About last year

A tale of two tandas

It was around April and I was joining a milonga in Thessaloniki. At some point, the DJ starts a tanda with a song that starts with a long whistling introduction. Everyone is confused. Nobody dares to cabeseo and start dancing. Although after a while it was obvious that it was a Pugliese song. The whole first song goes without a single couple on the floor until the next one comes (I think La Tupunganita) and people start moving and dancing, including me. It was indeed an awkward moment and a big risk from the DJ’s side which didn’t pay off. I have to admit that the empty dancefloor and the reluctant crowd affected me in some way and I was hesitant to be the one on the dancefloor alone.

Fast forward a few months later and I am at the best event I have attended so far in my tango journey. Another DJ starts a tanda with the same song. The introduction this time is a sign for me to move as quickly as possible and find a partner. This time, although people are still puzzled and reluctant… I don’t care. I do my cabeceo as fast as possible and we are on the floor with some more couples while many others still wonder what they are listening to. The tanda continues and finishes with another favorite of mine… La mariposa. We are already in a trance with my partner since the first song. The embrace stays unbroken between the songs. We just stay there enjoying the moment. After the end, we hugged deeply for so long that it felt almost like a whole new tanda! And that’s one of those tandas that will never leave my memory.

As the year is already behind us, I run back to my tango memories and all I can say is that most of them are moments imprinted forever (hopefully) in my mind. I already mentioned one of them. The Pugliese tanda I described earlier was one of the most memorable ones as well as a tanda of Troilo with Goyeneche that ended a wonderful experience of another beautiful event in May. I will not go further with this because this post will get too long. To all those partners we shared such amazing tandas (you know very well when that happened) thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Elephants in the room

But apart from memories of tandas and amazing dances, there is also another important part of my tango journey this year that I cannot omit. It is this blog and its evolution. To be exact my evolution along with my blog. One of the first signs of this evolution was my post about dialog and fights in communities. A post describing how different communities handle differences comparing the two communities I am participating in. It was a post for me that signaled a big change. It was the moment I realized I had overcome my fear of talking about elephants in the room. I was no longer afraid of putting my thoughts out there even if they could be hurting people. It turned out that I was not alone. Surprisingly, I found out that so many other people had similar experiences and never really talked about them. I was also surprised by the number of people pointing to dysfunctional rather than functional and collaborative communities.

The realization of not being afraid anymore to speak up and put out my thoughts led to one more of my favorite posts. The one about the fear of creation. It was the moment when triggered by a podcast episode of Tango Banter with Yelizaveta, I identified the biggest problem in letting ourselves express emotions when dancing. The fear of having our creation… our dance… mocked, ridiculed or even just commented negatively.

Strangely enough, this post caught Yelizaveta’s attention too, and led to my participation in a Tango Banter episode. We had such a beautiful discussion about balancing between emotions created on the dancefloor and building long-lasting love relationships. Our discussion with Yelizaveta triggered another train of thought that led to one of the most visited posts in the blog for this year. The one about men, sex, and tango. It triggered some of the most interesting discussions I ever had with total strangers in Facebook groups. Having realized and accepted already the possibility that my posts can be “attacked” or be seen from a different perspective than what I intended, the result was one of the best opportunities to grow.

Having already taken the first step with the dialogs and fights post one of the next moments of this blog will be the post about Tango addicts and dealers. A post that was initiated by some new “fights” in my Tango community that led some organizers to cross my lines and trigger my response. To my surprise, my point was received from the organizers who triggered me, and to my even bigger surprise, one of the leaders in the community openly accepted his merit in all this “fight” and apologized in one of the bravest moves I have ever seen a person do in a tango community! However, there is a new post coming about the lessons learned from all this story so I will not get into more details here.

What next?

Why am I writing about all these posts? Because they tell the same story as the one with the two contrasting tanda reactions in the beginning. A story of growth… Of personal growth. The story of the blog this year for me reflects a story of a major breakthrough in my personal growth. I was rarely the person who would openly express an opinion that would create conflict. I would maybe tell my thoughts to a few select people but I would rarely express something publicly. This year and the story of the posts above showed me that doing so, speaking publicly about elephants in the room is something that some people need to do. Even if their opinions are not the best… They help in starting a discussion. When people enter the discussion with an open mind and keen to understand each other there is only one way out of them and this is forward.

So I am not afraid anymore to speak about elephants in the room. The fact that I have not done that so far for some of them is just because I don’t think I am ready yet. I haven’t yet examined and thought of the subject from all possible angles and have not found a way to express it in a way that I see fitting. But… Don’t get fooled… Their time will come.

This brings us to this year’s new resolution. As you realized so far a crucial part of this blog is you. The feedback I receive from friends and readers is so important for me to understand and find new perspectives. I have avoided creating a group on Facebook for a long time just because I thought it was not necessary. I started and I will continue posting my posts in Facebook groups I already do. However, I am not in control of the rules and I would like to have a space of people who can help in having those funny, enjoyable, and sometimes difficult discussions with open minds looking to understand each other. A place where you can actively contribute to this blog.

So I started a few days ago the Goodnight Tango group on Facebook where you can join if you are interested in taking part in this experience. Moreover, you can also invite friends who you think can help in those discussions and help in creating a nice and safe space for all.

Tonight’s Goodnight Tango

Tonight’s Goodnight Tango is the song of Pugliese with the long whistling introduction that I described in the beginning. For me, it signifies the change and growth both as a person and as a blogger. Thank you all for your help so far! Let’s make 2024 an even more fruitful year!

So how about you? What is the most memorable tango moment of 2023? How much did you change? Do you have any tango-related New Year’s resolutions for 2024?

Do you have something to say on the topic?

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