What if the opposite is the deeper truth -- "I am NOT OK, and you are NOT OK, but that is OK?"

As I set my sights on residing in MAGIC on Sunday, I sat in shadow and succumbed to a suppression of my spirit.  The Tango Matrix revealed one of its rules, illuminating how I have approached women for the first time in Tango, as well as potential intimate relationships, both with seemingly awesome women.

I got that I have held layers of beliefs that has had me thinking that “I am NOT OK, and that it is NOT OK that I am NOT OK.”  Many in the Psychology field refer to this as negative self-talk, self-esteem issues, or a negative view of ourselves.  However NOT OK is languaged, what remains is an issue that many struggle with in Tango and life – self-confidence.

Self Confidence as defined by Wikipedia:

Self-confidence does not necessarily imply ‘self-belief’ or a belief in one’s ability to succeed. For instance, one may be inept at a particular sport or activity, but remain ‘confident‘ in one‘s demeanor, simply because one does not place a great deal of emphasis on the outcome of the activity. The key element to self-confidence is, therefore, an acceptance of the myriad consequences of a particular situation, be they good or bad. When one does not dwell on negative consequences one can be more ‘self-confident‘ because one is worrying far less about failure or (more accurately) the disapproval of others following potential failure. One is then more likely to focus on the actual situation which means that enjoyment and success in that situation is also more probable.  If there is any ‘self-belief’ component it is simply a belief in one’s ability to tolerate whatever outcome may arise; a certainty that one will cope irrespective of what happens.

Could it be true that pretty much we all believe on some level that we are NOT OK - even the high level dancers that can get a dance with most anyone.  Furthermore, most likely many believe, “I am NOT OK, but you ARE OK” or an 80′s pop-psych affirmation, “I am OK, and you are OK.”  However, a deeper truth hidden within the Tango Matrix is, “I am NOT OK, and you are NOT OK – but that is OK.”

Well, I say, so let’s get on with having fun living. If this deeper truth exists, then it is quite ironic that we suppress our life and spirit by not taking risks because we falsely believe others are OK, but really they are NOT OK.  Therefore, if we know that everybody is in the same boat (NOT OK), and that everybody has similar insecurities, limiting beliefs and cares about being accepted, then it seems easy to make all this NOT OK stuff, OK.  In believing that everybody is NOT OK, can’t we risk a lot more and be freer with our actions?

How this belief of “I am NOT OK” has personally played out at milongas is when I have not asked a particular woman to dance, for I believe I can not give her a good dance.  I realize I care a lot whether she has a mediocre dance or even a bad dance.  Let’s say I don’t give her a good dance.  What is the worst that can happen?  She could say thank you in the middle of the first song, with an obvious non-verbal display of disgust.  Well, that hurts.  Why does it hurt?  Honestly, I seem to care if I gave her a bad dance and judge myself as NOT OK if she had a bad dance.  That seems horrible.  I cringe at this.  Why?

In amusement, I realize I am taking responsibility for her experience.  I remember how so many times I told clients that they can never make someone feel anything.  What a person feels is generated within their own head, nervous system and body.  None of us give someone anger or sadness or fear or happiness.  We might be a stimulus, but their response is of their own generation.

I am hallucinating that I create “a bad dance experience” within a woman.  I know from my own experiences that if I dance with a beginner or an intermediate dancer, I care little of their technique (unless they are hanging on me, which is painful to some degree).  I just want to connect with a tanguera and express what I sense in the music as I move with them.  I rarely have bad dances – the bad dances (what I perceive as a bad dance) is when a woman uses me to balance herself or she does not attempt to connect with me.

I have observed people that almost always have good dances are not as concerned about the outcome, but are present to themselves and their partner.  And these present dancers tend to be good people, kind to many and heartfelt.  I have also noticed another type of dancer that attempts to dance with only the best dancers, displays snobbish behavior and is rude to many.  They tend to have a hard time connecting, have quite a few insecurities, posture to gain status and care so much in how they appear to others.

So what happens when I don’t take responsibility of someone else’s experience such as a mediocre or bad dance?  What if I let each woman just choose and create her experience and do my best to connect?  What if we all believed that “I am not OK, and you are not OK – but that is OK” and got on with dancing and living?

What if?

