Part of the training of a Special Circumstances agent was learning a) that the rules were supposed to be broken sometimes, b) just how to go about breaking the rules, and c) how to get away with it, whether the rule breaking had led to a successful outcome or not.
Matter, Iain M. Banks
Orbit Books, 2008
978-1-84149-418-0
The Good-Time-Boy. He has bucket-loads of charisma and applies it liberally. Likely to buy every one drinks ’cause “it’s the economy, stupid”. Will flirt with anything in a dress and then go to great lengths denying it ever happened. No one remembers what the dance was like because once Slick Willy turns on the charm forget about it.
He’s confident, oh dear Jesus is he confident. So much so that he uses it to cover it up his ineptitude. Nothing will be thought through, it will just be done. He will launch into things that he can’t get out of leaving him precariously balanced with his leg wrapped round your arse. Of course because he is so confident he thinks the world, apart from one or two oddly strung followers that he is out to get, loves him and there is nothing you can do about it.
He leads and directs with a cold steel grip. His route around the dance floor is performed according to a five year plan and will be executed no matter what the cost or the obstacle. You are required to affectionately refer to him as uncle Joe. Any form of passive leading will be strictly punished and if you step out of line you can expect to be banished to the gulag of the back row of seats never to be heard of again. He will also have a number of satellite leaders in his thrall subject to his whim.
The male role in tango is commonly referred to as that of Leader. Well to be a leader implies leadership and the various qualities required. Much has been written about leadership, unfortunately badly and directed at middle management David Brent types.
In this series I am going to describe the various types of tango leader one can encounter in terms of world leaders.
Given that our teacher travels down on the bus from Dublin it was bound to happen that a traffic hold up would prevent her from arriving on time to give the first class.
I concentrated mainly on the walk, for three reasons: you should always concentrate on the walk, the class participants were fairly new, and the male female ratio was 2:6.
The skewed male female ratio also meant I couldn’t work on anything requiring a complex lead so I used something that came to me at a milonga that weekend. While dancing I noticed that after an americana people expect to return to face their partner or go on to do a giro. So I didn’t. I continued walking side by side … and listened to their brains going “he can’t be just be doing this, my god, he is just doing this”.
So my first step for a class was; walk, turn into the americana, continue walking side by side, resolve.
I was going to do a rewrite of this along the lines of “If you can sacada when blah di blah di blah blah” but the original is far too good and says everything that I want it to say about dancing tango both in the class and in the milonga.
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!Rudyard Kipling
5 Panel Print entered in the Limerick Camera Clubs February competition. All photos taken around the Limerick Tango 2nd Anniversary Workshop & Ball.
When teaching, be it fencing or dancing, there is always the danger of simply creating in ones own image. As a teacher it is something that one should try to avoid as you are doing your student a disservice. You miss the opportunity for the student to fully realise their personality and seriously risk failing students that cannot adopt your image.
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
Rugby, racing, fast cars, dancing, women, horses and fencing.