Dear friends:
Since a few of you have asked about my adventures in San Diego, here’s my story:
The weekend began with a last minute decision to stay the entire weekend there. I had signed up for classes everyday, but I didn’t want to spend $99+ per night to stay in the event hotel, so I had originally planned to drive down and back everyday. But the closer the event got, the more frightened I became about my ability to make it home safely after the two evening dance parties on Friday and Saturday. Finally, on the advice of a friend to be prudent instead of heroic (and stupid), I booked myself into the cheapest hotel in San Diego, figuring that I would basically make up the cost in gas money by not having to drive back and forth to LA every day.
By the time Thursday morning hit, I was in a kind of a weird state mentally. Extremely focused, but it’s really hard to describe. About the best way of describing it is like a wound up spring. Compressed, without being too tight, very focused, energized, but very quiet, too. I felt like a hooded thoroughbred being led to the starting gate – or a 20-year veteran gladiator walking into a high school wrestling match. Yes, the psychological games with myself had already begun. The entire week, as trite as it may sound, that was the biggest battle I had to fight – the mental sabotage I was perpetrating on myself. I felt silly. Like I was making way too big a deal over this. It was just a podunk little contest, and what was I going to do afterwards if I did well? Who was going to really care two hours after it was over? Even I had enough objective perspective to realize that this event had no brag value whatsoever, and that to even attempt to do so would really make me look colossally stupid, not to mention egotistical and arrogant.
I got to San Diego easily – my son’s directions had been clear and precise – found the event hotel, found my accommodations, and drove back and forth a couple of times to make sure I would get lost, and scoped out the parking.
I went to the first class with Guillermo and Fernanda, a milonga class, on Thursday afternoon. I was really intimidated by them. Felix goes into raptures over them, especially Fernanda, and I am pretty much in awe of them myself. The whole class was pretty quiet and reserved, and G&F, I could tell, were really having to “pull teeth” to get people to warm up to them and each other, to relax. But they’re pretty skilled teachers. Before long, people were laughing and participating, and the class really came together. It was a pretty small class – about 10-11 people, most were there as couples, and I was the odd woman out. As a result, I spent almost the entire class partnered with Guillermo. And if that wasn’t an all expense paid trip to heaven, I don’t know what would be. I was almost shaking the first time he did an exercise with me – I really felt like th is was the acid test of my ability as a dancer, a pre-test for the coming competition on Saturday. After completing the exercise, Guillermo looked at me and in that flash of an instant, between eye contact and smile, I knew. I saw the unspoken wonder, the admiration, the pleasure, even before he smiled and said, “Beautiful!!” The word may have been hyperbole, but there was no faking that look. The expression in his eyes was worth twenty gold medals. I started to relax and tripled my efforts to learn the techniques they were demonstrating. By the end of the class, I really felt I had learned something tangible that had improved my dancing in a way I could FEEL. I spoke to Guillermo privately and asked if there was anything he could see that I needed to work on. He gave me several very high compliments, and made one small suggestion for something I should work on, and I left the class absolutely walking on air.
I went to a local milonga that night, and I had the most fun of my life. I was dancing better than I’d ever danced before. I was still in that weird, highly focused state. Snatches of instruction were flickering through my head – Stefan, Felix, Maximiliano, advice and good wishes from the DF here, the tactile memories of dancing with Jurgen. I could feel that I was dancing well, and I was proud of it. I met so many nice people that night. A man from Moscow who was so fun, so expressive and creative, that I forgot about technique, the contest, everything, and just surrendered to the Madness of Dionysus as it descended.
The next day, I went to the event hotel early, hoping to use one of the ballrooms to do some ballet work. They were all locked, so I wound up finding a corner of the lobby where I could do my barre exercises. Again, that silly feeling began to overwhelm me. I was showing off. I was working too hard. None of the other contestants were putting this much effort into it. I was making too much out of nothing. Finally, I had to get a grip on this thought process and deal with it, because it was really starting to get me upset. I finally confronted it and realized, like Kermit the Frog, this contest may not mean anything to anybody else, but it meant something to ME. And what did it mean? Well, the year before, I had “choked,” and sabotaged my own performance because of it. This year, the challenge was not to crack psychologically. If I could successfully pass this challenge, then that was the proof TO MYSELF that I had the drive, determination, discipline, mental focus, and psychological toughness to be a professional someday. That’s why this contest was so important. I was determined to prove to myself that I could deliver, that I had what it took on the inside, mentally as well as physically, to someday become a professional dancer. That’s what this contest meant, and of course it wasn’t important to anybody else, but it was darned important to me, and that’s why I was doing it. I was doing this for ME. Not for Felix, not for my friends, not for my kids, not for my parents. For ME.
That kind of renewed my energy and I finished my ballet workout just as G&F were coming down to the lobby for their class. The class was excellent, but much larger, and as a result I didn’t really get to work one-on-one with Guillermo, but I’d kind of licked up the gravy that I needed the day before, and instead, Fernanda spent quite a bit of time working with me and whoever my partner at the moment was. Frankly, I was head over heels in love with her. She’s one of those exquisite women who sums up everything I value in a woman. I think she could easily qualify as a part-time Goddess if she ever retires from dancing. (“Available for worship and adoration, T & Th, 2-4 pm, by appointment only. Gifts, sacrifices, and offerings accepted anytime.”) The Friday class was a straight tango class – just the basics, and watching Guillermo was absolutely fascinating. The man is absolutely rooted into the floor like an oak tree, and Stefan’s and Felix’s repeated and stern injunctions to press into the floor, to use that strong vertical alignment, to use the floor suddenly became very clear and very visible. I could SEE it, in a way I’d never seen in another dancer, ever. And as a result, that man could move. The quickness, the balance, the control, everything. I was more impressed than ever. These were people who REALLY knew what they were talking about. They really didn’t cover a single step. Just fundamental basics of good dancing and good movement, of good EXPRESSION while dancing, of good partner technique and responsiveness. I was drinking it in, gulping it down in such huge gushes it was sloshing down my front. Again, I asked Guillermo if he had any tips for me, even though we really hadn’t worked together, was there anything he noticed. He noticed that the thing he’d mentioned the day before had noticeably and tangibly improved, and he complimented me on it (he remembered what he’d said the day before!!), and gave me something new to work on, and related this to the ballet he could see that I studied (he’d noticed my ballet training!! I’m now in love with him, too!!!).
I went to the dance party that night, which was a mixed program of ballroom, swing, salsa, and tango. So mixed that there was only about 20% tango. (By the end of the evening I was ready to offer the DJ exotic sexual favors if he would just play more tango!!) But I did run into one fellow from Poland who, like me, only knew how to do one thing (tango), but who did it so unbelievably well, that I could have spent the rest of my life dancing tango with him and only him, and never stop for something as irrelevant as food or sleep.
