The inner game of tango

When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as 'rootless and stemless'. We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed. When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don't condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.

Similarly, the errors we make can be seen as an important part of the developing process. In its process of developing, our tennis game gains a great deal from errors. Even slumps are part of the process. They are not 'bad' events, but they seem to endure endlessly as long as we call them bad and identify with them.

The Inner Game of Tennis, W. Timothy Gallwey

Wild Geese

After all this time, and all this work, I still tend to fall into worry and thinking. It's still effort for me to just let myself dance. Over the time I've been tangoing I've collected an ever-growing box of tools for dealing with this, for letting myself go, for trusting myself, for accepting myself, but the enemy is cunning, and shifts and adapts to keep up with the latest technology. Perhaps I'll always have to work at this. Perhaps in ten years time I'll still be writing whiny posts about how I can't get my brain to shut up.

So, thanks to Nuit for reminding me again of the importance of letting myself have fun. Tonight I decided to trust myself - my body does this well when I don't harrass it - and I had a good night. And then I came home and came across a poem which I'd forgotten all about but love, and which has much to say on this subject. Here it is: Mary Oliver's Wild Geese.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

No mind

The zone = no mind.

Must read more about no mind. Also, must read the Tao of Tango!

Performance anxiety

If I think I've got problems with finding the zone, Eli Manning's got it worse. Seems like he was struggling with his own performance anxiety this weekend. I wonder how much of the problem was knowing that his brother was watching.

I don't have 80,000 people watching me, thank god. Nor do I have half a dozen 230lb men desperately trying to knock me off my feet. But I do think the mental state required to perform at your best is more or less the same in tango as in sport. You need to find the zone, that almost trance-like state where everything seems to happen without effort, where you're not thinking because you're really present, where you're at your centre and therefore perfectly balanced.

When I was at uni I captained our college pool team. When I was playing at my best it was because I was in exactly that same state of mind. In that state of mind I made shots that I would have thought were impossible if I'd actually thought about it.

I wonder whether there's anything in sport psychology that can help me with this. I'll investigate and report back. So far I've found articles about the zone in gymnastics, golf, and reffing football, but none of them are telling me anything I didn't already know.

The tangocoaster strikes back.

It's been an up and down weekend.

Part of it I spent with some very old friends, going round very old haunts. I passed my old school and peered through the fence. One of the things I loved about our school was that, because it was a former... well, not a stately home or country house, but certainly the large house of some very rich people... it had absolutely gorgeous grounds, and I spent much of my childhood hiding in the shrubbery making temples (I was never exactly your average kid) or sitting at the top of the tallest trees I could find. So I was sad to find that they'd cut down most of the trees and most of the shrubbery. I always hoped that one day I could go back and sit in those trees again; now I know I never can. Oh, and they'd also ditched my favourite climbing frame. Boo.

Then we went to the old school of one of my male friends (we were all at public school - that's private school for those of you across the pond). It's attached to a cathedral, as quite a lot of the oldest boys schools are here, and we all went in there and he regaled us with stories about the place. I was amazed to discover how much he knew about it, my scruffy, rebellious friend, and I had a sudden feeling of connection, a glimpse into a part of his life that had previously been unknown to me, a sense of the enormity of everyone's experience, and found myself quite emotional. Evensong was on at the eastern end and the space was full of music, and I sat down in the nave and listened, and looked, and thought about all the thousands of stones that the building was made of, each a different shape, but making its perfect contribution to the whole.

And part of my weekend, of course, involved tango. And it was very coastery. First of all I had a breakthrough milonga. After our chat earlier in the week about the problems I have bringing my whole self to the milonga, I somehow managed to do it. Well, perhaps 90% of myself. My wings were definitely out, if not *completely* unfurled. We flew around the room, with only the occasional stumble. I was elated; my teacher seemed thrilled.

And then I had the obligatory one-step-backwards. In this week's lesson, right from the start, I felt I wasn't at my best. I've learnt that I almost always feel that way at the start, but usually settle into it after a bit. But this time there was no settling. It just seemed to get worse. At the milonga afterwards we tried again, but it just wasn't happening. I worked my coping strategies. I looked for the positives. I engaged my inner Peyton ('That's ok, Psyche, you're still the best boleo in the neighbourhood.') I wheeled out the affirmations. But I just couldn't settle. The Brain was out in force. No matter how many times I tried to bring my attention back to the music, the connection, my centre, that little voice kept pointing out it wasn't going well.

