“Well there was always a bit of rugby down the road in Castleisland, not that anyone went to watch it. I think that I said to you before, it was like watching a pornographic movie, it was very frustrating to onlookers and only for the enjoyment of the participants.”

When I was in my teens, I loved Henry James. I read him with uncorrupted pleasure. Then, when I was eighteen or so, and had just started The Golden Bowl, someone – older, cleverer, whose opinions were offered gravely – asked me whether I didn’t find James very difficult, as she always did. Until then, I had no idea that I might, and I didn’t. From that moment, I couldn’t read him but self-consciously; from then on I did find him difficult. I do not wish to insult by the comparison , but I had a similar, Jamesian mayonnaise experience. My mother used to make mayonnaise weekly, twice weekly; we children would help. I had no idea it was meant to be difficult, or that it was thought to be a nerve-racking ordeal. Then someone asked how I managed to be so breezy about it, how I stopped it from curdling. From then on, I scarcely made a mayonnaise that didn’t split. It’s not surprising: when confidence is undermined or ruptured, it can be difficult to do the simplest things or take any enjoyment even in trying.

Nigella Lawson, How to eat

Telling someone that tango is difficult doesn’t make it any easier. Worst of all is peoples insistence on telling new leaders that “it’s more diffucult for the man”. I’m not saying that starting tango and taking on the role of leader at the same time is easy, but don’t burden the poor guy with extra baggage when his hands are already full.

In it there is one key line:

The teamwork required to dance tango well is so much more important than any one person’s individual technique.

Too much focus is placed on technique as though perfect technique is the goal of tango. Teamwork is the goal of tango. Technique is what you use to remove the physical obstacles to that teamwork.

Or is it the other way round…?

The gypsy girl goes to the grave of her former lover who was killed by her rich now husband, at whose hand her former lover died, and using her gypsy incantations rasies him from the dead. They dance a dance for what brought them together was that they danced well. The gypsy girl tries to convince her lover to stay above ground. They dance again. Again the gypsy girl tries to convince her lover to stay above ground. They dance a third dance. Finally the former lover decides that the place for him is below the ground, not being particularly happy that the gyspy girl is married to the man who killed him, and so returns there.

A tanda, three dances and a return to the underworld.

Adornos were “earned”, through an organic process of self-discovery over the course of time. A LOT of time. They emerged by learning how our bodies move, and how our listening translated into motion through our nervous and musculo-skeletal systems. And how different partners affected our ability to incorporate them into our dance. As a result, there was an infinite variety of individual embellishments, and the way we expressed ourselves with different partners.

To me that reads a lot like how one develops ones signature. That quasi-legible scrawl that you use as your mark, your insignia on documents. Did you recieve any instruction in the development of your signature? No one suggested to me that the i in my signature should devolve to a vestigial dot after the v that precedes it, but it has.

Your adornments are your signature, the emphasis being on your.

So rather than just stand there in the street they decided to walk. After a bit the Gingerbread man found that, while not the easiest thing in the world, it was enjoyable. He also found that if he twisted his torso that the Gingerbread woman had to twist her torso in sympathy. He found that in doing so he could play with the direction of her hips. That the steps she took needn’t all be backwards.

And he found that the steps he led tugged at their jelly-tot hearts… and that she liked it.

Kudos to Simba Tango for part of the inspiration.