They had some exhibition numbers midway through the evening – tango, urban tribal, and salsa. One of the salsa couples absolutely depth charged me out of the water. Later, I saw him standing around, not doing anything or talking to anyone, and I wanted to ask him to dance, but then I started talking myself out of it. He was so incredible it would be an insult to ask him to dance with such a bumbling beginner as me – while I can do a pretty good imitation of a few of the ballroom things, I’m really not very good at the salsa. Then I remembered all the discussions we’d had on the DF here about this very topic. And I thought, “Hey, wait a minute. This guy isn’t just here as a paid performer. He’s a teacher. He’s giving workshops on salsa all week here at this event. He’s here to teach and you’re here to learn, and you’re never going to learn anything if you don’t ask him. Now you get over there and ask him!” So, I did. Since he had only finished his exhibition a short while before, I phrased my invitation, “Do you have enough energy for a salsa with a beginner?” to give him a graceful out if he didn’t want to dance with me, but he graciously and happily accepted my invitation and led me out onto the dance floor.
I didn’t take even three steps before he exclaimed, “You’re not a beginner!!” Again, that one word was worth a dozen gold medals. I relaxed and started having fun, pouring everything I knew about dance into that number. And he started having fun, too. I could see it in his face, in his body, in the way he started pulling out increasingly sophisticated moves to throw at me, just to see if I could keep up with him. And I did!! Did I fool him into thinking I was a pro like him? Of course not. I was what I was – a beginner with a handful of simple basic moves. But I had some good, solid dance fundamentals, and I was able to keep up with just about everything he asked me to do, and he was having FUN while he was doing it. I could see it. Afterwards, I talked with him a little, and he assured me that I was very good, and that now all I needed to do was practice and practice and practice by simply DANCING and having fun, and that he’d genuinely enjoyed our dance, and that it didn’t matter that I was a just a beginner. He’d rather dance with somebody who was a beginner, and humble about it, that to dance with an intermediate dancer who thought they knew everything.
That was probably one of the big lessons of the weekend for me. I was shaking a little when I sat down, but pretty exhilarated, too, and I realized that the time had come to stop apologizing for being a beginner, even at stuff I hadn’t really studied, like ballroom and salsa. I was a good dancer. Period. End of discussion. Recognize the truth of what I am, because to deny it by trying to tell people I wasn’t very good (even though that’s how I really do see myself) was starting to come off as false modesty and fishing for compliments. Give myself permission to accept that I have enough good training in general dance that I am an objectively good dancer by anybody’s standards, accept it, know it within myself, and leave it at that. Stop apologizing, and just be what I am – a good dancer.
They had a “Jack and Jill” competition for swing, salsa, and tango, and I joined in the tango, and was randomly paired with a fellow from San Diego. I’m not even sure I remember his name. But we got picked to be finalists, and when we did the final round, I think my poor partner thought he had a tiger by the tail – I poured so much fire and passion into that number that my heart was beating all funny afterwards. We didn’t win the final prize, but the judge who selected us as finalists told me privately afterwards that she still thought we were the best. That felt pretty good, because she was the one who had performed the Urban Tribal dance which had absolutely fascinated me.
I had a really good time that night, and even picked up some compliments from “Peter, the Dancing DJ” (who was also teaching workshops at the event). What confidence booster. I left the party early in order to get a good night’s sleep, because the next day was IT!!
I got up early the next day and went down to the event hotel an hour and half early to do some ballet work before my first class. One of the hotel staff let me in the classroom, and I was able to do my barre exercises in private. The teachers, two professional ballet dancers who had just started tango a few month ago, walked in just as I was finishing, and I talked to them a little. The class was really great. There were only two students, me and a young fellow from Hawaii. We worked on some specialized ballet techniques for engaging the body which would enable us to do things like the carpa, the calesita, and lifts and drops. The male teacher was really great, because he was a really tall, big guy. My own teacher has worked with me on these techniques before, but a couple years ago, he was doing a show with one of his students, and she mis-timed a jump and he tore his shoulder really badly. He still hasn’t recovered from that injury, either. As a result, I’m really terrified of doing those moves because I’m scared to death that if I make even so much as the slightest misstep or mis-timed movement, if I don’t execute the maneuver 100% perfect, I’m going to hurt him. And in spite of the fact that he’s Mr. Health and Fitness, and probably stands shoulder to shoulder with Jack La Lane on that, he’s still 72 years old, still mortal flesh, and I’m absolutely terrified of hurting him, especially because I know I’m still overweight, too heavy really, for him to safely do those moves. But Gabriel was probably 25 years younger than Felix, taller, heavier, and stronger, and it wasn’t so much that I was confident he could hold me, it was that I was not afraid I would hurt him. He was such a big strong guy that if I made a little mistake, I wouldn’t accidently hurt him. So that essential element of trust was there – not so much trust in him as trust in MYSELF that I could safely do the move without hurting my partner. And it worked. I could, for the first time, feel how these moves were supposed to feel when properly executed, did them several times to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, and was just about in ecstacy. I was doing it!! I was really doing it!! And then I tried the same moves with Mark (who had been working all this time with the female teacher, Hillary), and even though I was significantly taller an heavier than him, we were able to execute the drops, turns, and leans easily. He had no trouble supporting my weight because I was properly engaging my body. So, even though my partner was smaller and lighter than me, I could still do these moves, and I could feel how it felt in my body when they were done properly. I was SO HAPPY!! It also helped having Hillary there, partly because Gabriel could do the maneuver with me and FEEL my body, and she could stand along side of me and SEE my body, and between the two of the them, help me to find that balance, alignment, and engagement. Plus, she was a woman, with a woman’s body, and Felix is a man, with a man’s body. It really helped seeing HER body, because I could relate what I was seeing so much easier to my own, woman’s, body, too. And since she was wearing her ballet leotard, I could see her body very clearly, see the muscles in her torso engage. Working with Felix on those same moves, he, of course, has his body completely covered up in loose clothing (long sleeved dress shirt, loose pleated trousers), so I couldn’t always see how he would engage his body. So it really helped. The class ran overtime, and I was loathe to leave, but finally I had to. I was expecting Felix any minute, I had another class with F&G, and I had to get ready for the competition.
I got myself cleaned up and costumed, decided to skip curling my hair (couldn’t find an outlet for my curlers, actually), and decided to wait til after my other class to do my make-up.
The class was good, but it was hard to focus, because time was running out and Felix still hadn’t arrived. Finally, one of my spies told me he was upstairs, and I left the class. I needed to have a chance to work with Felix and there was less than an hour to go.
