Tango and sensuality
Almost four years ago we came to dance tango, and one of the first steps that we were shown was “sandwich” – some simple step containing “touching the shoes of a partner with the toe of one’s shoe”. And Ania , our teacher, said that we can do it playfully, flirtatiously.
For me then it was totally impossible. Playfully! Flirtatiously! With some difficulty, I could force myself to simply touch my partner’s shoe.
Just a couple of years before, our closest friend showed us what tango is in general, and he took me by the shoulders for this. I got out in no time and, definitely, with no understanding of what tango was.
At the same time, coquetry is quite a characteristic of me, theoretically, but it has always been verbal coquetry, which in no case does not involve touching someone with a shoe, God forbid, let alone hands.
In principle, I was ready to give up tango pretty soon, partly because it was just hard and progress was too slow for me (always so quick), partly because I often just had Too Much there. But my husband was just very involved and did not let us give up, thanks!
Then, four years ago, it was especially difficult for me to dance with the girls. It was, again, too much. Well, ok, the boys, but girls! They have, you know, breasts! They are soft and warm, here and now, and completely impossible to ignore while dancing.
Now the girls’s breasts haven’t gone anywhere, but I don’t have such emotions at all. Now I can easily make as many sandwiches as I like and can coquettishly poke a shoe with the tip of my shoe, or the whole leg of a partner on the inside of the thigh to the groin and back. I began to cuddle with my friends effortlessly during meetings and partings and significantly slowed down in tango, gradually learning to transfer this to other areas.
There is, of course, where to grow. The list is endless, but so far the most gaping hole in tango education is cabeseo. This is the establishment of eye contact and, of course, for this you need to look another person in the eye and understand that he is looking at you (this is not always obvious).
It is really sad that there are no workshops on the cabeseo – I would love to go. They teach steps and hugs, musicality and technique as much as they like, but the fact that people know how to look at each other for some reason is taken for granted, although I am sure that not only I have such problems.
I’m sure, I couldget some private lessons of cabeseo, but what I need are group lessons – this is just the case when it would be nice to teach the whole dance pool at once, so that everyone would listen to the same definitions and see the same examples.
Intuition in such an impossible matter as an exchange of views is hardly reliable.
