My First Private Tango Lesson, Parts 1 and 2

My First Private Tango Lesson, Part 1

I start by telling Grisha I have no balance.

“I have never noticed that,” he says.

I am sitting on a barstool just off his living room/studio, putting on my tango shoes. I lean forward to fasten the buckle—and fall off the chair.

Thus begins my first private tango lesson.


**********************************************

What Price the Tango Smile?

My dentist hands me a tube of extra-heavy-duty bleaching agent. I am an extra-heavy-duty drinker of coffee and red wine.

“You’ll want to avoid those for a few days after using this stuff,” he says. “Your teeth are more susceptible to staining just after you bleach.”

No problem. For the sake of a beautiful tango smile, I can master the craving …

… for four hours.


*********************************************

My First Private Tango Lesson, Part 2

What would you like to work on today? Grisha asks, graciously ignoring the commotion. He squealed a little when the chair went over but quickly recovered.

Me too.

When you start your lesson by falling off a chair, you have pretty much gotten the worst out of the way, so can settle down and enjoy yourself.

My goal is simple: I want to take Julio and Corinna’s classes in three weeks and I don’t want to embarrass myself.

Not as a follower, anyway. Apparently I can’t control what happens re: chairs, tables, stairs.

That’s what I tell Grisha. But embarrassment is beside the point. The point is: I don’t want to get in the way of my partner’s learning. The men work hard in class. The least I can do is follow their lead.

Before I even get a chance to explain what I’m thinking, Grisha seconds it.

“The men will be working very hard,” he says. “They will be thinking ‘My foot goes here. Where’s her leg?’”

My job, according to Grisha, is to attend to my technique so the men can concentrate on learning each step.

When Grisha says this, I hear an echo of Chas. In class after class he drove the point home:

Followers don’t have to help.

As a matter of fact, we shouldn’t.

As a matter of fact, we shouldn’t even know that there is such a thing as helping.

As a matter of fact, we shouldn’t even acknowledge there’s a class going on.

Instead, we should attend to our role: being the best damn follower on the planet.

When I am practicing with Grisha I am not thinking of anything but technique and connecting and being the best damn follower on the planet.

But here in this quiet interval before the music starts, I think of Chas.