Felix’s other student who was competing in the advanced category was there, and he warmed up with her first. Then he started running me through my paces, checking my walk, running through the basic maneuvers he was planning to use, and he was really pleased that this difficult turn I’ve been working on for the last 9 months or so just flowed like cream. I’d been working on it, and was really confident I could do it, and I got a surprised, pleased nod out of him. Amazingly, I could feel the tension and nervousness in his body. He was nervous. My teacher was NERVOUS! This seasoned, veteran pro, with 5 decades of performance and competition experience under his belt was nervous. Somehow, it made me LESS nervous. And I was touched that this event meant enough to him for him to be nervous about it. Since I know him well enough to know that if I asked him, he’d deny it, I knew the best way to release that nervousness was for me to channel it through MY body and psyche and release it for him. So, I expressed MY nervous feelings, and that enabled him to pooh pooh it, and I felt him relax and calm down, which enabled ME to relax and calm down, so I scurried into the bathroom and spackled my face with make-up, and then, it was time.
The contest really wasn’t set up like a DanceSport competition. Each contestant couple did a solo exhibition, and since one of the rules was that all entries had to do a completely improvised number, the DJ selected music for each couple, and you walked out on to the dance floor and did your thing. I was third up, and most of the numbers were standard tangos I’d heard a million times from all the milongas I’d been too, but I didn’t know the names of any. My number wasn’t a Piazzolla number, that’s all I know, but it was a pretty basic, good tango that I was familiar with, so I pretty much knew what to expect emotionally from the music. I was really focused, and all the mental chatter was quiet. I was careful not to watch any of the couples before me – that’s what had shot me down the year before – watching my competitors and getting intimidated by their skill. I just kept focused on being what I was, an incredibly good dancer, and accepting the truth of that, and being ready to express that to the nth degree. I could feel an enormous amount of spiritual energy flowing into me from the collective unconscious – from Maximilian, from Jurgen, from all my friends on the DF, which was pretty exhilarating. I knew that if I gave everything to Felix, and held back nothing, he’d “come alive,” and my energy would feed him. And then it was my turn.
When we met on the dance floor, he didn’t initiate tango right away. He started off with one of his standard “show openings” – a simple ronde, then stalk his partner in a circular fashion – so I threw it right back at him – showed him some thigh in a demi-plie lunge, then stalked around HIM, we met, embraced, and we were off. I could feel it. That simple opening, rather unexpected from me, since I tend to be overly “careful” when I dance with my teacher, too inhibited to really play or be truly expressive, basically lit an acetylene torch in his body and soul and he picked up my fire from that movement, and started feeding it with his own, and we danced tango like it was meant to be danced. Glenda, his other student, had brought her video camera, and she was taping me, but I don’t have a copy of it yet. However, one of my friends from LA who was also competing took some pictures for his website, and here they are:
http://tangoafficionado.fotki.com/wcarte_2005_interna/page13.html
The first picture on this page (page 13) is #206 and the pics of me continue onto page 14 through #212.You can click on the little thumbnail pics, and the photo will enlarge so you can see it better.
We finished, and I knew I had nailed it to the WALL. I was so exhilarated, and I knew I had done Felix proud. Even as the next entries performed, I knew I had out-danced every other couple there, even the ones competing in the professional category – there was no match for the clean precision of technique, the fire, the expressiveness, the beauty. I knew I had done it, accomplished what I’d set out to do – that I had walked off the dance floor knowing I had danced my very, very best, and that best had been pretty darn good by anybody’s standards. I didn’t need any of the compliments that started pouring in, but I still drank them in anyway. It felt so good. So very, very good.
Glenda had caught my number on tape, and I taped her afterwards, and later, the three of us looked at the tape. Of course, the first thing I noticed (how like an X chromosome!!) was how fat I looked. I still need to lose about 30 more pounds, but that’s okay. I’m slowly taking it off, and I looked pretty good, nevertheless, where I’m at. I also noticed right away that my carriage still needs some work. I still tend to round my shoulders a little. I need to open my chest more. The ballerina that morning had given me an image that I really liked – to envision an incredible ruby necklace resting only my upper chest area, and enormous ruby chandelier earrings, and my bare back criss-crossed with diamond strands. Imaging that, I immediately could feel my chest and back opening up, my neck lengthening. But it’s going to take some time for that to become automatic. Felix’s only comment at the time was that I need to lengthen my legs more when I step. The lines still are not clean enough.
I started releasing all that energy. It was over. Now I could relax and let go, and just have fun. I cheered for all my friends, and really had a good time. Then I found out that all the contestants would be expected to perform at the dinner that night. While I was enormously pleased by the idea, I also knew that something really bad had happened. Thinking it was over, I had completely let go of all that mental energy and psychological focus. I started trying to get that energy back, but it was no use. It was kind of like trying to blow up a flat bicycle tire with your mouth. It wasn’t happening. I started getting a little scared, because this was not good.
At the dinner, Felix asked me to dance in order to warm up, and I guess he could feel that I had completely collapsed, because he started kicking my butt and good, which only got me more rattled than ever. Our number (all the contestants danced in a group, fortunately) was pretty much a washout, and I felt he was upset and disappointed in me. I knew I was kind of upset with myself, and that I was probably pushing that upsettedness onto him, but I still felt he was mad at me. Then the awards were given out.
A third place finish. To say I was stunned was a complete understatement. I knew from watching the tape my performance was not perfect, but I still felt it was pretty darn good, and that I’d done better than a third place finish. (We were graded on points, not on comparative rankings. My points merited a third place medal. I only had one competitor in my event, and I think she ranked fourth place, but I really don’t remember. The point is, there was no first or second place medals. Just third for me, and Fourth for her.) I received my packet of adjudication sheets and sat down, really too stunned to think. Felix had apparently been given the trophy, and he came over an handed it to me without a word. I couldn’t read the look in his eyes at all. I interpreted it as shame. He was ashamed of me. I’d done my best, danced my heart out, and I’d disappointed him. He dropped that trophy in my lap like it was a dead rat and walked away.
Somebody started doing some exhibition numbers, but I was way too upset to watch. I decided to leave. I’d paid $60 for the dinner dance, the meal had been terrible – way too heavy, especially since I had to get up and perform immediately after, I gobbled it down way too fast because I hadn’t eaten in about 12 hours, and I had a stomach ache as a result – and since everyone had paid so much money for the dance, they’d all come as couples and there was no one to dance with. I knew if I stayed I wasn’t going to get to dance, I was way too upset to watch the show, and I was not having fun anymore. So, I left. It was 11:00 pm by then, and I was seriously considering simply driving home to Los Angeles, in spite of the late hour, in fact almost hoping that I WOULD fall asleep at the wheel and put myself out of all this fruitless misery. One remaining shred of sanity whispered to wait until I’d spoken with my tango friend in Sacramento who used to do competitive ice skating first. Or at least until I’d spoken to Felix. I went back to my room, called Dana (no answer) and Felix (no answer), and looked over my adjudication sheets. I’d lost a lot of points for not following the line of dance, which I felt was not really fair. I was dancing “pro/am” with my teacher. I had no control over the line of dance. I had to stay with Felix, and being a seasoned performer, since we were doing a solo exhibition number, he had instinctively used the entire floor, and stayed pretty much in the center, and had not paid any attention to the line of dance whatsoever. And that was besides the point. He was not being judged, I was. And I had lost enough points to kick me down to third place on that point alone, for something I had no control over, as the female half of the couple.
