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Why dance tango? May 15, 2005 The best answer I have heard so far: Because you will learn a lot about yourself *. How true that is. Since started dancing 5 years ago, I have experienced some of my deepest emotions time and again. One of them is fear. Fear of what? Oh milonga can be such a daunting place! The moment I see a woman that I desperately want to dance with, my heart is filled with fear. I have fear that she may reject my invitation to dance; fear that once she accepts my invitation, my dance will not please her; fear that if the first dance is good, then the second dance will be bad; fear that if we share some pleasurable dances this time, then I have to go through all this fear again to dance with her next time. Tango is not an easy dance for beginners, but when I started, asking people to dance was far more difficult than dancing itself. Luckily, I wanted to dance badly enough. Rejection was painful, but not dancing was unbearable. So I forced myself to go through this terrifying experience of asking women to dance, and dealt with my fare share of rejections and disappointing dances. Rejections actually did not happen often; but when they came, I never felt prepared for them. They made you feel small and worthless, as if all the doubts you had about yourself were confirmed in that one instance. Slowly but surely, my dancing improved, and so did my confidence. I learned to tell myself if the woman did not want to dance with me, it was her loss. My enjoyment of the dance was just as important as hers. If I were scared of asking her to dance, I should ask her right then and there. Most of the time the rejection would not come, and if it did I was better off be done with it as soon as possible anyway. The best part is, once I developed some tolerance for fear, the fear could become an excitement or challenge in itself. As my tango grew, my ability to cope with fear also grew. Looking back, I am not sure if one could happen without the other. So why dance tango? Because you will learn a lot about yourself, and because you will improve on yourself. * This quote comes from a fellow tango dancer, Alex Krebs.
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