I just snapped out of a 4 ½ year Tango Trance through my exploration of how I have not been fully authentic in Tango nor life by dancing and living as an apology.

What does it take to live and dance authentically?

In Tango, my authentic dance is passionate, cheesy, over the top dramatic at times, silly, playful, fun, mistakes sprinkled throughout, sensuous, does not follow some Tango rules, sad, slow, pauses, melodic, repetitive, and sloppy at times.

In dancing more authentically, I would: open up my embrace more often and check out the mischief I can get into with my partner; dance slower; dance all 5 movement elements in a tanda; lead vocabulary I have not used much; use less energy in my lead; use more pauses; use less motion but more efficiency; breathe more; be sillier; and experiment with how fun movement in Tango can be. And I would train WAY more focused at practicas.  Bottom line is that I would experiment a huge amount of time.

I have experimented a little here in Portland with dancing my dance at practicas.  Overall, I liked where I saw my exploration going.  However, I also received a little of what I consider harsh responses a few times, which were harsh enough to make me deeply reflect if I wanted to continue to experiment much at all.

What is of greater interest now is how I am expressing myself in life.  Well, my life has mostly been Tango.  So many times I have sat in Milonga halls and thought to myself, this is my life, and how do I feel about spending a third to half of my waking hours in milongas/ practicas?  At times I have desired to experience 40 festivals in a year – seriously!

My life has not worked so good living in Milonga halls.  Don’t get me wrong – I am so in love with Tango.  Yet in dealing with the world of Tango, and living most of my life within this world, I discovered that many other things in life I want are not manifesting and probably won’t in Tango in the near future or ever.

So, I went out of the Tango world and checked out a little of what was going on in Portland.  For the first time here I looked at an events calendar outside of Tango and explored.  In 3 days I went to opening night of 3 storytellers sharing their tales; OMSI- planetarium show, Imax show, exhibits; witnessed ecstatic dance; and went on a date with someone outside of Tango for the first time in 4 ½ years.

As I snapped out of this 4 ½ year Tango trance, I became clear of what my authentic dance and life is now.

In life, my authenticity is expressing my imagination, creativity and full life force by sparking people alive to their true radiance, and emotionally moving and inspiring them to make a difference on helping humanity radiate its brilliance.

How I do this is by creating and facilitating E.S.P. Multi-Media & Sensory Journeys™ — Emotional, Spiritual and Physical journeys through multi-media and sensory technologies, dramatic storytelling, intentional breath and other surprises.

My intention is through these journeys, each individual is delightfully compelled to reflect, heal, shift perspectives, inspired, and takes action upon their own soul’s desires, and leaves the journey revitalized, energized, more awake, more aware, humbled, humored, emotionally moved and consistently reports feeling more alive weeks after the experience.

Thanks Tango.  Thanks Portland.  I leave with an excerpt from Jerusalem by Meister Eckhart:

“Who must God have made love to in order to have given birth to all this sound, to this sacred spectrum of color, scents, and music from the wind’s body and existence’s plea for mercy – that plea for the real mercy, unbearable joy?  Once we had four legs and tails so useful to balance our raid into heaven, and I found them again.

I am a swimming galaxy tonight.  Angels prowl around me hoping I will toss them a fresh piece of light — here dears, here, my sack is full.”

What first showed up in my Tango dancing as “dancing as an apology”, has spread and consumed my thoughts and being of where I will invest my life energy in now. I have arrived at the edge of a huge chasm, a chasm of what I am creating in my life now, across to what I have wanted to do for a quarter of a century.  I feel pain in the contrast of what my life is and what I want it to be, and it is unbearable.

I clearly remember one of the few times I faced a chasm, 17 years ago – I had just returned from leading a group of 46 college students from the University of Madison, Wisconsin on a ski trip to Winter Park, CO.  I experienced bliss in so many ways before and during this trip.  In 6 days I created this trip and sold it out, even though the rest of the club thought it was impossible, telling me I could not do it.

Furthermore, we had a foot of fresh powder waiting for us the next morning – poetic justice for the ski club leaders that told me I could not do what I did, for their trip of 4 buses that went to Jackson Hole, WY, encountered icy conditions.