Meh. I know that's just how it goes. I know that even when it feels like you're going backwards, you're still going forwards - that's just how the learning process works. I know that I was tired and emotional, I know that any really good experience is always hard to follow, I know we all have off days. But I still feel blue about it.

Oh, and I walked off the dancefloor to discover that a recent slight niggle in my knee had become quite a large niggle, with accompanying slight swelling in the ankle. Time for a trip to the osteopath.

But hey, I figure if problems, whether emotional or physical, are coming out now, it's a good thing because it gives me a chance to work on them before I go away.

Part-time wings

Chloe: When I dream, sometimes I remember how to fly. You just lift one leg, then you lift the other leg, and you're not standing on anything, and you can fly. And then when I wake up I can't remember how to do it any more.

Dream: So?

Chloe: So what I want to know is, when I'm asleep, do I really remember how to fly? And forget how when I wake up? Or am I just dreaming I can fly?

Dream: When you dream, sometimes you remember. When you wake, you always forget.

Chloe: But that's not fair...

Dream: No.

Brief Lives

In this week's lesson, it really felt like tango with wings. It was pure tango heaven. My teacher looked at me and said, 'Why don't you dance like this at the milonga?'

And that, my friends, is the fifty-million dollar question. In class lately, I feel like I have wings. I feel centred, present, stable, responsive, light, smooth. But at the milonga, even dancing with my teacher, I am definitely earth-bound!* I miss things, I stumble, my balance is uncertain, the Brain is on guard.

It's like those dreams where you can fly, and then you wake up and you feel like you ought to be able to still do it, but you can't. Or it's like someone's taken my body and switched it for one that doesn't quite fit.

Of course, there are plenty of reasons why it's harder to dance at a milonga than in class. You're surrounded by a press of people on the floor, so that's one extra thing to be aware of. There are people all around who may or may not be watching. A particular problem for me is the worry about what my partner thinks of the way I'm dancing (ssh, Brain). Then there's extra noise and less light, or disorientating light if the venue has disco lights (yep, really). But still. It must be possible to find a place where this stuff doesn't affect you too much.

On a happier note, many thanks to Tangobaby for pointing me at these gorgeous wings. I want a pair to go with every pair of CIF I own! I may have to content myself with a glowy hair thing, though - dancefloors here are chaotic enough without me introducing wings into the equation.

---

* Not the best choice of words, as a large part of my recent improvement has been down to the work I've done lately on grounding! But you know what I mean.

Centres

In Wisdom Quest I've just come across some exercises about centres: one to draw down 'sky energy' for your mind, one to draw down 'earth energy' for your body, and one to balance the two. The earth energy one involved working with your centre, in the tan tien sense, the area within your pelvis, which of course I've been thinking about a lot lately with all this grounding and home stuff. (The balancing one involved balancing the two energies in the heart region.)

Anyway, one of the things it suggested was that you can unite your mind and your body by focusing on that point, that lower centre; that that brings your mind, which normally races around from thought to thought, past to future, back into the present, rooting it in the here and now, and into stillness. Which certainly echoes my recent experience - thinking about my centre / home is doing wonders for my mental presence.

Grounded, centered, balanced

This home thing, this grounding thing, is starting to mean things to me in new ways. Previously, the idea of grounding meant little more to me than the idea of earthing excess energy. Then I started to try to think in terms of roots, of being rooted and therefore stable. That led onto the lower chakras and the home thing, and that to Hestia, first and last, and now I'm really starting to see how and why Hestia is first and last. You can't do anything properly if your home ground is messed up. Home in the sense of a physical home, and how much difference it makes when you create a nice home for yourself. Home in the sense of everything beginning at home, of people in glass houses, of the apprentice year, of sorting yourself out before you try to go out into the world, of putting your thoughts in order before you go to bed.

Tonight, I concentrated on the tango equivalent of home - axis, centre, posture. Just that. And it made a huge difference. I think that I've been paying insufficient attention to myself when I dance - I think I tend to focus too much on what my partner's leading, and not enough on where I am. I look outside myself, assuming that my body can look after itself. But bringing some of my awareness back into my own centre hugely improved my ability to follow what's being led, both in terms of my physical ability to do so (thanks to being more on my own axis, more grounded, more balanced, more relaxed, and therefore better able to respond), and in terms of my ability to read what's being led (because somehow it makes my mind more centered and responsive too, and enables that state of mind in which I'm accepting and open, enjoying and not judging.) I really felt transformed. I felt perfectly balanced and perfectly able to respond. I knew I had plenty of time to do whatever was asked of me. Even in quick, long turns, I pivoted, with all the time in the world, and then stepped, with all the time in the world. It was amazing.

