I hiked up a steep climb yesterday for the first time since ripping my ankle ligament in 2020—and overdid it. So…since I can’t teach today, I thought I would write instead (and my deep apologies to the new person who just signed up for today’s class!).
We all want our dance to improve at a steady rate, all the time. Life is just not like that, and neither is tango. One day, we get something new immediately, and then we cannot repeat it for weeks or a month. Then, we can reproduce the move 50% of the time, then 75% of the time. And then, just when we think it is working, we learn a new detail—and it all falls apart again for a while.
My ankle reminds me of this uneven progress every day. I have danced in flat shoes without taping my ankle for a few months, except for days that I would also teach in high heels. I taught in high heels without taping my ankle this week for the first time since last summer, and it worked for four days!! Then, I didn’t tape for hiking, and I am back to taping again.
The body is a complex system. Tango is a complex system. When you tweak part of a system, the rest needs to adjust. The good news is that, when you get the system working better for one move, it usually improves the system for ALL moves.
Each time you learn a new detail for a move, or fix a minor problem, you adjust the entire muscle pathway for that move. Your muscles might have to fire in a new order; you might have to use a new muscle that you were not using before; or you may have learned to pare down the movement and to use fewer muscles. Your brain and body need time to rebuild that motor pathway the way you want it.
If you are learning a new combination or exploring “what do I do next?” as a leader, this same approach creates new nodes for movement. You arrive after a back ocho, and suddenly you have five possible moves instead of just one. That means you need to stay on balance and/or regroup slightly at a spot where you happily charged forward before. You may have to introduce a pause while your body fixes any slight imbalances from before. On the other hand, now you have more fun outcomes, and the follower has time to adorn at the pause, too!
My foot feels much better than yesterday when I sent out class cancellations. It should be fine in a day or two. I have learned tons about the body during this rehab period. It also led me to start training to teach yoga. All “detours” in your tango technique will end up helping your tango progress in the same way.
Little baby steps, millimeter by millimeter—and sometimes going backwards, regrouping, and moving forwards: welcome to tango!