Responsibility: the ability to respond and choose our response.  Don’t we all want more ways and a greater ability to respond to Tango music? to our Tango partner? to navigational changes? to Tango movement? to our emotions? to the events of LIFE?  Of course. But HOW? How does a Tango Warrior gain a greater ability to respond to all matters of Tango and life?  The deeper question is how do we learn, grow and change most effectively.

A Tango Warrior eagerly takes on responsibility when they stop DENYING awareness of the choices they make, and approach learning through highly discerning feedback

The CON of Responsibility

The CON of responsibility is that we think we need to DO MORE things to gain responsibility.  A teacher of metaphysics taught me a way to learn responsibility was to take on more- more projects, more classes, more volunteering, more challenges.  A part of me, even at my young age of 17, felt my teacher had CONNED me in some way.  It seemed that my teacher just wanted me to do more, and in doing more, I did not really gain that much more ability to respond.  In fact, many of my mentors have held a similar perspective that I will grow and learn by taking on more- doing more.  However, none of them gave me the critical distinction that makes a huge difference with growing my ability to respond WHILE taking on more work or doing more.  I had been conned.

Highly Discerning Feedback

Highly discerning feedback (HDF) vastly accelerates learning, promoting great change, growth and evolution in any endeavor.  For example, I could do thousands of voleos without changing/ learning much of anything, and most likely would just entrench existing movement patterns.  Or I could do just dozens of voleos and learn what it might take years to change.  The difference in these scenarios is that I received HDF- highly competent course corrections that gave me the exact knowledge of what I CAN change, HOW to change, AND how to be aware if I am getting closer or further from what I am trying to change.

Lifting the Great Weight of Responsibility

When most people hear the word “responsibility”, they often associate great weight with the word- pain, burden, duty, accountability, and negativity.  Without HDF, “responsibility” often becomes weighty.  In addition, it appears challenging to find HDF.  I often have had to look with much effort to uncover who or what has the HDF.  In another blog I referred to one aspect of HDF as deeper truth.  A Tango Warrior lifts the great weight of responsibility by relentlessly pursuing HDF whenever they want to learn, grow and change anything in their Tango or life.

The BIGGEST CON of Responsibility- Another Primary Mistake of a Tango Warrior

The biggest con of responsibility and a primary mistake of a Tango Warrior is to DENY making the choices that could or do account for what one is experiencing in their life.  Many definitions of responsibility are about being accountable.  But originally, an individual MADE choices that had them ACCEPT those accountabilities, those responsibilities. Ultimately, the weight around responsibility is an outcome of denial of the choices made!

Perhaps some events just happen – that is highly debatable.  However, what seems much less debatable is that the quality and meaning of any event is 100% our choice, that our lives are the consequences of choices we really did make- not just random occurrences.  Furthermore, we have much more influence of what events and people we draw to us than we exercise and use.

The Way of the Tango Warrior’s Second Responsibility- RESPONSIBILITY

• First Responsibility: A Tango Warrior accepts that NO WAY exists- that there are only choices and consequences of those choices
• Second Responsibility: A Tango Warrior does not DENY their choices, but is aware they DID MAKE choices that have vastly influenced their experience and nature of their present life.  And a Tango Warrior is able to deal with responsibility by seeking out HDF in their learning.

The Way of the Tango Warrior begins with exploring NO WAY.  My first responsibility as a Tango Warrior is to explore the possibility that there is no THE WAY or THE PATH to dance Tango, only choices made and consequences to those choices.

Primary mistake of a Tango Warrior

A primary mistake of a Tango Warrior is to try to find THE WAY, or  THE PATH to dance and learn Tango.  I started in Tango looking for THE WAY.  Ouch – I only found pain in that looking.

Trying to find THE WAY held me prisoner in a self-made cage of denial.  Denial, a huge consequence of trying to find THE WAY, robbed me of the awareness of what choices I was making, and consequences of those choices.  Doing a movement without understanding other choices exist, and the consequence of that choice, amounted to a continual seeking of THE WAY.

