More malingering than milongaring

Last week, I went to class every day, but in the evenings, I must confess there was more malingering than milongas. It’s a long journey home from evening classes at DNI Bulnes, added to which classes frequently start late and therefore finish late. Excuses, excuses. All the same, enormous though my affection is for DNI, I will carry on with lunchtime lessons there, but I intend to start going local in the evenings.

I had planned to go out every night this week and would have done so, but tonight, I felt obliged to stay in and get my computer to behave, as it hasn’t let me access the internet all day.
On Monday, I went to a practica at Villa Malcolm with Chris, a double bass player from Boston, who doesn’t mind being led. It was his idea. Yet, of all the places in Buenos Aires we could have gone to, we found ourselves at the same venue as Jeff and Ching. Fate just keeps throwing us together.

Last night, I went to Porteño y Bailarín with Kemal. The teachers were Ernesto Balmaceda, (brother of Julio,) and Stella Baez and we did a very elegant spiral choreography, which Kemal liked so much, he kept saying, ‘I’ll never forget this, I’ll never forget this.’ I found myself feeling rather envious. As a follower, you don’t have anything like the same degree of control over what gets danced. If you have enjoyed a choreography and want to dance it again, the only way to do that is to learn to lead it. I am not capable of inferring a lead, just yet. For me, every bit of leading is hard won. I have to watch it, copy it, repeat it and once I can do that mechanically, only then does the logic of it begin to dawn on me. I look forward to having a breakthrough in being able to work out on my own how to lead the moves I love.