I was really upset. I had really come down hard after the high of the afternoon, and that little sane shred of consciousness was trying to tell me that maybe I was over exaggerating things, just a little, and that it was just post-competition let down. But that voice was not very loud against the roaring screams of worthlessness and self-loathing and smashed hopes. I desperately needed to WRITE, even more than I needed to talk to somebody. I didn’t dare call tacad, the only other person I could think of who might have enough basic Christian charity in his soul to keep me tied to rationality. I’d abused his good nature enough already, and it was very, very late. But what I really needed to do was WRITE. I needed to get my head together, but I had no access to a computer, and no paper. The motel I was staying in was too cheap to leave letter paper in my room, and I was too cold, and too tired to go on safari looking for a store that would sell notebook paper. I’d only get myself lost in a strange place in the middle of the night if it did, but I got dressed anyway, and was on my way out the door when I decided I was too cold and too tired to go scrounging for paper. Without the discipline of being able to write, I could not get my thoughts sorted out or my head together. Instead, I went back to bed, my head scrambling randomly around like a lab rat on LSD. I couldn’t think, couldn’t connect one rational thought to another, could not attach to anything tangible to give me some perspective on things. I desperately needed to write and could not. I was still awake, miserable, upset, mentally and emotionally scrambled, and a mess at 5:00 a.m. The only coherent thought I’d managed to pull together was that it was time to quit dancing. I’d had enough misery and disappointment. I was not cut out to be a professional, and I didn’t need to work this hard to be able to dance socially. I was flat broke, $11,000 charged on my credit cards, and it was going to be difficult to make my monthly payments and keep up my dancing lessons. It was time to quit, collect myself in a corner and figure out a way to get my life back together, my finances in order, find something new to do with my life that was a little more rewarding, a little less frustrating. Finding a rich man to prostitute myself to, who would give me food and shelter in exchange for sex and cleaning his toilet sounded like a better proposition than bashing my soul against the world of the performing arts.
Neither Dana nor Felix had ever called. I finally fell asleep, but woke up less than two hours later, and decided to just go home, but not to make any rash decisions until I’d at least talked to Dana. Just go home, don’t think, don’t decide, don’t do anything.
I managed to make it home okay, and interestingly enough, as cliched as it was, getting out of my dark room and into a little plain sunlight lifted my spirits a little. I needed to stop punishing myself. Really the place rankings weren’t so important, and all four judges had really said some nice things to me on my comment sheets, and their suggestions for improvement had been valid and fair. All four had been very consistent in their markings, and except for that business about the line of dance, I felt they were all fair and justified. If it hadn’t been for that loss of points, I probably would have gotten second place, which I felt probably would have been more reflective of how I had done.
During the drive home, I managed to figure out what it was that had gotten me so upset. It wasn’t so much the rankings, or the scoring. It was that I felt that the four judges were sending me an unspoken message, “You’re only a third rate dancer. No matter how hard you try, how hard you work, you are only a third rate dancer, and you will never, ever, ever, have what it takes to be a professional.” I dimly was aware that maybe I was reading more into it than was intended, that I was overreacting just a bit, that no such “silent message” was being sent at all. Maybe there was some hope after all. Felix has always encouraged me to dream the big dreams. Maybe I wasn’t ready to be a professional yet – after all, I’d delivered at the competition, but I had fallen apart a few hours later, when I had to do it again – but I was making progress. I’d made enormous strides since my last stab at a competition. Maybe I should just focus on the progress, and hang on to Felix’s assurance that I absolutely had the potential to be a professional someday – his estimation was that I was about two years away from that level yet. Maybe he wasn’t angry or disappointed or ashamed of me at all. Maybe that look had meant, “Here, this is yours, you earned it.” Maybe he felt badly on my behalf. Maybe he felt my disappointment, felt that I had done better than a third place finish, maybe he had been just as stunned by my ranking as I had been. Maybe his kicking my butt that evening had been his way of “showing off” to me, trying to remind me that he was still my teacher, and not to get a “big head” about how well I had done. Maybe he felt badly that he had let ME down somehow. Anyway, stop kicking yourself until you could have a serious heart to heart with your teacher.
I did manage to get hold of Dana once I got back to Los Angeles, and he agreed. It was just post-competition let-down. He’d experienced it many times himself. No one was sending my any “silent messages.” Don’t get discouraged, remember the good stuff, don’t lose faith in yourself. All the basics, but I needed to hear it from an independent voice, a voice that sounded more rational than my own. And I finally got up my nerve to call tacad, too, and he was kindness incarnate, and said all the same things that Dana had said, and it was good to hear these calm rational things from two (sane) people whose judgment I really trusted. I felt myself reconnecting to reality, re-connecting to my faith in myself. I was even able to start laughing at myself a little. Boy, I came down off that competition, and I came down hard. I was able to go to my tango class (and no, I decided I was NOT going to give up dancing), and talk to my teacher a little, and bless his heart. He HAD been feeling bad, like he’d let ME down. He was really stung, when I showed him the adjudication sheets, about the line of dance problem. To me it was a non-issue. But I could tell – he’d really wanted to do HIS best for ME, and for him to have made a goof like that, even an unwitting goof (no one had ever said we needed to follow the line of dance, even if we were the only couple on the floor), that wound up costing ME points, I could tell he felt badly about it.
By the time I had my lesson on Monday, I was pretty much feeling back to my old self, my confidence restored, and Felix dug right in, kicking my butt, left right and center, to correct the faults listed on my adjudication sheets. And that’s his way, his way of showing how proud of me he is, that the better I get, the pickier he gets, and the tougher he gets with me. I told him once that the day he quits kicking my butt over my dancing I’m going to cry because then I’ll know he doesn’t love me any more. I went to Moti’s Milongita that night, and I danced better than I ever had in my life. Partner after partner, beginners, advanced and in between, old friends and new faces. It felt so good. The things I’d learned over the weekend had stayed with me, and that felt good do. I was still moving forward, still progressing, still improving. It felt so good.
Anyway, people, that’s my story – what I experienced, what I learned, the triumphs, and the not so pretty things I’ve still got to work on. I think in part that what happened over the weekend fed directly into my desire to start the “spec sheet” thread, because it’s all just different faces of the same thing – learning to recognize who and what I am as a human being, and to hang on to that, because art is the fruit of the artist’s soul, and whatever I am on the inside is going to be reflected in my dancing, and the more I work on my soul and spirit and psyche, the more my dancing improves, too. I find I cannot separate what I am as a person, or my personal life, from what I am as a dancer, or my dancing life, because they are all too intimately bound together.
I hope somebody can gain something useful from my experiences, and from the lessons I learned. It was a powerful weekend, an intense period of growth and learning for me as a person and as a dancer. I’m sorry it is such a long story, but, this is my soul.