As I contemplate how to relate my experience of the Baltimore Tango Element Festival itself, I can say that this was my 30th festival and is 2nd from the bottom of my ranking of quality of festival experiences.  I am only talking of MY experience, not necessarily the quality of the festival itself.

I take many arenas into consideration when I consider my festival experience such as: quality of DJ’ing; who attends; level of snobbishness/ cliquishness; navigation skill and following of navigation codes; how other Tango codes are used; seating arrangements; quality of entrance/ exit from milonga floor; temperature controls; food, snacks, water, coffee availability; performances and their quality and length; quality of announcements; milonga lighting quality; sound quality; organizational quality; meet and greet quality; experience of tracking participants’ payment and milonga/ class entrance; timeliness of events’ start and end; hotel quality including timeliness of staff response to issues, bathroom upkeep and quality with other customer service issues; venue quality, variety and ease of transportation to and from venues; how teachers conduct themselves on and off the dance floor…  The list goes on.

Even though I do not formally assess on paper, I could assess and assign a number on a scale for each arena similar to many other industries.  I wonder if others would be interested in this information?  Just knowing the arenas of ranking would give a festival organizer valuable insight and information to make their festivals better.

Of course, everyone has different experiences at a festival, including what is important to them.  However, everyone would probably experience some level of discomfort and frustration with the lack of air conditioning in a hot and humid milonga hall.  How festival arenas effect each individual varies.  And some of these festival arenas outweigh others.  If five of my favorite tangueras showed up and danced a lot with me, low rankings in other arenas just would not matter much.  In addition, festivals are experienced different from a follow’s perspective vs. a lead’s perspective.

With all this said, I did have many wonderful dances, connections and creation of memories.  Even though I probably will not attend again, I am glad I attended and want to share some of the memories that were created in addition to what I shared in my last entry- Baltimore Tango Elements Festival Part 2- Creating Memories.

I hung out with my good friend and first Tango festival buddy, Sarah.  Such good memories of several festivals we both traveled to, and our sharing of all that happened during so many milongas.  I have enjoyed all the debriefing of Tango happenings.

I also had a spectacular dinner with a professional coach.  Our conversation contained sharing of personal growth/ transformational technologies and methodologies.  This brought up many memories of my participation in these organizations- both positive and an acknowledgement of restrictions in fundamental cosmologies.  I treasure befriending people like her, for all of the shenanigans of Tango melt away while connecting with my good Tango friends.

Another mention are the performances Sabastian Arce and Chicho gave, which astonished me, inspired me, and thrilled the participants.   The thunderous clapping got 5 dances out of Sabastian and 6 out of Chicho.  WOW!  The expertise and cutting-edge explorations certainly showed me some of the places Tango can go.

And, one of my favorite memories is how at 5:15 AM in the Baltimore airport I met up with 5 other Tangueras/os.  If we all had not been so tired, we would have probably danced.  Just hanging out with these friends supplied me with a deep sense of community and well being.  Yum!

Now, onto the Denver Labor Day festival…

As I face my choice of red pill vs. blue pill in the Tango Matrix, I am exploring some of the cultural background of Tango.  I want to unveil deeper truths of Tango on my own before I go down the rabbit hole.  Going down the rabbit hole is a one way trip – returning to ignorant bliss is not an option.

Below is part of an entry from uncyclopedia.wikia.com.  I recommend reading their full entry on Argentine culture.  However, I suspect political correctness in their view is defined far different than mainstream  Warning- may not be suitable for anyone who dislikes being offended…

Argentine Language

For everyone who invested two, or five years learning Spanish, or for those who took the time on a crash course or just spent hard earned income buying phrasebooks, congratulations.  All your efforts and money will be completely useless in Argentina.

But there is hope for you. It’s not hard at all to learn the Argentine Language, in fact it only takes a few minutes as the following short read will demonstrate. Take the following Spanish language sentence:

Oye, ¿quien eres tú? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas. (This translates to: “Hey, who are you? You come here to pick up women on the streets and to dance tango with them.”)

