Why I don't dance with you more

An acquaintance of mine would like me to dance with her more.  Her tactic is complaining to me that she never gets asked to dance.  She bugs me about not asking her more in a kidding/not kidding kind of way.  She also says things like "I don't know why I come out no one ever asks me to dance" and "I only danced two tandas, that's $5 per tanda " (milonga cover charge was $10).  She complains a lot - about the music, and the men, and the venue, and even her health.

I always dance one tanda with her since she's been friendly to me and was kind enough to help get me out of my introverted shell a bit, so I feel like I owe her one tanda.  But only one.

There's a lot of things that I can't say charitably, so I keep my mouth shut.  But here's what I'm thinking, more or less from worst to best:

The fact is that you drink a bit, and even when sober you lean on your partner a lot.  Now if you were an older woman who is just physically unable to maintain your axis, that would be one thing, but I don't believe that to be the case.  I don't know if you're unaware that you're not on your axis (I wasn't, for a frightfully long time), but the result is that your partner is going to be severely limited in what he can attempt, and he's going to be physically taxed by holding you up more or less continuously for 10 minutes.  Dancing with you is more work than joy, and men's choices of partner will reflect that.

You complained that the very, very good dancer at the milonga didn't hold you like he was holding his current partner (at the time you were complaining).  First of all, if I were a woman, I'd be flattered and happy just to dance with the man in question, because he's creative and moves wonderfully and even though he's very, very good (can you tell I'm a fan?) he dances with everybody.  But never mind that.  First of all, his current partner is a slender woman who is completely on her axis and is in control of her body at all times, and is a very, very good dancer in her own right.  He holds her accordingly.  If you want him to hold you like he's holding her, then lose some weight and get on your axis, and practice.

We spent about 10 minutes dancing, and you spent at least 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after complaining about your lot.  I'm seeking to minimize my interactions with you.

I'm an open embrace dancer, because I'm shy and It's what I'm used to.  You'll dance open embrace grudgingly (and complainingly), but you obviously prefer close embrace.  I don't have anything against close embrace, it's just not what I prefer to do.  Perhaps as I become more skilled and experienced (and less shy) I will be able to do either, but I have a very difficult time leading in close embrace and so in that regard we're just not the best match for each other.

This is America, and women are alleged to be empowered here, we have equality, etc etc.  Ask someone to dance.  I know it's daunting - I'm shy and I find asking strangers and even acquaintances uncomfortable.  Even if they accept (which they mostly do).  But that's one way you can get more dances.

There are a lot of women who want to dance at the milonga, and usually more women than men.  This means that you are going to have to play nice and share, and it also means that you have to compete to be the most pleasant option compared to your peers.  I may have mentioned some ways you can improve your odds above.  But even then, you're not going to dance every song.

I watched two particular women you were competing with that same night.  One is a young (mid twenties) enthusiastic intermediate dancer and improving rapidly (because she works at it).  She's in control of her axis most of the time, and she's also trim and pretty and she laughs a lot and is always having and sharing a good time.

The other is a woman in her late forties, who's an incredibly skilled and amazing dancer (because she has dedicated decades to practice), and she is trim and fit and beautiful and makes a point to do more than her fair share of what it takes to make a beautiful dance.

The younger woman danced about five or six tandas.  She probably could have danced more but she was spending a lot of time being a social butterfly.  I've interacted with her when she was doing so, and I can tell you she's charming and happy and pleasant to be around.

The older, more skilled woman only danced three or four tandas.  She wasn't asked.  I personally didn't ask her because she intimidates me (it's not her, it's me).  I don't know why others don't ask her more, but the fact is that no one dances every song.

You seem to think that paying your admission to the milonga guarantees you lots of dances.  The nerds would say that's "necessary but not sufficient".  You must do much much more than that (and frankly, less of what you're doing now).

Good luck.

The UN-natural Athlete

I'm not a natural athlete, though I've known a few.  I met another just the other day.

I spent a few years kayaking and the basic skill there is the eskimo roll.  It took me months and months of pool practice to learn this, and when I tried it on the river it fell apart again and I had to rebuild it.  Now I've got one of the most reliable, versatile, powerful, dependable rolls of almost anybody I know;  I can do either side, with or without a paddle, even after bouncing over a rocky bottom on my helmet, in adverse currents, whatever.

In Colorado, I once had my paddle knocked out of my hands underwater, so I hands-rolled up, and went about an hour of class II-III water without my paddle, never worrying about getting back up on top of my boat (I even found my paddle in an eddy at the take out - it was a very good day...).  One of my paddling buddies used to joke that I was more comfortable under the water than on top of it, and my girlfriend at the time used to call me "speaker to trout".  They weren't entirely wrong.

So, awesome roll, but getting it there took a lot of learning, thinking-through, and practice.  Most of the people in my college kayaking class seemed similar, though several did learn much faster than me.  I thought that's just how it was.

