We were talking about lessons. There is something about them that can ruin your dance for awhile. It is like you have been burning along on instinct and enjoying your dance and knowing that others like it well enough. Having fun, going along. Then wham. You learn something which amounts to a lesson in just how much you don't know. This is good, because it means the gate is opening to new ways of being in the body, of enjoying. But it can be killer for the confidence in the mean time.
I am going to take a carefully chosen technique workshop in a couple of weeks. Message to self: Enjoy being there, not thinking about what it means or where it goes. Because we never really know anyway, so right now just enjoy being with the friends, sweating it out, getting tired in a good way. I've stopped thinking of things as steps along the way to some future wonderfulness. And when faced with the defects one can simply give thanks for the information....the chance to work on that, or to work with that.
It will be fun.
Or generally devastating. But I'm going anyhow.
P.S. I love what Halbert wrote about his lesson and how it made him feel. Very good words.
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Elizabeth, a famous writer once said to me when I was bemoaning something or other about my writing, "It's the process, Cherie!"
And the same can be said for dancing. We dance because we enjoy dancing, not to be great ballerinas one day.
I've taken several workshops where I learned nothing useful in terms of dancing better tango, but still they were fun and good for my mind and body.
In the U.S. there's a lot of thought of "investment" in studying, of it "paying off" in the future. Why give your kid violin lessons if he's not going to make money playing professionally? Why take private tango lessons if we don't get to dance more with better partners?
But it's the process. And it's good.
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