First, start with Hestia

So, that home thing.

Thinking about home, the first thing I thought of was the goddess Hestia, so I did a bit of research. (The Brain isn't all bad. It's good at research.)

Apparently Hestia's name means 'the essence'. This home thing really is important, isn't it?

"These virtues define the goddess Hestia: mild, gentle, forgiving, peaceful, serene, dignified, calm, secure, stable, welcoming, and, above all else, well-centered." Stable, serene, centered - yep, sounds like exactly what I need.

Apparently, the Greeks had a saying: "First, start with Hestia." I suppose that's the Greek equivalent of setting your own house in order before meddling elsewhere. Or being the change you want to see in the world. Or putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs. Or, for tango, sorting out your axis, your balance, your stability, and your following mind. Hestia's work is never glamorous, but it is essential.

Grounding = home?

I seem to be getting little nudges to look at the idea of grounding in terms of the idea of home. I'm missing a sense of home at the moment - had to sell my house recently, really didn't want to, and haven't really settled into the new place. And now suddenly there are giant Ikea posters everywhere saying things like 'Home is the most important place in the world' and 'Do you live in a house or a home?' My friends keep talking about the lower chakras and their connection with earth and home (they've always said my root chakra is MIA).

So, if you'll excuse my getting a bit hippified for a minute, it seems my inner home needs a little looking after, the place where I assimilate and rest and recover. If you go along with the whole chakra paradigm, then that area is the same place as the place that tango teachers (and tai chi practitioner) sometimes talk about as the centre - a place inside your pelvis - and I already think of that when I think of grounding in tango. Will ponder.

A breakthrough

When I was a beginner, I had this idea that if I could get to a certain level, then I would be able to relax and enjoy myself (it was one of the things that drove me so hard to improve). I now know this is arse. Although it's true that I am more chilled than I used to be, I'm still nausea-inducingly nervous before every milonga.

I can see now, it's not about your level, and it's not about the number of mistakes you made tonight. It's about your attitude. With the right state of mind, you will enjoy your evening and the many little gifts it brings. With the wrong one, you will doubt, fret, self-judge, and worry that your partner is secretly wishing he were dancing with someone else.

I'm sick of making myself miserable. It's time to find the right state of mind. I know it's possible, because two nights ago I stumbled on a state of mind that made my lesson an absolute pleasure instead of a (wholy self-induced) threat to my sense of self-worth. It wasn't that anything had changed outside myself. It wasn't that especially good things happened to me, or that I felt less tired, or was dancing better. It was just that somehow my state of mind was such that all these things were ok - it was ok for me to make mistakes, it was ok that I was tired, it was ok that things happen as they do. And I had an absolutely wonderful evening, dancing and learning and experimenting, and not worrying at all. The Brain was almost completely silent - occasionally it peeked around the corner and made a tentative suggestion that all might not be well, but I was able to just reassure it that everything was fine and go back to dancing.

So what did I do differently? Well, it seemed to be partly to do with positivity, partly to do with grounding, and a lot to do with acceptance. I'm going to try and pin this down better as time goes by in the interests of reproducing it, but here's what I remember so far. I think the grounding started it, because I was at that holistic therapy place again the other day, and picked up a card while asking how I could find a better state of mind for tango, and got this:

Ground yourself

When you detach from awareness of your body and the physical world, you become ungrounded. Although it's pleasant to float heavenward, your attention and work are needed upon the earth. We're helping you balance the spiritual and material so that you can enjoy a fulfilling earthly life.

So I decided to give it a go. Certainly I do tend to live in my head, and being present is something I work on. But this time being present seemed to lead me to a more accepting state of mind, and that, I think, was the key thing.

I really want to work on this. I have friends who don't dance as well as I do, but enjoy themselves far more. I see them laughing and joking (and then dancing) with all the best dancers, all the visiting teachers. Somehow their personalities are constructed in a way which means that they have confidence in themselves whoever they're with. Well, I may not be naturally built that way, but nonetheless I'm sure I can learn a thing or two about it. It's not that my friends don't make mistakes; it's just that they recognise them as fleeting hiccups which in no way detract from their ongoing fabulousness. They don't waste time worrying that they're dancing badly tonight / getting worse instead of better / making their partner regret dancing with them. They just go straight onto the next step. I somehow found this state of mind this week, and that means I can find it again, with a little practice.