ayer
the yesterday's memories
A través de la esencia
Through the essence
de mil jazmines se filtra todo tu calor
of thousands jasmines all your warm slips through
Los pétalos de tus labios
The petals of your lips
buscando sobre los míos
looking in mine
apagar su sed
extinguish its thirst
Noches de verano
Summer nights
en la esquina de Begrano
at Begrano's corner
navegando a la deriva
sailing to the drift
hasta el amanecer
till dawn
Sembrando melodías
Seeding melodies
en la noche infinita
on the endless night
lo llevo bien guardado
I'm keeping it well
ya lo sé
I know it
Y los años van...
And the years go by...
Las vidrieras han cambiado
The windows have changed
y sin embargo ya aun te pienso
and nevertheless I still think of you
Casi sin querer
almost without wanting to
y soy actor y espectador
I'm an actor and the audience
en mi memoria yo te siento respirar
I feel you breathing in my memory
Noches de verano
Summer nights
en la esquina de Begrano
at Begrano's corner
navegando a la deriva
sailing to the drift
hasta el amanecer
till dawn
Sembrando melodías
Seeding melodies
en la noche infinita
on the endless night
lo llevo bien guardado
I'm keeping it well
ya lo sé
I know it
The combination of this video and song; impossible not to enjoy!
MilongaCat
The only cat who loves you back!
When standing on a fault-line of time, how certain could one be not to be touched through and within by the vibes and the vibrations through one's body and mind, at millions of miles per hour, nearing the speed of light? Can one hear one's own screams in one's mind?
How spectacular! Those moments could be as deadly as they would be when one's reality is shaken into only rays and beams!
Keep in mind that the rest of the universe is unaffected. That space-time oddity, that is all that it is seen to be, is normal since normality is only a perspective which is held to be true only by its observer. It is a play, by a peculiar child of many universal-functions named "gravity"; a leap into the quantum of multi-dimensions: a playground of the universe.
BUT....! No but(s) and no If(s), it has to happen, and as and when it does:
For the one who stood standing at the fault-line, there - as it happened -, none of these are to be grasped. In that point of oddity , the only thing one may look for is not a thread to an unknown future or to a more familiar past, but only to wanting, a scratch to grasp a very few more fractions of that most slippery of all life's gifts: "the present!"
In the midst of all these questions and thoughts I fear some unexpected reply saying:" I suggest that only "Ziggy Stardust and his cat from Japan" might know all the answer to those and even some more", or another screaming back saying "but you seem to forget that Ziggy's ego is as always too busy making love with himself, he'd be too busy to fly back"
If there was to be a footnote here, it would have read :
To: David Bowie, his songs still can make many smile. It is tempting to believe in the lyrics of "Space Oddity", it is also a bit sad to recognise the fate of Major Tom. It is even more sad to think that he had a zero chance to Tango, specially on the bright side of any moons.
MilongaCat
The only cat who loves you back!
