Stop the presses! OHD has finally, finally, finally found her wings!
Who can say how these things unfold?
Since last fall, nearly every teacher—Nina and Grisha and Roberta and Chas and Gaia and Tom and Nina and Nina and Nina—has been hammering away at this aspect of the embrace.
Raise your wings, Nina says.
Tuck in your ribs, Chas says.
Put your hands on me here, Nina says, then raises her wings.
You’re falling away from me, Roberta says, being the lead.
Like this, Gaia says, being the girl so I can feel it on her.
Here, here, Nina says, palming the muscles.
Give me your back, Grisha says, showing me the curve of his arm.
Give me your back, Roberta says, showing me the curve of her arm.
Engage, Nina says, because she knows I have that term from ballet.
Tom catches my eye as I dance by, rolls his shoulders.
Let me feel it! Nina commands.
I’ve lost the connection, Roberta says again and again.
Send your arms away from your body, Nina says.
Like this, Grisha says again and again.
Where are your wings? Nina demands.
I admire their single-minded dedication. I match it. I tuck, I lift, I roll, I hunch, I grip. I do push ups, as best I can. I make myself sore. I take long, hot baths.
I learn slowly. I don’t mind this. I don’t like to feel rushed. I like the process, the piling on of meaning, the slowly sinking in, the carefully observed, consciously created, incremental advance.
At work, at the photocopier, I tuck, lift, hunch, grip. In the ladies, as I wash my hands, I turn sideways to see the effect. There is not much to see. At my desk I hunch over a keyboard. I take a break, stretch, lift my wings.
In class with Nina, in privates with Grisha, at practica and milonga, I lift my wings at the start of each dance. But when the dance ends, I discover my wings have folded up. I do not capture the moment when that happens. I don’t know how to adjust on the fly.
Five days ago, I lift my wings in a confident way for the first time. This is the result of the slow pile-up. One day, it coalesces. And then coalesces quickly.
In our Friday lesson, Grisha stops to correct me mid-dance. I am concentrating on legwork; I don’t notice my wings. He shows me the curve of his arm. Pay attention here first, he is saying.
I turn my attention to wings. Lift and lock them in place, hold the feel of that configuration of muscle foremost in my mind. Grisha moves my legs while I strive to keep my muscles in exactly that place.
If you freeze a pose for too long, you need a hot bath to thaw out. Mine lasts one hour. I miss a dinner date, am late to the Merc.
Saturday I practice with The Man on the Wall, my palms flat on his shoulders, my elbows stuck out to the sides, in a pose that engages the back.
But … it engages me wrong. When I place my arms so, it pinches my shoulder blades sharply together—the opposite effect from the one that I want! How have I not noticed before? I turn away from The Man on the Wall, continue my practice in the imaginary embrace of a three-dimensional lead.
Sunday morning, too lazy to get out of bed, I wriggle to stretch out a kink. Eeeeek! This is it! So easily something slips into place. I have been lifting my wings from their tops. Too high, too close to the surface.
As with anything heavy, you must lift from below. Find the strong base, inexorably press against the weight bearing down. It is the subtle power move. It is pushups when your arms are already tired.
Monday night, I ask Grisha for a dance. This is a first. I don’t ask for dances. But he has been urging me to. “This is a practica. I am here working, Come and find me and ask me to dance.”
Never.
But I do Monday night. There is a slow vals, slow enough I can focus, melodic enough I can move without thinking.
Time to try out my new wings. Will he notice?
We stand at the edge of the dance floor. I let my hips and legs go soft, tuck myself into Corina’s cave. Grisha encircles my back, raises his hand. No hurry. My arm encircles his shoulders, my hand cradles in his. I take a light breath … lightly lift. My wings slip into place. I hold them there as best I can, holding tight. Occasionally I feel them drooping. In the space between steps, I slip them back into place.
He says nothing about my new wings.
Tuesday I’m stuck at the Turn, waiting for Julio and Corina to dance. I am cranky and cold and starving. I have already eaten six of the free mints by the door. If Julio and Corina would hurry up and dance, I could hit a pancake house on the way home.
Finally they take to the floor. They do not give a performance. They do not enter the social dance area. They enter the area cordoned off for practice. The area is nearly deserted, and they start … well, horsing around. Beautifully and gracefully and splendidly and all that. But still, horsing around.
This is the best tango I have ever seen! They fall all over each other’s feet. They laugh and talk and keep going. Her steps are perfectly placed—you can’t imagine the precision--and easygoing. He misses a step, goes off balance. They laugh and go, laugh and go. It’s not only their dance that shines brightly; it is them.
Falling over is bad in milonga. In performance, very bad. But if you don't fall over in practice, you are playing too safe. I love that they don't feel the need to play it safe even though half the room is watching.
And Corina has a beautiful back. I don’t see wings, I see muscles. They slip and slide as her embrace moves with the dance.
Lovely! So now I have seen them and I can go. But I am waylaid. Andre has been trying the cabaceo all night, he says.
Yeah, I don’t play that, I tell him. I’d rather sit out.
If you want to practice…, he says.
I explain I am working on the wing thing. I demonstrate for him. He understands this; we have taken many classes together.
We take our first steps. Julio and Corina return to the floor, fall in behind us. I catch sight of her back. Curved and easy.
We are not halfway around the first turn of the floor when Andre draws back. “You’ve lost it!” he says. He is laughing, which makes me laugh too. Did I not say just 10 steps ago that this is the very thing I would practice?
Tell me every time I lose it, I say.
And he does.
And I notice:
I lose it every time I step out of the straightforward embrace for the cross, ocho, ocho cortado, ocho-anything, or the turn.
We round a corner. “I don’t feel you,” Andre says, jollying my back with his arm.
Julio and Corina are not watching us dance. But I pretend that they are. I hold my back just as she did, curved and easy, strong. I envision Grisha’s curved arm, Roberta’s curved arm, Andre’s arm curved around me. I give him my back.
The wings slip into place. They are not heavy, they have just the right heft.
I feel my hand strong in Andre’s, and it is not because I am pushing, it is because I am there.
We do all kinds of things that we have never done before. “I am practicing,” he says with good humor.
Every time my brain goes into my legs, I lose my wings and we stumble. Andre laughs. I laugh too. He teases me. I tease him back. We agree that it’s always his fault.
But we are seriously practicing, too. “Disconnection,” Andre whispers. I adjust. Yes! Andre says. Yes! I nod.
We go at it again, working with serious intent, our hearts light, connected.
My wings wriggle in pleasure. Then we fly.
