Ocho

Although all tango women can do ocho, many fail to grasp its importance and dedicate sufficient time to practicing it. However, if there is one step that can significantly enhance a woman's tango, it is ocho. This is because ocho encompasses all basic techniques that are essential in women's dancing, including embrace, posture, connection, torso communication, pivot, dissociation, gear effect, cadencia, and the ability to return to the home position in a timely manner after each turn. A woman who can do ocho well will also be good at other moves, and a woman whose ocho is clumsy won't be good at other moves either. Moreover, ocho is the most frequently used female step in tango. It can best express a woman's feminine beauty, such as her softness, gentleness, suppleness, lightness, grace, and elegance. A woman's tango can be truly stunning only if she can execute ocho perfectly. While some may argue that molinete is another quintessential female step, it is merely a sequence of forward and backward ochos.

The term "ocho" originates from the Spanish word for "eight". In this figure the woman traces the shape of an S on the floor with one leg and then repeats the same with the other leg. The two S shapes overlap in opposite directions, creating the visual effect of the number 8. To execute ocho, the woman begins by rotating her hips and walking to one side of her partner. She then pivots, rotates her hips again, and walks in the opposite direction.

It's crucial to perform ocho with excellent connection, balance, flexibility, smoothness and elegance. Women who use open dance hold tend to turn their entire body instead of rotating their hips, causing a breakdown in connection and intimacy. The correct way is to keep your torso connected to your partner and swivel your hips before making the forward step, as shown in the video below (6:10-10:00), so that you can maintain close physical interaction with your partner while dancing ocho.

Most tango teachers emphasize dissociation, i.e., the rotation of the hips, when they teach ocho, while neglecting to teach another important technique, cadencia, or the swing of the body. However, combining dissociation and cadencia adds elegance to the movement while creating a swaying feel that enhances the pleasure of the movement. In order to swing the body, it is important to moderate the dance tempo. Many students dance too hastily, leaving no time for their body to sway gracefully. The man should allow the woman time to execute the swing, while the woman should perform it with poise and elegance, as the couple in the vedio below demonstrate.

Ocho can be danced in a variety of ways. It is the most colorful step of all tango steps that can fully display a woman's feminine, gentle, soft, pliable, graceful and creative beauty. Here are some examples.

Mastering these variations can make a woman's dance more interesting. Tango women should practice them until they have internalized the movements. The key word here is internalization, which will enable women to concentrate on their partner rather than the steps. A current bad trend is for women to use too many variations in their dance. Women should overcome the urge to swagger, dance tango in the most elegant classic style, and only occasionally use variations as embellishments instead of overwhelming themselves with flashy alternatives.

Ocho can be a very seductive move due to the gear effect between the partners (see Dissociation and Gear Effect). Instead of concentrating on her own performance, the woman should devote her attention to making her partner feel good, and establishing a deep and meaningful communication with him as she dances ocho. This is only possible when she has internalized the movement (see The Four Stages of the Tango Journey).

America Is in Big Trouble

What creates wealth is the real economy, like agriculture, manufacturing, mining, energy and construction. The trade, professional service and financial sectors only provide assistance in exchange for a piece of the pie. They do not generate real wealth by themselves (see Mammonism).

Today's American economy is overwhelmingly capitalized and service-oriented. Except for a few remaining high-tech and military industries, most of the manufacturing has moved to countries with low production costs. The US economy has undergone severe deindustrialization over the past few decades. It is now dominated by financial capitalism that relies on financial operations to reap the wealth of the world, while its productivity has long been unable to support its hegemony. Our apparent strength is built on finance rather than real economy. Although this economy is now only 1.5 times what it was 20 years ago, the amount of dollars issued in one year is now five times that of 20 years ago; the national debt is now 7 times what it was 20 years ago, exceeding $34 trillion; private lending has reached another $30 trillion. Much of the money flows abroad through purchases of foreign goods, loans to other countries, sales of US bonds, and payments to our debt creditors, as the US dollar as the world reserve currency is demanded by all countries. It is estimated that there are more than $100 trillion dollars in circulation abroad.

