Tango - In Person

When I received the assignment for an exploration on a book called Tango, I was a little apprehensive. I mean, I enjoy a challenge, but I’ve never been what one might call an able dancer.

Which is to say, in a circuitous fashion: I can’t dance.

And not in the typical, self-deprecating way most people say they can’t dance. It’s impossible for me to move my hips independently of the rest of my body. I think it’s a bona fide medical condition. Ask my doctor.

But I can read, and reading Tango makes me wish I could dance. Jeannette Potts — the self-described Dr. Tango — writes about the connections between the sensuous tango and life writ large: the interconnectedness and beauty of life that people so often fail to see; the importance of trust and kindness in relationships; and the idea that we all need to take a breath and stop thinking about everything and just experience life.

More on that later.

But as I move on with this project, perhaps I’ll learn a few new moves (or any moves, really). Shall we?

  I read Tango on a plane to Chicago, feeling slightly weird. It seems I was about to be that guy, the one who sits at the Chili’s near gate A7 reading self-help books with scuffed shoes and a rolling suitcase. I don’t want to be that guy.

    I looked over the chapter titles: “The Stronger the Axis, the Fewer Feet Needed on the Floor;” “Always Keep Your Heart in Front;” and “Learn to Dance, but Let the Dance Teach You.” They didn’t really move me, no pun intended. How, I thought, am I going to slog through a book about dancing — which I can’t do (please see first post) — that at the same time preaches some sort of Best Life-esque techniques for better living?

    So, I sat in my aisle seat and opened the book. It was then I realized that tango — literally, the dance — meant so much more to Potts than an assemblage of dance steps. Even though I’d never tangoed in my life, she was able to bring the dance to bear on many other aspects of my life:

1.    You define the boundaries and rules of any engagement. If someone or something makes you uncomfortable — or doesn’t respect you —leave immediately.
2.    If you anticipate too much, you’ll kill the moment.
3.    You accomplish more and greater things when you work as a team.
4.    Trust in yourself and look like you know what you’re doing, and you’ll do well.

    So much of Tango the book and tango the dance follows these principles. Don’t dance with a domineering partner; don’t work for a domineering boss. Don’t try to plan every step; don’t plan every minute of your day.

Essentially, it boils down to this: Relax, and enjoy yourself. You’ll feel better and — a shock here — you’ll enjoy yourself.

   My daughter is now 15 months old. My wife is entering her final year of grad school. I work a full-time job, and spend about as much time outside of work on other work, plus everything else that a 15-month-old daughter and a wife and a house require.
    I have closets full of notebooks full of to-do lists and an Outlook task list that stretches for gigabytes.
    I work a lot, and spend a lot of my time thinking about the future. And deadlines. And if my laptop is charged and the balance of Mira’s college savings fund and my own student loan payments and the gas bill and e-mails I have to write and we’re out of sippy cups again and did we pay day care this week?
    In short, I spend most of my time planning. It’s a rotten disease, one that takes over your life. I can count on one hand the times in the past few months that I have actually been able to be what the gurus call “totally present.” 
    I read a story a while back that talked about surfers and nuns who would reach a state of Nirvana when, respectively, riding waves or praying. It seems that your brain always sends out signals to the body, asking, “Where are you? What’s going on?” And then your body responds, “On the sofa. Watching football.” Or, “In the car. Stuck in traffic.”
    But in the case of the surfers and nuns, they would reach a point where their brains were sending out the signals, but getting nothing back. The body was so focused on the board or God that it wouldn’t respond to the brains questions. And so a loop forms, and the brain doesn’t know where it is. This is called by laypeople an out-of-body experience, or something the sports folks call being “in the zone.”
    But sitting in a cramped Continental flight to Chicago, reading Tango, made me realize that, even though I don’t surf or wear a habit or even tango dance, I can take the time to appreciate the things around me when they’re around. Because they won’t always be, and neither will I.

   Potts the author is very approachable. Potts the doctor is less so. I don’t mean that she’s cold or hard to know or anything like that. She’s very good at what she does, and as such is in high demand. She travels internationally for various professional and dance-related functions, and can be hard to pin down for an interview and dance demonstration.
    But, thanks to her connections with a private club (http://www.clubhillbrook.com/) near Cleveland, we were finally able to record a demonstration of her dancing with her friend David Palmer. (I keep calling it a demonstration because Potts is quick to point out that she doesn’t teach tango or give lessons.)
    In the low-ceilinged room the day after Christmas, Potts and Palmer danced up a storm while Dave Wilson, DelMio.com’s editorial director, and I watched. Dave and I were rapt as the couple spun across the floor, sweeping their legs out and up and over each other. Potts completely left the ground several times, and Palmer was no slouch himself.
    But what was so amazing about the dance is that the two were so focused on each other and the music. Dave and I and the club and everything else seemed to drop away
    Before I drove the club to meet with everyone, I e-mailed Potts some questions. I got an out-of-office reply that said, effective 2008, she wouldn’t respond to e-mails after office hours and she was canceling her BlackBerry service. I asked her about it after the dance demonstration, and she said it was because she wanted to be less connected.
    Having it didn’t make me a better doctor, she said. It just made me good at checking my e-mail.
    Much of Tango (and tango) is about focusing on the present and appreciating it for what it is, even if it isn’t perfect. It likely won’t ever be. But that doesn’t mean you can have a great dance just the same.