My Tango Diaries

Recently, I found someone else who does Push Hands and dances tango and was reassured that the similarities I felt were not just in my imagination. Since then I've been trying to focus on what it is specifically that brings such a strong recollection of PH hands to tango for me. During push hands and tango when you're in that moment (I only catch glimpses of it right now. Hopefully soon it will be more than a second or two) there's a sensation of almost floating, flying, yet still supported, held. Connected and yet dispersed. The moved and the movement. Like light, a wave and a particle at the same time.

As I was in class last night, I couldn't help thinking of the martial art style "Push Hands" as we (the students) were learning about giving and receiving energy, force, resistance etc. DJ and I have had some small experience with Push Hands, or Pushing Hands, and the feeling of the tango embrace reminded me so strongly of this, I had to look it up again. From Wikipedia: " Push hands allows students to learn how to respond to external stimuli using technique from their forms practice. Among other things, training with a partner allows a student to develop ting jing (listening power), the sensitivity to feel the direction and strength of a partner's intention." Sound familiar? Obviously, the bit about actually fighting should probably remain off the dance floor. But the idea is still very interesting. Here is a beautiful demonstration of the style: