A Wise Voice

Anna: Hi, Paul, I totally agree with you on "Good human values are based on what is beneficial to the humanity rather than an individual person or gender." It is so beautifully said and so wise. Freedom and human rights movements led people to put a lot of emphasis on individuality and as a result, the inflated self-image lessens our ability to view the world as a connected whole. This inflated self-image is also probably the root cause to many modern psychological ailments and problems: loneliness, depression, and mental disorder. If we can zoom out and see ourselves as a tiny one, rather than the one, in this big universe, a fact that has not changed a bit since the big bang, we may again find the beauty in the ancient natural law and adopt the right perspective towards the self and the rest of the world.

I had a few Tango lessons by now and was deeply touched by this beautiful dance. I am a woman with strong characters in other people's eyes. When I first started, I experienced a lot of struggle, questioning, and doubt. As you have explained in your excellent blog, unless we adopt the appropriate values and mentality for this dance, we cannot dance the real Tango. As a matter of fact, unless the man and the woman take the right role, they cannot even get the dance going. They will be constantly on each other's toes. No agreement, no harmony, no beauty. Then one day luckily I met a partner who did all the things you mentioned that a good leader should do, he guided me, protected me and let me shine. And without me knowing I surrendered all my wariness and entrusted myself to him. The steps followed naturally. At that moment, I knew how Tango should be done and how beautiful it can be when it is done right, when a man is a man and a woman is a woman. Looking forward to more of your sharing.

Paul: Dear Anna, I appreciate your comment deeply because it summed up so well an important theme throughout this blog, and you did it with such simple elegance. When I started this blog, I thought it was just about tango as a dance. But I soon discovered that in fact I was in search of the lost humanity in ourselves, without which tango lost its soul. Tango awakens our humanity because it forces us to zoom out and see ourselves as part of the whole, to understand our smallness, loneliness, vulnerability and interdependence, as reflected in the “ancient natural law”, and to appreciate the beauty of Creation from a macro or cosmological perspective, as you eloquently put it. The individual is trivial. The strength of mankind comes from our connection, solidarity and cooperation. This truth, as attested by tango, must not be forgotten no matter how much we have achieved individually. Please write and let your voice be heard! My best wish to your tango!

惜缘

A reader commented on my last post, The Spirit of Tango: "A ten-minute tanda is a radical response to the dehumanizing reality of modern day-to-day living. It is an opportunity for two humans to embrace each other in the promotion of humanity. Don’t let the precious opportunity slip away because your partner isn’t a good enough dancer, tall enough, young enough, old enough, attractive enough, friendly enough, …whatever enough. Every embrace has a story - dance with it."

I pondered this comment, as it reminded me of a Chinese motto: "惜缘" (pronounced shee-yuan).

惜缘 means cherishing the luck by which people are brought together. On the wall of my office is a script written in beautiful penmanship by a Chinese calligrapher: "Cherish those who are brought to you by fate. They enrich your life. They are the footprints to your destiny." This is an unfamiliar philosophy in America, where human connections are not as deeply valued as in some other cultures like China and Argentina. Many Americans prioritize individualism, personal freedom, independence, and autonomy. They often live, act, work, and even pass on alone; they are fierce advocates for gun rights but quite ignorant of communal life and relationships, often letting opportunities for meaningful connections slip away.

Life, however, is not a solo dance - even for Robinson Crusoe. If you think about it, your life is defined by the people around you: the parents who raised you, the siblings who grew up with you, the classmates who studied alongside you, the teachers and mentors who influenced you, the colleagues who worked beside you, and the friends who shared warmth and laughter. Fortune brings only a limited number of people into each person's life, and these are the precious resources granted to us by fate. Those who cherish such resources can build great companies and achieve lofty goals, while those who do not often find their lives lonely, friendless, and unfulfilled.

What is true in life is true in tango as well. In each city, there are only a limited number of people who dance tango. Despite their differences, these individuals share a longing for human connection, a belief in fraternity and love, a sense of nostalgia, romanticism, sentimentality, and a passion for tango. Those who cherish one another can form a vibrant tango community. Those who tear down bridges and build walls, however, cause their community to suffer. Sadly, the latter is often the reality in our tango circles. Many of us do not appreciate enough the fortune that brings us together. They are haughty and prejudiced. They view others as rivals and treating them with indifference or disdain. They dance not to enjoy the relationship but to display their ego, forming cliques, vying for dominance, and pushing out competition.

Individualism is incompatible with tango. I hope we can learn from the philosophy of 惜缘 and cherish the luck that brings us together as a community, for this is what makes tango so fascinating. Tango is not merely a skill; it is a fellowship, an intimate connection with others, and a philosophy of restoring humanity through cooperation and sharing (see Tango Is a Fellowship). Rather than trying to reinvent tango, perhaps we should allow tango to transform us, helping us become a more connected and cooperative people. (See The Lessons of Tango.)

The Spirit of Tango

One of man's greatest limitations is egocentricity. We think first and often only from a personal perspective, and we act first and often only in our own interests.

But mankind is not always like that. When humanity was in its infancy and childhood, we relied heavily on each other for survival, everything was shared. Fraternity, cooperation and Good Samaritanism were our first nature. Doctrines like liberalism, individualism, feminism, personal freedom and individual rights appeared much later in human history, and are still imperfect theories, or in many ways even adverse to the best human interests overall, as attested by selfishness, greed, competition, aggression, inequality, obscenity, doping, gun proliferation, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, single parent family, LGBTQIAPK, etc., - all in the name of individual rights and freedom. "O Liberty! O Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!" - grieved Madame Jeanne-Marie Roland. Mankind is still in its adolescence too self-centric to understand the relation between personal freedom and common interests of the species as a whole. (See The World Needs a Different Philosophy.)

Perhaps the most important lesson that tango teaches us is that we are interdependent rather than independent, that we need each other, that our personal well-being is inseparable from the well-being of others, that one cannot be happy unless all are happy, that cooperation and sharing serve us better than animosity and competition, that human rights are the collective rights of mankind as a species, not just personal entitlements, and that compassion and self-discipline are important attributes of what makes us human. Tango tells the other side of the human story. It awakens the better part of the humanity in us, and suggests the way for us to live together in peace and harmony through generosity in spirit, loftiness of purpose, altruism, and cooperation. Wherever we go and dance, tango always reminds us that love, despite our many limitations, is what holds us together as a team, community, people, nation and species. (See The Lessons of Tango.)

Spot Dancing in Tango

Progressive dances, such as foxtrot and waltz, are danced on the large dance floor of the ballroom. Such a large floor is divided into two sections: the outer travelling lanes for progressive dancing, and the inner or center floor for spot dancing. Dancing progressive dances needs to follow certain rules, including traveling counterclockwise around the dance floor, not moving against traffic, maintaining the flow, avoiding spot dancing that could hold up traffic, avoiding frequent lane changes, moving to the center if you like to do spot dancing or practice new steps, not traveling through the center, keeping a proper distance from the couple dancing in front of you, adapting patterns to what the traffic permits, not focusing on completing a pattern if a collision can result, and not forcing your way to overtake, etc.

Spot dances, such as disco and salsa, are danced in a fixed area. Such dances can be danced on a small floor like that in a restaurant or bar. Dancing spot dances on a small dance floor follows different rules, including dancing on your own spot or slot, using minimum space, not drifting around the dance floor, using compact dance hold or embrace, using small steps, avoiding dangerous movements, respecting the dance spaces of others, and not pushing or elbowing your way around, etc.

Now, is tango a progressive dance or spot dance? What floor size is best for tango dancing? Which set of rules apply when it is danced on a small and crowded dance floor? There are no easy answers to these questions because tango, a progressive dance in general, can be danced in a compact way on a small dance floor. The following is an example.

People do not dance foxtrot and waltz on a coffee table. But tango, an intimate dance danced in close embrace, does not require a large floor. That is why milongas are often held in restaurants and bars. On the plus side, small dance floors are easy to find, affordable, and convenient for cabeceo. On the downside, the small dance floor cannot accommodate many people and tends to be congested. In El Beso, the famous bar in downtown Buenos Aires, for example, there are often more than a hundred people dancing tango on a floor the size of a large family room in an American home. People jammed together using any space available to dance in very tight steps. Obviously, in a crowded venue like that you have to follow rules different from that in a spacious ballroom where lanes are divided, free travel is possible, and open embrace and fancy steps are allowed. We dance tango in various venues. Some are large, others are small. Some are sparsely populated; others are tightly packed. Even a large dance floor can become crowded from time to time. Therefore, one must dance in accordance with the changing situation. Sticking to the way that no longer fits, such as using open embrace, wide steps and dangerous footwork on a crowded dance floor, is a recipe for disaster. Such senseless behaviors are a major cause of accidents in our milongas. (See Milonga Codes.)

This happens partly because most students in the US are not taught to dance tango on a coffee table. They are only taught to dance tango on a spacious dance floor. But that is not how tango is dance in Buenos Aires where dance floors are usually packed. Now, with the popularity of tango in the US, our milongas also become crowded, making it necessary for us to adapt to a more compact way of dancing. Dancing tango as a spot dance requires different techniques, including using close embrace, dancing in small steps, focusing on synchronization rather than fancy performance, a much better command on dissociation, and the knack in floor crafting, etc. It also requires the dancers to focus more on music and feelings rather than movements and impression. Without these abilities, one's tango education is incomplete and inadequate.