Renee
Since a few of you have asked about my adventures in San Diego, here’s my story:
The weekend began with a last minute decision to stay the entire weekend there. I had signed up for classes everyday, but I didn’t want to spend $99+ per night to stay in the event hotel, so I had originally planned to drive down and back everyday. But the closer the event got, the more frightened I became about my ability to make it home safely after the two evening dance parties on Friday and Saturday. Finally, on the advice of a friend to be prudent instead of heroic (and stupid), I booked myself into the cheapest hotel in San Diego, figuring that I would basically make up the cost in gas money by not having to drive back and forth to LA every day.
By the time Thursday morning hit, I was in a kind of a weird state mentally. Extremely focused, but it’s really hard to describe. About the best way of describing it is like a wound up spring. Compressed, without being too tight, very focused, energized, but very quiet, too. I felt like a hooded thoroughbred being led to the starting gate – or a 20-year veteran gladiator walking into a high school wrestling match. Yes, the psychological games with myself had already begun. The entire week, as trite as it may sound, that was the biggest battle I had to fight – the mental sabotage I was perpetrating on myself. I felt silly. Like I was making way too big a deal over this. It was just a podunk little contest, and what was I going to do afterwards if I did well? Who was going to really care two hours after it was over? Even I had enough objective perspective to realize that this event had no brag value whatsoever, and that to even attempt to do so would really make me look colossally stupid, not to mention egotistical and arrogant.
I got to San Diego easily – my son’s directions had been clear and precise – found the event hotel, found my accommodations, and drove back and forth a couple of times to make sure I would get lost, and scoped out the parking.
I went to the first class with Guillermo and Fernanda, a milonga class, on Thursday afternoon. I was really intimidated by them. Felix goes into raptures over them, especially Fernanda, and I am pretty much in awe of them myself. The whole class was pretty quiet and reserved, and G&F, I could tell, were really having to “pull teeth” to get people to warm up to them and each other, to relax. But they’re pretty skilled teachers. Before long, people were laughing and participating, and the class really came together. It was a pretty small class – about 10-11 people, most were there as couples, and I was the odd woman out. As a result, I spent almost the entire class partnered with Guillermo. And if that wasn’t an all expense paid trip to heaven, I don’t know what would be. I was almost shaking the first time he did an exercise with me – I really felt like th is was the acid test of my ability as a dancer, a pre-test for the coming competition on Saturday. After completing the exercise, Guillermo looked at me and in that flash of an instant, between eye contact and smile, I knew. I saw the unspoken wonder, the admiration, the pleasure, even before he smiled and said, “Beautiful!!” The word may have been hyperbole, but there was no faking that look. The expression in his eyes was worth twenty gold medals. I started to relax and tripled my efforts to learn the techniques they were demonstrating. By the end of the class, I really felt I had learned something tangible that had improved my dancing in a way I could FEEL. I spoke to Guillermo privately and asked if there was anything he could see that I needed to work on. He gave me several very high compliments, and made one small suggestion for something I should work on, and I left the class absolutely walking on air.
I went to a local milonga that night, and I had the most fun of my life. I was dancing better than I’d ever danced before. I was still in that weird, highly focused state. Snatches of instruction were flickering through my head – Stefan, Felix, Maximiliano, advice and good wishes from the DF here, the tactile memories of dancing with Jurgen. I could feel that I was dancing well, and I was proud of it. I met so many nice people that night. A man from Moscow who was so fun, so expressive and creative, that I forgot about technique, the contest, everything, and just surrendered to the Madness of Dionysus as it descended.
The next day, I went to the event hotel early, hoping to use one of the ballrooms to do some ballet work. They were all locked, so I wound up finding a corner of the lobby where I could do my barre exercises. Again, that silly feeling began to overwhelm me. I was showing off. I was working too hard. None of the other contestants were putting this much effort into it. I was making too much out of nothing. Finally, I had to get a grip on this thought process and deal with it, because it was really starting to get me upset. I finally confronted it and realized, like Kermit the Frog, this contest may not mean anything to anybody else, but it meant something to ME. And what did it mean? Well, the year before, I had “choked,” and sabotaged my own performance because of it. This year, the challenge was not to crack psychologically. If I could successfully pass this challenge, then that was the proof TO MYSELF that I had the drive, determination, discipline, mental focus, and psychological toughness to be a professional someday. That’s why this contest was so important. I was determined to prove to myself that I could deliver, that I had what it took on the inside, mentally as well as physically, to someday become a professional dancer. That’s what this contest meant, and of course it wasn’t important to anybody else, but it was darned important to me, and that’s why I was doing it. I was doing this for ME. Not for Felix, not for my friends, not for my kids, not for my parents. For ME.
That kind of renewed my energy and I finished my ballet workout just as G&F were coming down to the lobby for their class. The class was excellent, but much larger, and as a result I didn’t really get to work one-on-one with Guillermo, but I’d kind of licked up the gravy that I needed the day before, and instead, Fernanda spent quite a bit of time working with me and whoever my partner at the moment was. Frankly, I was head over heels in love with her. She’s one of those exquisite women who sums up everything I value in a woman. I think she could easily qualify as a part-time Goddess if she ever retires from dancing. (“Available for worship and adoration, T & Th, 2-4 pm, by appointment only. Gifts, sacrifices, and offerings accepted anytime.”) The Friday class was a straight tango class – just the basics, and watching Guillermo was absolutely fascinating. The man is absolutely rooted into the floor like an oak tree, and Stefan’s and Felix’s repeated and stern injunctions to press into the floor, to use that strong vertical alignment, to use the floor suddenly became very clear and very visible. I could SEE it, in a way I’d never seen in another dancer, ever. And as a result, that man could move. The quickness, the balance, the control, everything. I was more impressed than ever. These were people who REALLY knew what they were talking about. They really didn’t cover a single step. Just fundamental basics of good dancing and good movement, of good EXPRESSION while dancing, of good partner technique and responsiveness. I was drinking it in, gulping it down in such huge gushes it was sloshing down my front. Again, I asked Guillermo if he had any tips for me, even though we really hadn’t worked together, was there anything he noticed. He noticed that the thing he’d mentioned the day before had noticeably and tangibly improved, and he complimented me on it (he remembered what he’d said the day before!!), and gave me something new to work on, and related this to the ballet he could see that I studied (he’d noticed my ballet training!! I’m now in love with him, too!!!).
I went to the dance party that night, which was a mixed program of ballroom, swing, salsa, and tango. So mixed that there was only about 20% tango. (By the end of the evening I was ready to offer the DJ exotic sexual favors if he would just play more tango!!) But I did run into one fellow from Poland who, like me, only knew how to do one thing (tango), but who did it so unbelievably well, that I could have spent the rest of my life dancing tango with him and only him, and never stop for something as irrelevant as food or sleep.
