Realization

Sometimes I wonder what this blog is supposed to be. You know, most blogs are not just blogs, they are design blogs or baking blogs or photography blogs or mommy blogs or sustainable living blogs or some type of blog. It has taken me some reflection to remember that I'm not a professional blogger, I don't think I'd want to be even if given the chance, and as far as I'm concerned, those are the only people who need to worry about fitting into being some type of blog. This is just a me blog, and so it shall remain. However, you people probably don't realize how much I have to try to keep this from being a dance blog. Dance may be all I think about, but as we've established, I'm not exactly articulate on the subject, in spite of or perhaps because of the extent of my passion. So basically, for your sakes I do all I can to keep this from being a total crushy, simpering, giggly-girl blog in which all I ever do is make eyes at Dance from across the room and babble on about how everything is great and I love everything and we're sooo MFEO nobody really understands us. (They don't, but that's not the point.)

I promise, I'm not going to do that today. I just had a little epiphany this week that I'd like to share. I think in all my empty-headed gushing about how wonderful tango is, how spiritual and connected one feels when one is dancing it, and other such vague sweet nothings, I pretty much glossed right over the way I got started in it. It was all so...accidental, going because somebody else wanted to try, being befriended by Barbra, the Tango Fairy Godmother, getting great opportunities to learn more of the dance practically thrown at my head. Because it was more or less something I stumbled into, an opportunity I'd have been a fool not to take advantage of, I was just rolling with it, like I'll do this right now because I can, and when the opportunities dry up I'll move on.

But this Monday I was at a practica, and it wasn't even a particularly good time. The guys I danced with were bossing me around as always (relax your shoulders, tighten your frame, keep your feet closer together!) which, helpful as it can be is never terribly fun, it wasn't very well attended and I didn't dance some magical dance with a fly-by-night Don Juan who swept me off my feet (our tango community is very short of those types. more populated by the old and picky). But in the midst of this very ordinary night, it dawned on me: I want to be great at this.

This is why this is a big deal--certain styles of dance seem to be at war with each other in the fight for excellence. It's terribly difficult to master the grounded bounce of swing as well as the floating off the ground style of ballroom, the perfect lines of ballet with the down and dirty aggression of hip-hop. I am certainly no prodigy, but even my partners have commented that, after spending too much time doing tango I don't get down into floor enough for swing and I cross my feet too much. My miniscule experience with ballroom used to make my tango hold too rigid and my swing experience made me move my hips too much. What I'm trying to say here, people, is that it's hard to move back and forth! Really hard!

So when I say that I want to pursue tango, it's a big commitment. No matter how much time I'm able to devote to dancing (and trust me, it's not much) I can't pursue everything. So what I'm saying is, at least for now, I would forgo other options to be able to really learn this dance. It is in fact, one of just a couple that I really, really want to master (as much as that can ever be accomplished). Of course, if I have other opportunities thrown at my head, I'd be open to learning any style of dance. But tango, I would like to tell you, I would pursue even if nobody threw it.

S.