Such unscrupulous issuance of US dollar triggered worldwide inflation, doubling the price of food, four and a half times the price of oil, and tripling the price of iron ore. The world reserve currency status of the dollar allows the United States to manipulate the world economy with its monetary policy, such as using monetary easing (reducing interest rate and increasing dollar supply) to stimulate borrowing, and monetary tightening (increasing interest rate and reducing dollar supply) to make the dollar appreciate relative to other currencies, causing the repatriation of capital to the US and the contraction of other economies. This enables US financial oligarchs to acquire foreign assets and stocks at a discount price. Monetary policy is often operated in conjunction with other means, such as provoking tensions, unrest and color revolutions under the pretext of human rights etc. to worsen the investment climate in other countries, so that the US can harvest their wealth and profit from arms sales and wars. Of course, the beneficiaries are the US special interests, not the American people.

The current world economic order established by US special interests is unfair and immoral from the standpoint of developing countries. To maintain this order, the US special interests have made unremitting efforts to stifle the growth of rival economies, such as UK, Germany, USSR and Japan in the past, and Russia, Europe and China today. They have instigated the Russia-Ukraine conflict to contain Russia while creating a security crisis for Europe, cut off cheap Russian energy supply to the continent, seized the European market with expensive American energy, which sparked severe inflation that affected people's lives, a dramatic increase in the cost of production that damaged the European economy, and a significant capital outflow from the region, further eroded Europe's strategic autonomy, tied Europe to the American chariot against the rising East, and made Europe more dependent on the US for security. They are now using Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, India, Australia, and NATO’s eastward expansion in the Indo-Pacific region to contain China.

American oligarchs' determination to maintain their global hegemony contradicts the aspirations of other nations to develop their own economies. Most countries desire a cooperative, equitable, and peaceful environment for development that benefits all parties. The US policy of prioritizing America's interests, promoting unipolar hegemony, and asserting extraterritorial jurisdiction has encountered opposition from developing countries worldwide.

Faced with mounting debt, inflation and financial crises that a hollowed-out economy must face, US policymakers are caught in growing anxiety. But, instead of resolving deep-seated structural and institutional problems within the United States itself, they resorted to high-handed tactics to pass on the crises, including continuously raising the debt ceiling, forcing other countries to buy more US treasuries with no intention of repaying the debt, flexing military muscles, provoking regional conflicts, launching cognitive, trade, technological, and financial wars, using US domestic law to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over other countries, imposing unilateral sanctions to suppress foreign governments and companies, freezing and confiscating foreign overseas assets, weaponizing the US dollar and the SWIFT system, sabotaging civilian infrastructures of other countries, and engaging in embargo, decoupling, clique and isolation, etc. These tactics aimed at containing other economies also caused serious damage to our own, ruined America's reputation as a fair player, weakened its international influence, damaged the credibility of the dollar, further isolated America itself, and is causing a global sell-off of US treasuries and de-dollarization that will ultimately end US hegemony. To make matters worse, uncontrollable inflation in the US has forced the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates aggressively, triggering the current wave of bank failures and a global economic downturn, causing turmoil in the financial markets of many countries, especially heavily indebted countries.

For its own self-interest, the United States has become a source of instability in the world. Of course, its vested interests will not stop being the troublemaker. Some think they can harvest others nations' wealth forever just by keeping the money printing presses running. Others are willing to start another world war to maintain their primacy. On the surface, it is the capitalization and financialization of the economy that have led to America's crises, but the root of the problem lies deeply in the ideologies that the American plutocrats believe, that is, capitalism, Darwinism, Machiavellianism, the law of the jungle, and zero-sum game (see Philosophies that Separate Two Worlds). It's just that they forget that their hegemony built on mounting debt rather than real ecomony is not sustainable. Most tango dancers do not embrace the ideologies of the American oligarchs, I believe, because these ideologies contradict the spirit of tango, but we cannot but be wary of the negative influence of these ideologies on our life and tango.

The world that the majority of nations seek is a democratic world where all countries have the same opportunity to develop their economies and advance the lives of their people through win-win cooperation. US policy makers must abandon their selfish, bullying and myopic approach if they truly believe in democracy. The American electorate deserves leaders who demonstrate greater moral principles. Otherwise, America will ultimately face the repercussions of its behaviors (see The Vicious Circle of Regime Change).