In Tango I hear many people looking for THE PATH to dance and/or learn Tango.  Also I have heard some Tango dancers espouse ONE way of doing something, such as THE WAY to dance Tango is to always lean against your partner.  I have heard others say the opposite.  A Tango Warrior explores different choices available, and explores and uncovers the consequences of dancing those choices.

For example, in Tango their exists several possible points of connection and balance in relation to one’s partner.  I could dance with my physical connection point in my upper chest, and lean into my partner.  The extreme of this is referred to as apillado.  Each partner is committed to some extent to the other for their balance.   I liken this frame of balance to an A frame. It looks like this-  /\ .

Another choice is to connect physically at the lower abdomen.  Each person is balanced on their own.  I call this frame a B frame, or B standing for be on your own.  It looks more like this- \/.

Personally, I enjoy exploring and dancing along the continuum of points of connection and balance depending on what I feel in my Self, feel in my partner, feel in the music, and feel in the other dancers on the milonga floor.

As in Tango, as in life

An online friend wrote to me, “I’m glad to hear you’ve found your path.”  I responded, “Does anyone really lose their path?  Perhaps one forgets the path they are on, or denies the path they are on.” I acknowledge I am always on a path, which is a gestalt of all the choices I make.  And every choice has a consequence.

When I want to gain awareness of the path I am on, I simply observe what I do with my time, who is in my life, what my current experiences, feelings and thoughts are, what I own and owe and how I treat others.  All of THAT  is the consequence of all of my choices.  Perhaps some of the choices I had available to me were not what I wanted.  However, I am always making choices.

Liberation in learning Tango

Liberation in Tango, enjoying and having way more fun as I learned and danced Tango ensued when I acknowledged there is NO WAY, no path, no assurances, no easy step-by-step guaranteed way to dance Tango.  As in Tango, as in my life, I have not found a path, but simply acknowledged the path I am always on- the choices I make and the consequences of those choices.

The Way of the Tango Warrior’s Second Responsibility- RESPONSIBILITY

However, once I travel as a Tango Warrior in NO WAY, that no ONE PATH or ONE WAY exists, then I must then accept the Way of the Tango Warrior’s Second Responsibility- RESPONSIBILITY.

This is my first day living in Seattle, 8 months after I 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.  During my last night living in Boulder, CO, I watched The Way of the Peaceful Warrior for a third time.  This movie acted as a salve for personal painful events over the past 8 months, as the movie prompted me to reflect on how my choices over these past months are my life course corrections to dance and live more authentically.

Dan Millman, the main character of The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, takes a journey into winning a National gymnastics title which guides him in meeting a spiritual master/ warrior, Socrates.  Socrates teaches Dan a way to excel in gymnastics through becoming a better person- physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually- living more authentically.  I liken my own Tango/ life guide, Ulyssess, as my Socrates.  Over two years ago, Ulyssess offered me the red pill of the TANGO MATRIX, which eventually snapped out of my Tango trance, and prompted me over the past 8 months to make the following choices:

• Gave up my RV
• Moved to Seattle with the intention of setting down roots
• Gave up a lifestyle of intensive traveling to build community in Seattle
• Revamped and aligned my life-skill offerings as a psychotherapist, life-coach, author and presenter which I detail on my new website- WakeUpYourLife.com
• Reconnected with a 25 year intention of offering E.S.P. Journeys and crafted a path create and produce these journeys, starting in Seattle
• Made physical and financial health a priority
• Gone back to the Martial Arts I did in my late teens
• Taken on the study of social dynamics so evident in the world of Argentine Tango and life

Even though I have not danced a lot of Tango, all of these choices support dancing Tango and living more authentically, better and with greater joy.  I am thankful for all who have helped me on my journey over the past 8 months!  And I am thankful to have arrived in Seattle.