They had some exhibition numbers midway through the evening – tango, urban tribal, and salsa. One of the salsa couples absolutely depth charged me out of the water. Later, I saw him standing around, not doing anything or talking to anyone, and I wanted to ask him to dance, but then I started talking myself out of it. He was so incredible it would be an insult to ask him to dance with such a bumbling beginner as me – while I can do a pretty good imitation of a few of the ballroom things, I’m really not very good at the salsa. Then I remembered all the discussions we’d had on the DF here about this very topic. And I thought, “Hey, wait a minute. This guy isn’t just here as a paid performer. He’s a teacher. He’s giving workshops on salsa all week here at this event. He’s here to teach and you’re here to learn, and you’re never going to learn anything if you don’t ask him. Now you get over there and ask him!” So, I did. Since he had only finished his exhibition a short while before, I phrased my invitation, “Do you have enough energy for a salsa with a beginner?” to give him a graceful out if he didn’t want to dance with me, but he graciously and happily accepted my invitation and led me out onto the dance floor.
I didn’t take even three steps before he exclaimed, “You’re not a beginner!!” Again, that one word was worth a dozen gold medals. I relaxed and started having fun, pouring everything I knew about dance into that number. And he started having fun, too. I could see it in his face, in his body, in the way he started pulling out increasingly sophisticated moves to throw at me, just to see if I could keep up with him. And I did!! Did I fool him into thinking I was a pro like him? Of course not. I was what I was – a beginner with a handful of simple basic moves. But I had some good, solid dance fundamentals, and I was able to keep up with just about everything he asked me to do, and he was having FUN while he was doing it. I could see it. Afterwards, I talked with him a little, and he assured me that I was very good, and that now all I needed to do was practice and practice and practice by simply DANCING and having fun, and that he’d genuinely enjoyed our dance, and that it didn’t matter that I was a just a beginner. He’d rather dance with somebody who was a beginner, and humble about it, that to dance with an intermediate dancer who thought they knew everything.
That was probably one of the big lessons of the weekend for me. I was shaking a little when I sat down, but pretty exhilarated, too, and I realized that the time had come to stop apologizing for being a beginner, even at stuff I hadn’t really studied, like ballroom and salsa. I was a good dancer. Period. End of discussion. Recognize the truth of what I am, because to deny it by trying to tell people I wasn’t very good (even though that’s how I really do see myself) was starting to come off as false modesty and fishing for compliments. Give myself permission to accept that I have enough good training in general dance that I am an objectively good dancer by anybody’s standards, accept it, know it within myself, and leave it at that. Stop apologizing, and just be what I am – a good dancer.
They had a “Jack and Jill” competition for swing, salsa, and tango, and I joined in the tango, and was randomly paired with a fellow from San Diego. I’m not even sure I remember his name. But we got picked to be finalists, and when we did the final round, I think my poor partner thought he had a tiger by the tail – I poured so much fire and passion into that number that my heart was beating all funny afterwards. We didn’t win the final prize, but the judge who selected us as finalists told me privately afterwards that she still thought we were the best. That felt pretty good, because she was the one who had performed the Urban Tribal dance which had absolutely fascinated me.
I had a really good time that night, and even picked up some compliments from “Peter, the Dancing DJ” (who was also teaching workshops at the event). What confidence booster. I left the party early in order to get a good night’s sleep, because the next day was IT!!
I got up early the next day and went down to the event hotel an hour and half early to do some ballet work before my first class. One of the hotel staff let me in the classroom, and I was able to do my barre exercises in private. The teachers, two professional ballet dancers who had just started tango a few month ago, walked in just as I was finishing, and I talked to them a little. The class was really great. There were only two students, me and a young fellow from Hawaii. We worked on some specialized ballet techniques for engaging the body which would enable us to do things like the carpa, the calesita, and lifts and drops. The male teacher was really great, because he was a really tall, big guy. My own teacher has worked with me on these techniques before, but a couple years ago, he was doing a show with one of his students, and she mis-timed a jump and he tore his shoulder really badly. He still hasn’t recovered from that injury, either. As a result, I’m really terrified of doing those moves because I’m scared to death that if I make even so much as the slightest misstep or mis-timed movement, if I don’t execute the maneuver 100% perfect, I’m going to hurt him. And in spite of the fact that he’s Mr. Health and Fitness, and probably stands shoulder to shoulder with Jack La Lane on that, he’s still 72 years old, still mortal flesh, and I’m absolutely terrified of hurting him, especially because I know I’m still overweight, too heavy really, for him to safely do those moves. But Gabriel was probably 25 years younger than Felix, taller, heavier, and stronger, and it wasn’t so much that I was confident he could hold me, it was that I was not afraid I would hurt him. He was such a big strong guy that if I made a little mistake, I wouldn’t accidently hurt him. So that essential element of trust was there – not so much trust in him as trust in MYSELF that I could safely do the move without hurting my partner. And it worked. I could, for the first time, feel how these moves were supposed to feel when properly executed, did them several times to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, and was just about in ecstacy. I was doing it!! I was really doing it!! And then I tried the same moves with Mark (who had been working all this time with the female teacher, Hillary), and even though I was significantly taller an heavier than him, we were able to execute the drops, turns, and leans easily. He had no trouble supporting my weight because I was properly engaging my body. So, even though my partner was smaller and lighter than me, I could still do these moves, and I could feel how it felt in my body when they were done properly. I was SO HAPPY!! It also helped having Hillary there, partly because Gabriel could do the maneuver with me and FEEL my body, and she could stand along side of me and SEE my body, and between the two of the them, help me to find that balance, alignment, and engagement. Plus, she was a woman, with a woman’s body, and Felix is a man, with a man’s body. It really helped seeing HER body, because I could relate what I was seeing so much easier to my own, woman’s, body, too. And since she was wearing her ballet leotard, I could see her body very clearly, see the muscles in her torso engage. Working with Felix on those same moves, he, of course, has his body completely covered up in loose clothing (long sleeved dress shirt, loose pleated trousers), so I couldn’t always see how he would engage his body. So it really helped. The class ran overtime, and I was loathe to leave, but finally I had to. I was expecting Felix any minute, I had another class with F&G, and I had to get ready for the competition.
I got myself cleaned up and costumed, decided to skip curling my hair (couldn’t find an outlet for my curlers, actually), and decided to wait til after my other class to do my make-up.
The class was good, but it was hard to focus, because time was running out and Felix still hadn’t arrived. Finally, one of my spies told me he was upstairs, and I left the class. I needed to have a chance to work with Felix and there was less than an hour to go.
Felix’s other student who was competing in the advanced category was there, and he warmed up with her first. Then he started running me through my paces, checking my walk, running through the basic maneuvers he was planning to use, and he was really pleased that this difficult turn I’ve been working on for the last 9 months or so just flowed like cream. I’d been working on it, and was really confident I could do it, and I got a surprised, pleased nod out of him. Amazingly, I could feel the tension and nervousness in his body. He was nervous. My teacher was NERVOUS! This seasoned, veteran pro, with 5 decades of performance and competition experience under his belt was nervous. Somehow, it made me LESS nervous. And I was touched that this event meant enough to him for him to be nervous about it. Since I know him well enough to know that if I asked him, he’d deny it, I knew the best way to release that nervousness was for me to channel it through MY body and psyche and release it for him. So, I expressed MY nervous feelings, and that enabled him to pooh pooh it, and I felt him relax and calm down, which enabled ME to relax and calm down, so I scurried into the bathroom and spackled my face with make-up, and then, it was time.