One night I was teaching someone a roll at a pool session at the local whitewater club, and this dude with the weirdest collection of yard-sale boating gear you ever saw paddled up, said his name was Ed, and asked if I could show him how to roll.  I started in on my standard disclaimer how this takes a while, you gotta practice, you won't get it tonight, it takes time, blah blah blah - I didn't want him to be discouraged.  He interrupted me and said "just show me".  Well, I'm describing what to do while I'm demonstrating with my boat, paddle, body position, etc.  Halfway through that, he took a big breath and dived underneath his boat and started trying it.  He fumbled around a bit, tried once and failed, and then he just ripped off one of the nicest rolls I'd ever seen, on his second try.  Five minutes later he was rolling on the other side.  We ended up boating together for years.  Predictably, he rapidly became better than me. I watched him learning - he'd just see someone do something he wanted to learn and his eyes seemed to pour it right into his muscles without the long, distracting stop in his brain.

I know dancers like that, and they amaze me just like Ed did, but I don't seem to learn that way.  You have to point out to me that I'm not turning my foot out, and that if I do, it's more stable.  I need to have a conversation about that, I need the words to intellectualize around.  I spend some time noticing that I'm still not turning out my foot, and I have to periodically abandon all my other dancing while I focus on turning my foot out.  (ladies, if your leader goes blank, he may be having a similar challenge).  Then I need to practice that a lot while thinking about it - at first it takes nearly all my attention, then this fades to where it's only moderately consuming, and finally it's automatic and I can worry about something else.  Most of my time on the dance floor I'm like a time-sharing computer, switching my attention and the conversation in my head between body mechanics, footwork, lead, planning for future figures, navigation, seeing what's going on around me, and floorcraft.  Only after quite a bit of that does it become automatic.  Shortly thereafter, it gets boring (which means I need to start attending to my partner....)

As I build up a larger repertoire of learned tidbits in dance, I am learning faster, but I'm still going through this process, I'm just relating it back to something similar I've already learned.  I still don't seem to go straight from seeing something to doing it, I just have a shorter conversation in my head that goes something like "Remember the waltz box?  Well, same thing here in rumba, except....".

At least I figured out how I learn, and how to speed that process along:

1.  I'm verbal and language oriented.  Talk about dancing details with my dance nerd friends, read books and blogs and watch youtubes.

2.  Go ahead and have the conversation in your head.  Try not to get too wrapped up in it while you're actually dancing.

3.  Go to lots of classes and private lessons.  Once you get bored, find more challenging classes.

4.  Lots of practice.

5.  Try to focus on just a few dances for a while, so you can build rather than just skipping around.

6. Argentine Tango

7.  Ex-russian ballet dancer instructors

More about those last two soon.

Drilling Wins

For me, learning a dance move always starts with a moment of "this is so cool!", usually followed by weeks of "How did that go again?"  It's frustrating.  I need to drill.

Awesome art by Hugh MacLeod, gapingvoid.com

In group classes, my instructors will cover something until everyone has basically gotten it, then move on.  That's the most efficient use of the instructor's time, and that's awesome. But it's not enough for me to make the transition from head knowledge to body knowledge.

In private lessons, I definitely want to cover as much as you can, so once I've basically gotten it, we move on.  I do often ask for a bit of review either at the beginning or end of a private lesson, but doing that for the whole lesson is like learning to drive a stick shift in a Ferrari.  You can do it, it's just a shame and a waste.

During practice parties, there's a lot going on - you have to find a partner, your partner may not have learned the move you just learned, you have to worry about floorcraft and traffic management, and if you're lucky you get three or four minutes of whatever dance you learned this week.  For me that's not enough.  I need to do a move probably 20 times in a row for my body to start feeling it.

Every instructor will tell you to practice at home, and I do, but only a little, and not enough.  I'll claim it's because I want to work with a partner, but that's mostly an excuse.  I'm rarely home, and when I am, there are a ton of distractions and diversions.  I love working on my house, and it's old enough that there's always more to do.  Not to mention (and much more common), I still need to get caught up on Mad Men, and there's always Tivo Guilt.

Plus, I really want to work with a partner.  :-/  Different partners if possible.

So I finally bit the bullet and approached several women from my classes about meeting at the studio and drilling.  I also checked with the staff to make sure it was OK if we found a corner of the floor and practiced.  I've had my first session already - we drilled a flair promenade that I learned in Tango, and I definitely feel I have a better handle on it than some of the more basic stuff I haven't drilled.  Fifteen or twenty minutes of repetition made all the difference in me getting it (mostly) out of my head and into my body (somewhat).

So if you're a fellow dance student, set aside some time to drill - I'll be doing so again (and I'm always looking for drill partners - email me!)

20 minutes is the difference between "huh?" and "Yeah, I can do that...."