P.S.
The following video explains the American monetary system, from Bretton Woods agreement, decoupling of USD to gold, USD pegging to oil, consumer capitalism, vendor financing, outsourcing manufacturing, job losses, big trade deficits, increasing inequality, huge military, lots of wars, uncontrolled money printing, and having more and more debt, to devaluation of USD and inflation. The speaker attributes this doomed system to dollar as the world reserve currency and suggests that these will all end when a new currency regime emerges. The question is, will the vested interests in the US allow that to happen before the empire collapses?

Darwinism and Confucianism

English naturalist and biologist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) is regarded as one of the most influential figures in the Western Hemisphere. His book, On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, revolutionized Western thought.

Darwin's theory is based on the idea of natural selection. Organisms with advantageous traits are more likely to survive and reproduce. This is largely due to the fact that variation exists within all populations of organisms. Throughout the lives of the individuals their genomes interact with their environments to cause random mutations arise in the genome, which can be passed on to their offspring. Because individuals with certain variants of the trait tend to survive and reproduce more than individuals with other less successful variants, the population evolves.

While most scientists came to accept evolution as descent with modification, not all agreed with Darwin's assertion that natural selection is the primary, but not exclusive, means of modification. Some favored competing explanations that assigned a lesser role to natural selection. One critique is that Darwin placed too much emphasis on the "struggle for existence" and "the survival of the fittest" among individuals, and did not give sufficient consideration to the role of coexistence, unity, interdependence and cooperation within a species, and the importance of ecological balance between species in the evolution of species. (See Pluralism vs. Monism.)

While Darwin's theory has given us a new conception of the world of life and revolutionized the whole study of nature, it also had adverse impacts. One of the negative consequences was the misguided use of the concepts of "struggle for existence" and "survival of the fittest" among individuals to human societies. This has resulted in ideologies such as social Darwinism, individualism, exceptionalism, racism, law of the jungle theory, zero-sum competition, and unipolar hegemony, etc., that pose a threat to human unity, social harmony, and world peace. The harms these ideologies have done to mankind should not be underestimated, as Western civilization ever since Darwin was built on power, warfare, conquest, colonization, genocide, exploitation, and looting of other peoples, with Darwin's fellow countrymen taking a prominent role. These ideologies have also fuelled Western capitalism that led to brutal competitions, severe inequality, depletion of natural resources, destruction of ecological balance, and damage to the environment. (See Democracy vs. Plutocracy.)

Fortunately, Darwinism does not have such a big influence in the East, where Confucianism, which has the greatest influence, emphasizes the unity of man and nature, the shared destiny of mankind, and the harmonious coexistence between people. Confucianism embraces a holistic view, seeing the universe as an integrated whole rather than as disparate entities. It acknowledges that, despite contradictions, harmony prevails, with opposing elements being interrelated, interdependent, and complementary. This worldview seeks the balance of opposites, the integration of diversity, and the harmony of differences, eschewing conflict escalation and adversary elimination.

Furthermore, while Darwinism emphasizes the survival instincts of individual organisms, Confucianism highlights the superiority of humanity over animal instincts. This humanity was summarized by Confucius as 仁 (benevolence, compassion, and love), 義 (righteousness, justice, and equity), 禮 (morality, propriety, and law), 智 (knowledge, wisdom, and reason), and 信 (integrity, good faith, and trustiness). Human society cannot adhere to the law of the jungle, where the strong prey on the weak, as seen in the animal world. Instead, as an intelligent and humane species, individuals must undergo enlightenment and moral cultivation to overcome their self-serving limitations and work together as a unified collective for their shared destiny (see Understanding China: Geography, Confucianism, and Chinese-Style Modernization).

Although it may be too early to draw conclusions about the strengths of Eastern versus Western philosophies, the rise of the East and the decline of the West in our times seems to suggest that, ultimately, civilization, collectivism, cooperation, and sharing may be more beneficial to the species than barbarism, individualism, selfishness, and brutal competition. This perspective is supported by tango. (See Philosophies that Separate Two Worlds.)