What transforms me into tango?

A long time ago, when I still did not work professionally with tango, I had to answer one question: “Why did my sensation change so much from one milonga to another?” It was the same milonga, with the same DJ, I danced with the same girls, I was fine, but one day it was wonderful, and the other I felt that I had only moved. Coordinated movement with the follower and consistent with the music, but only movement and in that … I’m not interested! I was left without that feeling of fulfilment I had felt at another time.

My explanation until then, was that tango was a human act and therefore it depended on internal factors that I little could control. Enjoy it to the maximum or not was a question of “luck”. Well, it is not that I meditated that much! … It was not so serious.

I remember that once, with a group of friends, we went dancing two days in a row. The first day was wonderful, a dream night, and the next day I felt a very big void, it was a real disaster! The next day and for several days, I began to think and review the details of the two nights and then I went further back and I began to think: what was I doing and with whom did I dance in all the milongas I used to go to?

In the following milongas I went to, I tried to make a mental record of what happened during the milonga, without leaving aside the search for pleasure when dancing. Then I came to the conclusion that in order to feel good in the milonga and be able to enjoy “I must transform into tango”. That was the phrase I used at that time. What that means: I must allow my body, my relationship with my dancer and music to slowly enter into me “Be tanguero “

I realized that when I danced with a lot of movement and many double times and changes in speed, when I just arrived at the milonga, I would enter into an energetic loop that was completely superficial but fun and empty, empty, empty. I repeat it several times because while I am writing I try to remember situations where I felt that emptiness and I feel it again and I do not like it, because “it is not the same to match with someone than connect with someone” (it is not a phrase of mine). To dance in a coordinated and musical way, you just have to match. That is not enough for me! I do not want to feel empty, I want and I need to connect.

So, to be able to transform into tango, the first few tandas I only walked slowly and quietly, allowing me to feel good, comfortable, feeling the comfort of my dancer, connecting with her and from that trying to find the music in a simple way, then I could feel that sensation that I always wanted to find. So during the night and while the milonga grew and developed, I also grew, I became wider and the movement began to arrive accompanied by this basis of mutual comfort and deep connection.