The contest really wasn’t set up like a DanceSport competition. Each contestant couple did a solo exhibition, and since one of the rules was that all entries had to do a completely improvised number, the DJ selected music for each couple, and you walked out on to the dance floor and did your thing. I was third up, and most of the numbers were standard tangos I’d heard a million times from all the milongas I’d been too, but I didn’t know the names of any. My number wasn’t a Piazzolla number, that’s all I know, but it was a pretty basic, good tango that I was familiar with, so I pretty much knew what to expect emotionally from the music. I was really focused, and all the mental chatter was quiet. I was careful not to watch any of the couples before me – that’s what had shot me down the year before – watching my competitors and getting intimidated by their skill. I just kept focused on being what I was, an incredibly good dancer, and accepting the truth of that, and being ready to express that to the nth degree. I could feel an enormous amount of spiritual energy flowing into me from the collective unconscious – from Maximilian, from Jurgen, from all my friends on the DF, which was pretty exhilarating. I knew that if I gave everything to Felix, and held back nothing, he’d “come alive,” and my energy would feed him. And then it was my turn.
When we met on the dance floor, he didn’t initiate tango right away. He started off with one of his standard “show openings” – a simple ronde, then stalk his partner in a circular fashion – so I threw it right back at him – showed him some thigh in a demi-plie lunge, then stalked around HIM, we met, embraced, and we were off. I could feel it. That simple opening, rather unexpected from me, since I tend to be overly “careful” when I dance with my teacher, too inhibited to really play or be truly expressive, basically lit an acetylene torch in his body and soul and he picked up my fire from that movement, and started feeding it with his own, and we danced tango like it was meant to be danced. Glenda, his other student, had brought her video camera, and she was taping me, but I don’t have a copy of it yet. However, one of my friends from LA who was also competing took some pictures for his website, and here they are:
http://tangoafficionado.fotki.com/wcarte_2005_interna/page13.html
The first picture on this page (page 13) is #206 and the pics of me continue onto page 14 through #212.You can click on the little thumbnail pics, and the photo will enlarge so you can see it better.
We finished, and I knew I had nailed it to the WALL. I was so exhilarated, and I knew I had done Felix proud. Even as the next entries performed, I knew I had out-danced every other couple there, even the ones competing in the professional category – there was no match for the clean precision of technique, the fire, the expressiveness, the beauty. I knew I had done it, accomplished what I’d set out to do – that I had walked off the dance floor knowing I had danced my very, very best, and that best had been pretty darn good by anybody’s standards. I didn’t need any of the compliments that started pouring in, but I still drank them in anyway. It felt so good. So very, very good.
Glenda had caught my number on tape, and I taped her afterwards, and later, the three of us looked at the tape. Of course, the first thing I noticed (how like an X chromosome!!) was how fat I looked. I still need to lose about 30 more pounds, but that’s okay. I’m slowly taking it off, and I looked pretty good, nevertheless, where I’m at. I also noticed right away that my carriage still needs some work. I still tend to round my shoulders a little. I need to open my chest more. The ballerina that morning had given me an image that I really liked – to envision an incredible ruby necklace resting only my upper chest area, and enormous ruby chandelier earrings, and my bare back criss-crossed with diamond strands. Imaging that, I immediately could feel my chest and back opening up, my neck lengthening. But it’s going to take some time for that to become automatic. Felix’s only comment at the time was that I need to lengthen my legs more when I step. The lines still are not clean enough.
I started releasing all that energy. It was over. Now I could relax and let go, and just have fun. I cheered for all my friends, and really had a good time. Then I found out that all the contestants would be expected to perform at the dinner that night. While I was enormously pleased by the idea, I also knew that something really bad had happened. Thinking it was over, I had completely let go of all that mental energy and psychological focus. I started trying to get that energy back, but it was no use. It was kind of like trying to blow up a flat bicycle tire with your mouth. It wasn’t happening. I started getting a little scared, because this was not good.
At the dinner, Felix asked me to dance in order to warm up, and I guess he could feel that I had completely collapsed, because he started kicking my butt and good, which only got me more rattled than ever. Our number (all the contestants danced in a group, fortunately) was pretty much a washout, and I felt he was upset and disappointed in me. I knew I was kind of upset with myself, and that I was probably pushing that upsettedness onto him, but I still felt he was mad at me. Then the awards were given out.
A third place finish. To say I was stunned was a complete understatement. I knew from watching the tape my performance was not perfect, but I still felt it was pretty darn good, and that I’d done better than a third place finish. (We were graded on points, not on comparative rankings. My points merited a third place medal. I only had one competitor in my event, and I think she ranked fourth place, but I really don’t remember. The point is, there was no first or second place medals. Just third for me, and Fourth for her.) I received my packet of adjudication sheets and sat down, really too stunned to think. Felix had apparently been given the trophy, and he came over an handed it to me without a word. I couldn’t read the look in his eyes at all. I interpreted it as shame. He was ashamed of me. I’d done my best, danced my heart out, and I’d disappointed him. He dropped that trophy in my lap like it was a dead rat and walked away.
Somebody started doing some exhibition numbers, but I was way too upset to watch. I decided to leave. I’d paid $60 for the dinner dance, the meal had been terrible – way too heavy, especially since I had to get up and perform immediately after, I gobbled it down way too fast because I hadn’t eaten in about 12 hours, and I had a stomach ache as a result – and since everyone had paid so much money for the dance, they’d all come as couples and there was no one to dance with. I knew if I stayed I wasn’t going to get to dance, I was way too upset to watch the show, and I was not having fun anymore. So, I left. It was 11:00 pm by then, and I was seriously considering simply driving home to Los Angeles, in spite of the late hour, in fact almost hoping that I WOULD fall asleep at the wheel and put myself out of all this fruitless misery. One remaining shred of sanity whispered to wait until I’d spoken with my tango friend in Sacramento who used to do competitive ice skating first. Or at least until I’d spoken to Felix. I went back to my room, called Dana (no answer) and Felix (no answer), and looked over my adjudication sheets. I’d lost a lot of points for not following the line of dance, which I felt was not really fair. I was dancing “pro/am” with my teacher. I had no control over the line of dance. I had to stay with Felix, and being a seasoned performer, since we were doing a solo exhibition number, he had instinctively used the entire floor, and stayed pretty much in the center, and had not paid any attention to the line of dance whatsoever. And that was besides the point. He was not being judged, I was. And I had lost enough points to kick me down to third place on that point alone, for something I had no control over, as the female half of the couple.
