Like Water

This week I've been super-busy taking a semi-intensive tango course (on top of my 4 hour spanish course), which means class every night for 2 hours. After class on Monday I wasn't so sure about it. I liked the tango part, but the teaching feels a little new agey. We kept doing exercises to relax our bodies, and one of them was pushing your partner on different spots of their body, seeing how their body reacts and trying to get them to be loose where they seem to be tense. Weird. I don't particularly like pushing strangers, and I really don't like being pushed by strangers. I'm just not that touchy, and I don't know these men. And I suppose these exercises are exactly what I need considering I am tense as can be, but it's still strange.

The tango is coming along well though. I can definetely do more now than I could on Monday. Tonights class had highs and lows. It started out great, and I was dancing like a tango star until I had to be like water and occupy spaces that were made me for me. This made no sense. In order to get to spaces that were made for me I had to take a million steps fumbling over my partners feet that always seemed to be in the water. And I most certainly didn't feel like water, nor could I imagine water every being in this situation. Of course, my confusion was followed by everyone trying to tell me how to be like water in different ways. Nobody ventured another analogy. So, I failed at trying to feel like water and succeded in feeling like my partner was throwing me around the dance floor. That was the low. It sort of leveled out to nuetral after that.

Tomorrow is the last night of the tango course, so we're all heading out to a milonga afterwards. I'm not sure if I'll be dancing or not. I think I'll be too nervous to dance, but I might give it a go with one of the men from class. This will also be the first time that I get to watch tango since I started learning. Should be interesting.