A New Challenge

Yesterday I had my first tango class. Argentine tango is a beautiful dance. Here is a clip from a movie called "The Tango Lesson". It features one of my favorite tango songs called "Libertango" by one of the most famous tango composers, Astor Piazolla. One of the musicians is Yo Yo Ma. It is a beautiful song, a beautiful clip and I hope you can see how beautiful tango is.



Unfortunately, my tango lesson yesterday was not as beautiful nor as romantic as that. It was a horrible experience. The class was too difficult for me and I was super nervous. It was not like a language class where I could sit in the back and hope the teacher wouldn't see me, I actually had to dance with people, and as a leader, I was supposed to be in control. I had to lead my partner around the dance floor, communicate to her with my body and make sure I didn't bump into the other students.

Finally after about 75 minutes of torture, I left the class. I asked if they could recommend some other classes that were easier, and I am going back to try a different teacher today.

There are some important lessons here for me both as a teacher and as a student. I was a new student in the class, and I think the other students had all taken the class before. I'm not sure. The teacher never welcomed me to the class. He just told everyone, "dance", and then he said, "change partners". The first time he spoke to me, he asked me if I spoke Spanish, and then he offered me some correction. After that, he ignored me and helped the better dancers in the class. It was obvious that I was struggling, but neither the teacher or his assistant came over and tried to help me out.

I understand now how important it is to help a student feel welcome in the class. Sometimes I have students who come to my class after the class has been meeting for weeks, or months. All of the students know each other and feel comfortable with each other, and for new students it can be very intimidating. Sometimes I don't want to stop what I am doing to welcome the new student, but I put my students into groups and have them work together and hope that the other students will help the new student feel welcome. It is kind of like my teacher telling us to "dance". The teacher needs to take responsibility for people's comfort, and I need to make sure the new student feels comfortable.

The other thing I learned is that it is not possible to do something that is too far above your level. This class was way too diffcult for me. You can see from the video that tango has some very complicated steps. There are other things that are just as complicated that you can't see, for example how you hold your partner, how you communicate to your partner where you are going, etc.... I am still at the basic level, even though I have been taking tango classes off and on for two years. I might be in a level 2 tango, when yesterday's class was like level 8. I can't jump that high.

As a learner, this is a good lesson for me to find a place where I feel comfortable, but also I am going to learn about persistence. I really want to learn how to dance tango. When I watch tango videos I feel the passion of the dance and I want to be able to do that myself. But the only way to do that is to keep going and not give up. I might find some classes are too difficult. I might find some partners that are difficult to dance with, but this is part of my dream and I don't want to give it up.

Now it's time to get ready for class.