But saying it like this will render you an ignorant tourist at best, or an inferior sub-human from a neighboring country next to best.  With these simple ten, 12 steps below you will be able to make yourself understood in the Argie tongue:

1. Replace “oye” with a 1000% Argentine word, che. No one knows where this word came from, but many say it is derived from brazilian homosexuals, ironic since today virtually none of them are around. Wonder what happened to them?
   Oye Che, ¿quien eres tú? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
2. “Che“, following Argentine etiquette, is ALWAYS followed by the word “boludo“, s term to express respect and friendship. Its closest translation in English language is believed to be “asshole“.
   Oye Che boludo, ¿quien quien eres tú? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
3. Quien is spelled the correct educated computer age way in Argentina, “kien”
   Oye Che boludo, ¿quien kien eres tú? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
4. Replace “eres tu” with sos vos. Unfortunately, all those verbs in Spanish which had you eating the corners of your textbook are officially worthless. Argentines use an entirely different 2nd person singular pronoun (vos instead of tu), and that means all verb endings change too, so the conjugation of the verb ‘to be’ is not eres, but sos. Enjoy learning all 25,000 verb endings all over again!
   Oye Che boludo, ¿quien kien eres tú sos vos? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
5. “Vienes” must be replaced with venís. Again poor you, using the subject pronoun vos, has the effect of completely changing the spelling of verbs.
   Oye Che boludo, ¿quien kien eres tú sos vos? Vienes Venís aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
6. Take out “aquí” and use acá. Aquí is absolutely forbidden from use, as in Argentina this word sounds too much like Spanish, a language spoken in Bolivia, Mexico, Colombia.
   Oye Che boludo, ¿quien kien eres tú sos vos? Vienes Venís aquí acá a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
7. Here your options are a bit more open for you. You could replace “coger mujeres” (“to pick up women” in Spain and Latin America), with recoger mujeres, which is the correct way of saying “to pick up women” in Argentina. Another choice should be “buscar” mujeres (to look for women), which would fully disclose the appreciation of the chances a stranger has on getting chicks unless he handles the local language. On the other hand, you could leave “coger mujeres” alone, if your intention is to F-CK the chicks right there on the spot, which was probably what you were thinking anyways. But if you want a bit more privacy, we do advice to replace “coger” with “buscar”.
   Oye Che boludo, ¿quien kien eres tú sos vos? Vienes Venís aquí acá a coger buscar mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
   (ps ALWAYS replace “coger” with “tomar” or “agarrar” when saying you want to “take” a bus. In Spanish-speaking nations coger el bus is the correct form of saying “taking the bus”. In Argentina saying this will probably lead to a response like “sure, go ahead, I guess you can do so through the muffler”.)
8. “Mujeres” is a far too formal expression not a single Argentine would deign to pronounce. A more appropriate word would be “minas” (chicks), a slang which has also the benefit of expressing properly the high consideration Argentines have towards the feminine gender.
   Oye Che boludo, ¿quien kien eres tú sos vos? Vienes Venís aquí acá a coger buscar mujeres minas en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
9. In Argentino, all nouns have their syllables switched so that “tango” became “gotan”. So always reverse the syllables of all nouns, it’s simple and you won’t go wrong in your quest to fit in!!(But it isn’t REALLY necessary, unless you want to be a real moron. If you do you are almost Argentinian!!!! KANGRETULAYSHUNS!!)
   Oye Che boludo, ¿quien kien eres tú sos vos? Vienes Venís aquí acá a coger buscar mujeres minas en la calle y bailar tango gotán con ellas.
10. If you are in Buenos Aires, Uruguay and some other areas, further rules have to be applied. To be precise, within the borders of the described regions one should consider all territories below the Tropic of Capricorn, when Saturn fulfill its duty in the fifth house of Uranus, and Mars is conjunction with Titanus. And, of course, during full moon. In Main Argentino you have to pronounce the “ll”s correctly, so switch out “calle” with “ca-sshe”, and “ellas” for e-sshas.
    Oye Che boludo, ¿quien kien eres tú sos vos? Vienes Venís aquí acá a coger buscar mujeres minas en la calle ca-sshe y bailar tango gotán con ellas con e-sshas.
11. You can leave “en la calle” (“on the street”) alone, as this is how every local and tourist ends up when their girlfriend or wife finds out they were carrying out the commands of this sentence. And presto! You are speaking Argentino.

Spanish: Oye, ¿quien eres tú? Vienes aquí a coger mujeres en la calle y bailar tango con ellas.
Argentino: Che boludo, ¿kien sos vos? Venís acá a buscar minas en la ca-sshe y bailar gotán con e-sshas.

See, no difference at all!