The Problem with Partners, Part 2

Of course you must practice.

Nina tells her beginners this over and over: With daily practice you can learn to tango in just a few years; without practice, you’re on the 30-year plan.

The first-time beginners always laugh at that. Those of us who are repeating beginners for the third-fifth-twelfth time let them have their moment. We were laughing once, too.

You must practice. Of course.

* * *

When you are a rank beginner, it does not take two to tango. Rather, it does not take two people. When you are still trying to figure out how to stand up in your shoes, your best practice partner is a broom or a stick or a mirror or hope.

Or the face of a happy man drawn on the wall.

* * *

Eleven Perfect Steps

Here’s a practice you can do by yourself, adapted from Tom Stermitz’s walking exercise:

Walk backward the length of your practice space, then turn around and walk backward the way you came.

I don't like exercises; I like to play games. So I invented a game with only one rule: Every time I faltered, I would return to the starting line. No making it to the other end of the room until every step was perfect. My practice space is 11 steps long. Hence the name of the game.

Tango, how do I love thee? Let me count the

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hours

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days

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weeks
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months
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years.

…for heaven’s sake!

For days I could not get out of arm’s reach of The Man on the Wall. One step, two thrrrr… bonk! All that scampering back to the starting line disrupted my concentration, I couldn’t get my groove on. It was discouraging, and threatened to become self-fulfilling; one step, two, thrrrr …bonk! could easily become the fixed pattern in my mind and muscles’memories.

So, I changed the game. Got rid of the rule. Now there is only an ideal, to take Eleven Perfect Steps.

Without the imperative to scamper back, the focus of the game changed. The rule had riveted my attention on each immediate step, each looming, imminent failure. Every step was prolonged torture--anticipating it, dreading it, recognizing it, and imposing the penalty for it. Pass or utter failure.

With the shift from rule to ideal, single steps lost their weighty import; succeed or fail, they are always in passing. An ideal is otherworldly; the measure of success is not attainment but attentive effort. Now I do not intend to achieve every step but to love each one, to be attentive, to be.

Did it work? Ha! I lurched and staggered, tumbled into the sofa, fell down on the floor.

When you hike a steep, tricky slope, it’s smart to keep three points on the ground—two feet plus one body part (for example, the hand). Who knew?! What works for mountain climbers works for tango, too.

For miles on end, I groped my way from table to sofa to bookshelf to wall. At first I held on for dear life, then to hold myself upright, then to steady myself. Eventually my fingers ran lightly across the surfaces of things. Eventually I realized--eureka!—the touch was reassuring but unnecessary.

Then came the toughest part of the game: weaning myself from reassurance. I knew I could walk unaided, but the gap between knowledge and trust is a wide chasm to cross. There is only one way to do it: keep walking.

I am a poet at heart. I love rhythm and repetition, a tiny aperture, tinkering, detail. I can practice Eleven Perfect Steps for up to two hours, subsumed in concentration.

I still practice Eleven Perfect Steps almost every day. I have yet to succeed with regularity. It still feels as much like a game of chance as a skill.

It feels that way, but I know better. I am learning: Every step is already inside you. Envision the step after the one you are taking, and the next and the next, the whole lovely sequence. Let the beauty you love be the thing that you do. Only walk.

* * *

To Eleven Perfect Steps, add these:

Bookshelf ochos. Turns around a stick. Doorframe boleos. Torso twisting. Elastic collection. Cool hip action. Adornments with a stick stuck in a shoe. Sit ups. Push ups. Balance exercises in the middle of the floor. Adornments in turns. Overturned ochos, moving down the floor. Enrosque. Why not?

You can do all these alone, or with props. No need for a partner, not yet.

* * *

Goofing Around

Practice this every day. You must! Every day put on the music that makes you feel free and do every goofy thing you like. This is self-expression.

I like chanson. Frank Sinatra. The Fresedo pieces that remind me of 1940s musicals. The 1940s musicals themselves. Big Bands. Swing. Motown. Norah Jones. Canaro. Celtic new age. Hammered dulcimer straight out of Appalachia. Pugliese.

During the holiday season: Eartha Kitt singing Santa Baby and Elvis singing Blue Christmas.

I run through all of Tom’s exercises: walking with the cross behind, cross before, the step for tight spaces. Then I move on:

Overturned ochos. GREAT BIG STEPS. Ronde de jambe. Pique. Enrosque. Sweeps. Taps with the heel and toe ... syncopated! Planeo. Boleo. Tendu all over the place. An old-fashioned milonga traspie. Soft shoe shuffle.

I am Ginger Rogers AND Fred Astaire!

* * *

Even in class, I like to practice alone. Sometimes when I am the extra woman, I do not even try to join the rotation. I go to a corner and practice. No matter what step the class is learning, a follower can use it to work on technique. I am a technique-geek, happy happy happy all by myself.

During a class last winter, Andrey marched over with a grim look on his face. He does not like to see me dancing alone. He believes it takes two to tango.

Eventually, it does.