Scribble

Am mildly alarmed to find that a whole week has passed since my last post. Have only been to three milongas, this week, but have attended lots of classes and have started taking notes, right there on the spot. I guess I’m turning into a tango geek. No doubt I’ll wind up getting better at taking notes than at dancing tango, but at least I’ll have the possibility of recapturing some of the highlights of the classes, long after I’ve ceased to be able to remember all the beautiful stuff they dish up here. I wish I had a pair of dolls to practise with, like those life size sex dolls, but for tango (and only for tango.) One of each gender, that I could switch on whenever I felt in need of a práctica. A práctica soon after taking notes helps you make sense of the scribbles about hip, breast and leg positions, which a couple of days later can read like the kamasutra on acid.

I reckon I need to review my note-taking. At the moment, it’s higgledy piggledy: in the first person, one moment, in the third the next, sometimes refering to a leader and follower, sometimes man and woman, sometimes left and right, at other times clockwise and anti-clockwise and so on. Then, there’s the heavy sprinkling of Spanglish terms, such as sacada-ing, ocho-ing, giro-ing, standing in abierta, enrosquing the feet. I know what I mean, but I would feel foolish sharing them with a dance partner. Besides, if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. Now, my mind understands this very well – it’s just my body that doesn’t listen. Educating the body is a whole lot like training a dog. A bad dog, in my case.

I haven’t been anywhere new since last week. Just been doing more of the same: am enjoying every moment. But then, I’m a masochist. No time to eat, throbbing feet, not progressing as fast as I would wish. Tango is character building.