day 90: down below: pacing

down below: pacing © Verena Fischer 2011

These days on a Wednesday night I go to a tango lesson with Leandro and Gaia at Nou Mitte. I’m quite picky with tango teachers, because I had quite a few lessons that didn’t seem to help me at all. Some teachers are very particular to their very own dancing style, others have problems verbalising the core problems of certain movements and again others like to hear their own voice a bit too much. I personally think that it’s quite difficult to find teachers who can really help beyond the beginner level, because most teachers just submit too much to the expectation that it’s just about learning new figures. It’s quite the opposite actually. It seems to me that whenever you reach another problem that doesn’t seem to resolve itself just by lots of practice with a good leader then the problem always seems to lie in something rather basic like posture, walking, patience, resistance, etc.

Gaia and Leandro strike me as teachers who know that very well and have a knack for identifying these little problems and bad habits. To me their advice seems always spot on and they point out logical causes for the problems I have. What’s frustrating about it is that I know perfectly well that I have bad habits (like my impatience for example) which cause the bigger problems I’m experiencing, but knowing about these habits and changing them are two different issues. Sometimes it’s about finding something that just feels right which then is repeatable, but then other things precisely feel wrong at first until the body gets used to them. Especially with my posture I’m not sure where I’m supposed to be headed. I wish I could just afford some private lessons to work on these things in a more focussed fashion.

The picture I took in the subway station Leopoldplatz. This young man was pacing in circles while talking on the phone. Obviously I’m not the only one who needs to work on their patience …