I was really upset. I had really come down hard after the high of the afternoon, and that little sane shred of consciousness was trying to tell me that maybe I was over exaggerating things, just a little, and that it was just post-competition let down. But that voice was not very loud against the roaring screams of worthlessness and self-loathing and smashed hopes. I desperately needed to WRITE, even more than I needed to talk to somebody. I didn’t dare call tacad, the only other person I could think of who might have enough basic Christian charity in his soul to keep me tied to rationality. I’d abused his good nature enough already, and it was very, very late. But what I really needed to do was WRITE. I needed to get my head together, but I had no access to a computer, and no paper. The motel I was staying in was too cheap to leave letter paper in my room, and I was too cold, and too tired to go on safari looking for a store that would sell notebook paper. I’d only get myself lost in a strange place in the middle of the night if it did, but I got dressed anyway, and was on my way out the door when I decided I was too cold and too tired to go scrounging for paper. Without the discipline of being able to write, I could not get my thoughts sorted out or my head together. Instead, I went back to bed, my head scrambling randomly around like a lab rat on LSD. I couldn’t think, couldn’t connect one rational thought to another, could not attach to anything tangible to give me some perspective on things. I desperately needed to write and could not. I was still awake, miserable, upset, mentally and emotionally scrambled, and a mess at 5:00 a.m. The only coherent thought I’d managed to pull together was that it was time to quit dancing. I’d had enough misery and disappointment. I was not cut out to be a professional, and I didn’t need to work this hard to be able to dance socially. I was flat broke, $11,000 charged on my credit cards, and it was going to be difficult to make my monthly payments and keep up my dancing lessons. It was time to quit, collect myself in a corner and figure out a way to get my life back together, my finances in order, find something new to do with my life that was a little more rewarding, a little less frustrating. Finding a rich man to prostitute myself to, who would give me food and shelter in exchange for sex and cleaning his toilet sounded like a better proposition than bashing my soul against the world of the performing arts.
Neither Dana nor Felix had ever called. I finally fell asleep, but woke up less than two hours later, and decided to just go home, but not to make any rash decisions until I’d at least talked to Dana. Just go home, don’t think, don’t decide, don’t do anything.
I managed to make it home okay, and interestingly enough, as cliched as it was, getting out of my dark room and into a little plain sunlight lifted my spirits a little. I needed to stop punishing myself. Really the place rankings weren’t so important, and all four judges had really said some nice things to me on my comment sheets, and their suggestions for improvement had been valid and fair. All four had been very consistent in their markings, and except for that business about the line of dance, I felt they were all fair and justified. If it hadn’t been for that loss of points, I probably would have gotten second place, which I felt probably would have been more reflective of how I had done.
During the drive home, I managed to figure out what it was that had gotten me so upset. It wasn’t so much the rankings, or the scoring. It was that I felt that the four judges were sending me an unspoken message, “You’re only a third rate dancer. No matter how hard you try, how hard you work, you are only a third rate dancer, and you will never, ever, ever, have what it takes to be a professional.” I dimly was aware that maybe I was reading more into it than was intended, that I was overreacting just a bit, that no such “silent message” was being sent at all. Maybe there was some hope after all. Felix has always encouraged me to dream the big dreams. Maybe I wasn’t ready to be a professional yet – after all, I’d delivered at the competition, but I had fallen apart a few hours later, when I had to do it again – but I was making progress. I’d made enormous strides since my last stab at a competition. Maybe I should just focus on the progress, and hang on to Felix’s assurance that I absolutely had the potential to be a professional someday – his estimation was that I was about two years away from that level yet. Maybe he wasn’t angry or disappointed or ashamed of me at all. Maybe that look had meant, “Here, this is yours, you earned it.” Maybe he felt badly on my behalf. Maybe he felt my disappointment, felt that I had done better than a third place finish, maybe he had been just as stunned by my ranking as I had been. Maybe his kicking my butt that evening had been his way of “showing off” to me, trying to remind me that he was still my teacher, and not to get a “big head” about how well I had done. Maybe he felt badly that he had let ME down somehow. Anyway, stop kicking yourself until you could have a serious heart to heart with your teacher.
I did manage to get hold of Dana once I got back to Los Angeles, and he agreed. It was just post-competition let-down. He’d experienced it many times himself. No one was sending my any “silent messages.” Don’t get discouraged, remember the good stuff, don’t lose faith in yourself. All the basics, but I needed to hear it from an independent voice, a voice that sounded more rational than my own. And I finally got up my nerve to call tacad, too, and he was kindness incarnate, and said all the same things that Dana had said, and it was good to hear these calm rational things from two (sane) people whose judgment I really trusted. I felt myself reconnecting to reality, re-connecting to my faith in myself. I was even able to start laughing at myself a little. Boy, I came down off that competition, and I came down hard. I was able to go to my tango class (and no, I decided I was NOT going to give up dancing), and talk to my teacher a little, and bless his heart. He HAD been feeling bad, like he’d let ME down. He was really stung, when I showed him the adjudication sheets, about the line of dance problem. To me it was a non-issue. But I could tell – he’d really wanted to do HIS best for ME, and for him to have made a goof like that, even an unwitting goof (no one had ever said we needed to follow the line of dance, even if we were the only couple on the floor), that wound up costing ME points, I could tell he felt badly about it.
By the time I had my lesson on Monday, I was pretty much feeling back to my old self, my confidence restored, and Felix dug right in, kicking my butt, left right and center, to correct the faults listed on my adjudication sheets. And that’s his way, his way of showing how proud of me he is, that the better I get, the pickier he gets, and the tougher he gets with me. I told him once that the day he quits kicking my butt over my dancing I’m going to cry because then I’ll know he doesn’t love me any more. I went to Moti’s Milongita that night, and I danced better than I ever had in my life. Partner after partner, beginners, advanced and in between, old friends and new faces. It felt so good. The things I’d learned over the weekend had stayed with me, and that felt good do. I was still moving forward, still progressing, still improving. It felt so good.
Anyway, people, that’s my story – what I experienced, what I learned, the triumphs, and the not so pretty things I’ve still got to work on. I think in part that what happened over the weekend fed directly into my desire to start the “spec sheet” thread, because it’s all just different faces of the same thing – learning to recognize who and what I am as a human being, and to hang on to that, because art is the fruit of the artist’s soul, and whatever I am on the inside is going to be reflected in my dancing, and the more I work on my soul and spirit and psyche, the more my dancing improves, too. I find I cannot separate what I am as a person, or my personal life, from what I am as a dancer, or my dancing life, because they are all too intimately bound together.
I hope somebody can gain something useful from my experiences, and from the lessons I learned. It was a powerful weekend, an intense period of growth and learning for me as a person and as a dancer. I’m sorry it is such a long story, but, this is my soul.
Renee
from my quick scanning though, u seem to have had fun, which guarantees that i'll be reading your story. always nice to read feel-good stories eh
:lol: