R&R :: Day One

Saturday Morning Dreaming :: I really like this table...

You know how sometimes when you are waking up - for me it's usually when I am sleeping in - and you drift in and out of these semi-dreaming, semi-sleeping, semi-waking states? It's nice when it happens. Rare.

I stayed at last night's milonga until the bitter end, although I didn't dance the last few tandas, choosing instead to watch. Oh, in case you didn't catch it, I'm in Atlanta at the Gustavo y Giselle workshop - here ostensibly for "just the milongas" - although I noticed there is an advanced class this afternoon that is still open to leaders. Anyway, I got to bed around 3:00 or 3:30 I suppose, and was having some nice dreamy feelings this morning as I was waking up. Feelings of contentment, of gratitude, for what tango has brought into my life. I was trying to remember all my dances last night. They were all nice dances, even my one community service dance. Even community service tango feels good.

Gustavo y Giselle's performance was great - outstanding - fantastic. The real treat for me was watching them dance socially - they were warming up and having fun. They are so good, that after you have seen them many times, that level of dancing becomes the norm them. The expected. The beauty and technique and musicality and connection are all somehow anti-climactic. Don't get me wrong - they are moving and a joy to watch - but somehow...something...I can't explain it.

And don't forget the passion. I was talking with a friend about Ezequiel y Sabrina and Javier y Geraldine and their passion when they were together. The passion seems to be missing with them now, with their new partners. But not with G & G, the passion is still there, although it's more like a bed of hot coals. Not a big fanning flame of passion, but a deep, strong, white-hot heat of love. I think I see that with them. They are such a great couple. I admire them. Last night was a room full of G&G disciples. We wouldn't have been there if we didn't admire and respect them.

The video of the first song/dance is still uploading an hour later. I'll try to get it posted later.

The milonga last night was a treat. I would guess there were about 150 folks. Great DJ'ing by Avik...but a leader/buddy and I were talking about how there was a large proportion of "fast". Fast tangos, fast vals', and some painfully sloooow milongas. Overall, an A+ on the DJ'ing, you just can't really find fault there.

I had a wonderful surprise running into friends from Phoenix. I hadn't seen them since Austin back in November. It was great to catch up with them. That's one thing I love about tango - all the great people. We're going to have dinner tonight before the milonga.

There were lots of other familiar faces to say hi to and catch up with. Catch up and then dance a tanda (with the followers anyway).

My tango was okay. Not bad for not really having danced in four months. Stuff started coming back to me by the end of the evening. I completely forgot about volcadas. I was talking to my buddy from Phoenix, joking about Gustavo & Giselle's reverse double counter clockwise rotation back volcada with a twist, a gainer and a pike. I was joking in envy, it's a clean, simple, difficult to lead volcada that is a signature for them. Anyway we were laughing at my verbose descriptives, and it dawned on me that I had forgotten about them altogether. I'm not a big volcada dude. I'm a big dude, okay, but, I'm not big on volcadas, and not big volcadas either. I have a sweet little milonguero volcada "normal" that I do. At most, I may follow it up with another one, linked to the first, on the close side with a walk out in crossed feet over there. Anyway I forgot about them until the last tanda. I'm sure more "stuff" will come back to me today and tonight.

One thing about volcadas for the ladies. I noticed this one follower doing a "heel drag" version with a lead who appeared to be stuck in volcada mode. I thought to myself, "Self, isn't the follower supposed to trace her toe on the floor, and not her heel?" Maybe it's something new, but I didn't care for it. It was as if she were scraping dogshit off the end of her stiletto. I dunno, maybe she was.

Also, I saw a new left hand form. I will call it the "hook 'em horns" form. Hook em' horns is a saying and a gesture with regard to the Texas Longhorns. Index finger and pinky finger extended. There was a leader dancing this way and I winced a little bit, but then thought it cute. It's all good you know. He will learn and/or come into his own. There was also a fair amount of the "bang bang you're dead" form. Left index finger extended like you are making a gun with your hand - shooting it at the ceiling like in the old west days in a saloon.

Floorcraft and nav were good. There were a few issues in getting around the edges of the dance floor - to the entrance/exit, to the food/wine table, and to the restrooms. Some people were talking that the overall/general level of dancing was lower than expected/desired. All my dances were good. I was a little rusty, but I just got into the connection/embrace first and foremost, focused on music/ality, and it all turned out just fine. Nice dances. Nice women. Lots of really good looking women. There's something I'm going through these days where women just seem to be getting better and better looking, softer skin and hair, they smell better, their teeth are whiter and more perfect. What's up with that? I think it must be some cruel trick God or the Universe is playing on me.

Oh, and my left shoulder was killing me last night and this morning. I stopped on the way here yesterday and bought some Motrin. That seemed to help. A lot. The pain would be worse without it. I only noticed my hand dropping a bit during one dance at the end of the evening.

The only down element of the evening was that I dripped vino tinto all over my favorite shirt. Well, one of my favorites. It's a light blue linen number with nice embroidery down the button placket thingy - whatever you call it. I think it will be okay, I hand washed it in the bathtub. I need to get some stain remover. There was a crack in the bottom of the plastic vaso and I didn't notice until it was too late.

My plans for my R&R day today? (for my international readers, R&R is "rest & relaxation...) A big breakfast. Lay out by the pool and read and sleep. Go see the new Batman Movie. Perhaps try to shoehorn my way into the advanced class late this afternoon - mostly as an icebreaker to meet more followers.

I better get my ass in gear. I'm burning daylight.

Also, kudos to Ronda and Manuel...they throw a nice party...

Strange Tango Dreams

I just now remembered why I am awake at 4:00am.

I had a really long and strange dream. At the end of it, I was riding a magic carpet. Actually it was more like a magic blanket. I was at a facility that had formerly been used as a swimming training camp, for the Olympics or something. It had huge, vast pools. Although it was dilapidated and the pools were either empty, or filled with skanky green water.

The place was now being used as a tango camp or something along those lines. I remember a long, arduous trek with a handful of friends to get there. I don't remember much of anything while I was there - just scoping the place out - searching and snooping the long halls and nooks and crannies. I have no recollection of any tango music, nor tango dancing - just being there for some event - at this tango camp. It seems to have had a very dark, gulag-like air about it. Everything occured at night - in darkness. I remember being scared - of something.

In the end, we were leaving the place (on water slides), but I was looking for my cameras. They had been confiscated or something. Now the place has a Taliban feeling about it. I was riding my magic blanket from house to house (now the place has a West Texas Church of Latter Day Saints commune feel to it) looking for my cameras. I remember thinking, and telling someone in the dream, someone I could not see, that the cameras were very important to me because that is how I made my living. Maybe I was just thinking it (in the dream).

The most lucid aspect of the dream was the magic blanket ride. It was very late at night and everyone was asleep in their tango camp cabins. I remember some of the details from the blanket, and I remember how the blanket behaved under its magic forces/powers and in the wind. It kept blowing up in my face and obscuring my view. This was no doubt due to my inexperience/inability to "control" the thing with my mind. The basic premise is that you had to "will" it in the direction you wanted to go. Will it to stay flat and aerodynamic. Will it to bank and turn. Will it to accelerate and come to a stop.

Mondo bizarro.

A Tango Dream...Dark, late, anonymous tango...

I had another tango dream last night. My memory is devoid of details. I was outside of my self (Self 1) watching myself (Self 2) dance. Self 1 was thinking that Self 2 was dancing really well, looking very "liso". Self 1 noted that the style was Villa Urquiza.

I don't remember anything else - the woman I was dancing with - the place - nothing. Not much anyway - it was very dark, and it was very late.

This was the song being danced to. [Note on the YouTube page that there is a link to download the mp3. Also note that I have posted this before...but here it is again, in the context of my dream.]

It's a long song, so these guys had to split it into two parts.

Part 1 ::



Part 2 ::

Lo que vieron tus ojos :: Francisco Lomuto

I just woke up, wide awake from another tango dream.

The only thing I remember from the dream is that this song was playing. A vals.

It's my favorite vals.

Here are Thierry LeCocq & Delphine Blanco dancing to it...don't watch, just listen...



Actually, now that I am up and working on my DJ'ing...it may have been this one that was playing in my dream..."Pobre Flor" by Alfredo DeAngelis...a "superfast" vals...my second favorite...

Here are Gustavo y Giselle dancing to it...again...included here for the music, not necessarily the dancing...although I do like the "floating leaf" back sacada thing that he does...that they do...

Strange Dreams :: Enchanted Rock :: Tango with Sandra Bullock

I dreamed that I was driving my daughter's new (used) car, a VW, going about 80mph on the highway. Then a dude on a beach cruiser bicycle (big fat tires, no gears, coaster brakes) pedals up alongside me, also doing 80mph, and I notice he is wearing flip-flops. He and another dude on a bike are tooling around, accelerating and deccelerating and weaving in and out of the traffic.

I was alone in the car, talking to my daughter on a key fob. That's right, the keyless entry thingamajigger was working like a cell phone. I had the sunroof open, so I had to talk into it, and then hold it up to my ear to hear her reply.

We were trying to coordinate logistics for a family reunion/camping trip - getting vehicles loaded and everyone to the campsite. I think it was Enchanted Rock near Fredericksburg, Texas.

I was bummed because all my camping gear was still in storage in Aspen. I was trying to figure out how I was going to camp out for two or three days with only the clothes on my back, and nothing else.

Sidenote: I used to spend a lot of time at Enchanted Rock - camping and rock climbing. (I used to teach and guide rock climbing trips there - in my younger days.) I started going there before it was well known and popular - even before it became a State Park. I remember times when I would be the only one there - my one vehicle in the pink crushed granite parking lot - and having the entire park to myself. Back in the days when it was actually lush, before all the overuse symptoms you see there now.

I even briefly entertained the idea of buying the land when it came up for sale. At the time, there was a mobile home park developer who was going to buy it and make a moble home retirement community and RV campground out of it. I was outraged (as a card carrying member of the Sierra Club at the time), and hatched a plan to do a grassroots donation program - $10 or $20 each - I needed to raise $1.7 million if I remember correctly. Luckily, the State of Texas stepped in and bought it.

That's it...strange dreams...

Postscript :: As I end this post, I have a vague recollection from this dream rolling around in my mind...I'm not sure if it is commingled with some other "stuff" up there...but I think...maybe...I was rushing to make the drive out there...because I was going to be dancing tango with Sandra Bullock...and I didn't want to be late...

Tango Dream Dance

Gustav Klimt - The Kiss

While we're on the subject of Tango dreams, I will continue to share mine...

This is a dream I had several months ago, possibly as far back as a year ago. But I still remember it very vividly. In this dream, I was dancing tango with a woman. The room was very dark and we were alone - perhaps at home. This dream dance began to take on an ethereal quality. It was as if our bodies, our auras, our energy fields began to merge into one. At first, this merging seemed vaporous, surficial - the fusion was only skin deep. Our dance continued, and the more we danced, the deeper our union became. By the end of the dance, it was as if we were now one - standing inside each other.

The feelings I had in the dream were like a buzzing, electric, crackling sensation as our bodies and souls came together. The emotions I felt were love, warmth, and sublime contentment. These emotions and physical sensations from the dream were carried over into my waking reality. As I lay there, now fully awake, I languished in what I was feeling - not wanting it to end. For a split second I asked myself - was this a dream, or was it real?

It was almost as if I had been making love to this woman in my sleep. But I was alone in my cold bed. If love can be made non-sexually, if orgasmic bliss can be reached whilst fully clothed and dancing tango - two bodies, two souls, two energetic beings - fully joined into one - then this dream achieved it. As I lay there awake and thinking, the image of Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss" came into my mind. This painting most closely resembles the imagery of what happened in my dream - and capturing the emotions I felt.

The beauty of this dream - perhaps the only one like this in my life that I recall - is that those profound emotions and physical sensations carried over into my waking life. And I still carry them with me today...

A Tango Dream

Photo by Kevin Rolly on Flickr...


I had a dream night before last. My friend Roxanne, who now lives in Houston, was in it. She doesn't dance tango. I haven't seen her in about two years now and our communication is sporadic.

What I can remember of the dream is me walking through a large crowd - at a tango festival of some sort. I was talking on the phone to Roxanne - she was there at the event and we were trying to find each other. Roxanne is about 5'-2" or 5'-3" so she was hard to find in the crowd. I remember "thinking" this in my dream, that she would be hard to find for this reason.

As I walked through the crowd talking to her on the phone (I don't recall what we were talking about...), I could hear her voice both through the phone and through the other ear - she was nearby. (You know how sometimes to be goofy, as you walk up to someone you are talking to on a cell phone - you keep talking on the phone - and you can hear them via two "inputs"?...it was like that...) I do recall from the dream that she called me - to tell me she had seen me at the event - and that she had taken up tango.

Anyway, I continued walking and her voice (not on the phone) became fainter, so I backtracked through the throngs of people a little bit and found her. As I was walking up to her, I was thinking to myself that it was cool that she was now dancing tango - and then I woke up. I don't think we even got to the point of hugging - I was right in front of her and then woke up from the dream.

I find it interesting that in the absence of a lot of detail in my dreams, that this detail of her voice - both on the phone and in the air - is what led me to her. The detail of her voice fading away behind me, and then being able to pinpoint her location by coming back to it.

Needless to say, I have emailed her...but haven't heard back. The last contact we had was in May.

Do you dream "in tango"?