Saturday 8 March 2008

Dance Failure

Here is a discussion thread about Dance Failure.

Sometimes I have a night when my nervous sytem just does not work very well. Dancing any kind of dance requires a lot of coordination and concentration, and sometimes I haven't got as much to spare.

The better I am, the better my bad nights will be. Even when I have a wobbly night I still dance better, or at least no worse, than I did six months ago. Even if I am not improving that much, more practice and experience makes me more consistent, so I lose less on a bad day and even if I feel awful no one else may notice.

I dance much better when I am happy. I can relax and go with the flow and decide that Everything Is Going to Be OK. And you need to be able to do that in tango, often in the face of quite strong evidence to the contrary.

It can be affected by the time of the month. There is an energy cost to ignoring that little voice of the illiterate peasant great-grandmother inside who would never be satisfied if you were a billionairess and got the Nobel Peace Prize - when another egg is wasted, she just stares at you and weeps. It takes a lot to drown her out.

I just accept it. Sometimes I have a rest and do something else, and sometimes I just drink as much coffee and eat as much chocolate as I need to get me out of the house, and go anyway, because it's better than moping.

I don't really like most aftershave smells. Why isn't there a scent for men that smells like chocolate? Proper chocolate, not like a Mars bar, that would just be vulgar.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that a lot of dance failure is in the mind. I've often had days when I feel that my dancing is awful and on saying something to a dance partner they say that they hadn't noticed anything unusual.

And chocolate aftershave! You should market that...

Psyche said...

Oh, boy, this is my biggest problem. I've blogged aboutit in the past, but it's bugging me so much right now I can feel another post coming on.

There is a chocolate aftershave here. I haven't smelt it, but it's advertised all over the place.

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I wish for a life without work, chores, commutes, deprived sleep .... all that energy diverted away from where it could be focussed - tango, tango music, tango movement, tango learning, tango breathing, ...

La Tanguerita said...

Now and then when my great-grandmother in question starts crying, I let her beloved egg bucket fall to the ground to see what happens. Sometimes she just passes out.
I'm not so sure about chocolate aftershave though...

koolricky said...

Hey, Chocolate aftershave? Don't complain if you get bitten! :o)
We all have good and bad days. If we hadn't bad days we couldn't appreciate good days. Right?
;o)

tangobaby said...

At least a girl can prepare for the great-grandmother's visit and know that's going to happen once a month. It's the other dance failure days that confuse me. How can one day be glorious and the next day horrible? Sometimes it's just too much stress to wonder where the dancing goes.

I probably eat too much chocolate anyway to have it help me in situations like this, but this is the bar I'd take to a desert island with me (you should try it):

http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/product/goji_exotic_candy_bar

msHedgehog said...

I dunno - it's a real problem if you can't relax for one reason or another. That's the main problem for me, and it can be anything.

msHedgehog said...

I see that vosges chocolate (nice name) also sell Yak Cheese. How wonderful!

tangobaby said...

I would start with the chocolate first before diving into the Yak Cheese.

They do have a new chocolate bar with bacon in it, which I've gotten mixed reviews on, and you could try that too. But the Goji berry one is a winner in my book.

La Tanguerita said...

Yesterday in Stansted while waiting for my flight I was browsing the shelves with new perfumes and found something that made me think of you. “AngelMen (aka A*Men) Pure Coffee by Thierry Mugler. You might want to check it out next time you have a chance. It smells of Arabica beans, a little bit of cedar … it has a very rich nose actually. Though not really chocolatey, it’s somehow yummy:-)