On my trip, I facilitated a lot of community building – I secured a $1200 kitty (usually only $300) so I could cater food on the ski hill and fund theme parties for the whole group to be together at night; and I asked questions from the “book of questions” so people shared from their hearts, getting to know each other deeper than usual.  This trip was not your average Spring break college trip!

I returned from Winter Park looking at my current life and acknowledged, I would rather kill myself than continue living without more of what I just created.  I am not into suicide, so I thought what is the craziest thing I could do with my life?  Ahhhh, just do what I really want!

Inspired as a crazed magician, a few hours later I had thrust my life on a hugely different beneficial trajectory:  I gave a month’s notice to my landlord; told my parents I would be moving; secured a truck to move my stuff to parent’s house; went to the Student Union Travel Center, checked out 300 potential jobs in the tour guide industry and chose one – Suntrek;  called Suntrek, got their application faxed to me, filled it out and had it ready for the next day’s mail; began packing my belongings in my apartment – all this not knowing if I had a job or not.  I had faith I would get a job in the tour guide industry one way or another.

Now I am at the same auspicious spot in life – choosing a different path that goes far beyond my current programming of beliefs that tell me I only deserve such and such, and life is hard, and I could not really create what I truly want successfully.  The life I am imagining is HUGE – way bigger than I have allowed myself to live.  I need to take a huge leap of faith, trusting that what I do will lead to what I imagine.

My primary question is- what do we use to take the leap of faith to radically change our programming when what we want goes far beyond our programming (our beliefs)?  You can not cross a chasm in a few small jumps.

I am left with one of my favorite inspirational quotes:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Marianne Williamson

This pic captures the apology, "I Am Sorry", as well as the vulnerability and nakedness that goes with dancing/ living as an apology

I am angry, sad and astonished in uncovering how much I have danced and lived as an apology.

In Tango my apologies have shown up as me thinking: I am sorry I can only dance at this level, for I know you are used to dancing at such a higher level; I am sorry I am so silly in my dance; I am sorry I could not lead this move so clearly that you easily got it; I am sorry I experimented in trying some new way of moving with you; I am sorry I asked you to dance when you might be waiting to be asked by someone better than me; I am sorry I interrupted your attention on trying to get a dance with someone else; I am sorry you danced with me when you could have danced with someone better; I am sorry I asked you to work harder at staying on your axis and moving on your own; I am sorry…

I have danced for the woman way too much – I want to play and experiment, yet I do not with many women for it feels that they want some version of a proper trance dance, or just proper Tango.  A few times some women have had strong emotionally charged responses to one or two of my silly moves.

Down in Buenos Aires, Gustavo Naviera exposed my “problem”.  I went up to him during a class, and asked him what was I doing wrong.  I said, “I am not really getting what I want, even though she is following what I am leading, it does not feel right.  Something is off.”

He said, “Your technique is fine and good.  But I see your problem.  Your problem is you are dancing for the woman.  STOP!  Don’t dance for the woman.  Dance for yourself.  Be like a mountain, and move ONLY when you want to move, not when she wants you to move.  You might be a mountain for a whole phrase or two.  If she does not like it, let her not like it.  She can dance with someone else.  I want her to feel YOUR dance.”

His words shook me up.  I thought to myself:  what if she doesn’t like it?; what if I make her work a lot?; what if she makes a lot of mistakes and thinks she is a bad dancer?; what if…

These apologies show up in life oh so easily, even when I have acted with mindfulness and heart:  I am sorry to shake up your world with my perspectives; I am sorry to ask questions you consider personal; I am sorry to point out inconsistencies in your beliefs by asking for clarification; I am sorry to call you on questionable integrity in some area of your life; I am sorry to ask you to share your inner feelings; I am sorry to ask you to dare to be better; I am sorry to ask you to please follow through with your promises to me; I am sorry to ask you to be more of who you really are; I am sorry to ask for your help being that it might be an inconvenience; I am sorry…

I am so emotionally raw because of repeatedly being beaten down from dancing as an apology.  Recently I have welled up with tears at milongas and practicas, quickly wiping my eyes and stuffing my emotions, hoping no one saw my vulnerability.

And I am scared to show my vulnerability, for I do not want anyone to take advantage of that.  My father did.

I want to dance MY dance authentically.  What does that look like exactly? …