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Tango Transparency

The first time I got feedback from a blog post of mine in person, from a local dancer, was a little disorienting.

Now that I have readers that I see (and dance with locally), when I have a tough time at a milonga, or a rough class, I can't just shut down and wait until I get home to blog about my frustration. I can't hide in the anonymity of my writing. It's irresponsible. Who would want to find out via a blog entry that they've inadvertantly hurt someone's feelings and they're the last person to find out about it? Nor should I only tell my blog and anonymous, remote readers, that someone, some dancer or teacher, has changed how I view my tango world forever.

At the other extreme, naming names is also irresponsible - and for the purposes of this blog, unnecessary. Tango is personal. The feelings/experiences/dreams/disasters can be universal but the specifics are private.

Just as I don't need to know your name travel on this tango road with you for a time - neither does anyone else need to know.

I write here to, I hope, encourage other people to start the tango journey - and if they already have, to stay on it. If I have an experience that I think might help someone else to read about - then I have a responsibility to deal with that experience then and there, before documenting it here. What can be learned from an event if all I did was escape from it and blog about it? Writing for readers local to me, as well as scattered to the four corners, is teaching me to deal with things as they happen. To stay engaged, in person and in the moment.

I have run to this blog before - instead of letting people know at the time that there was something going on. There are situations and people that I avoided dealing with when I became uncomfortable, rather telling them at the time. I was embarrassed. In some cases, my feelings were hurt. None of those instances were intentional. They would probably have been cleared up quickly and easily had I said something. Instead some of those uncomfortable situations remain even now - months later. As I am able, I am going back to those people and those situations, and sorting things out. In some cases we're renegotiating terms with each other.

I'll still misstep. Trip. Fall. Do the wrong thing or do the right thing at the wrong time. Write too much or not enough.

Like everything else in tango, I'll try to at least keep it in the moment and on the music.
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