How Yoga Practice Enhanced My Tango Experience
Yoga is that THING for me for Tango.
Sometimes we do things without realizing it will benefit us tremendously in some way at some point in the future.
When I started Yoga, it’s just for health and exercise purposes. Just like most people, I believe yoga poses strengthen my body and increasing mobility to dance. Sure, it helped me because I consistently practiced breathing exercises, spinal twists, open hips, core engaging balancing and ankle strengthening ananas. On the other hand, I often seek out tango workshops and private lessons to improve my techniques and skills. What I did not realize is that I was looking for different Toolset and Skillset to enhance my life, but I stayed in the same Mindset. For years, I was ego driven, I seek for perfection, I compared myself with others, compared myself to my older self. I judged my leaders on their moves and embraces, I judged other people on the dance floor. All that, did not improve the Feeling of my tandas. I depended on my leaders to give me a moment of High, I depended on the music and floor and my embellishment to enjoy the movement…
One night, after 2 entire days of Yoga Teacher Training, I suddenly had so much joy evening dancing with everyone at a local Milonga, even someone were a 6-month-old leader. Ever since then, my joy of dancing has been increasing. I depend on less and less external factors to be happy both on and off the dance floor at milongas. I could sit 2/3 of the night at a marathon and enjoy people dancing without bitterness or anguish. I could dance with 10 strangers in a foreign Milonga without feeling shamed or proud. The joy of Tango is just THERE. A feeling of connection with myself, with people I dance with, with music that played…
The Transformation (or REALIZATION) is really YOGA. What was changed? There are definitely incremental improvements of my Tango experience through changing the Toolset (such as venue, partner and music) and Skillset (such as techniques). But when I changed my Mindset through studying Yoga, my joy of dancing Tango has drastically increased !! This experience is consistent in the last 2 years. Now I have enough data points to reveal the “culprit”. In the process of learning both Yoga and Tango, I also had the following realizations:
When you learn Tango, you realize you don’t know how to Walk;
When you learn Yoga, you realize you don’t know how to Breath.
So, why Yoga improved my Tango experience?
Yoga is Simple, just not Easy. To me, practice Yoga is to practice Tango. Yoga is to cultivate the awareness of my body, my mind and spirit. This Awareness simply made me an Observer rather than an Actor. I become aware of the muscles in my body, my axis, the elastic connection with my partner, and the floor. This Awareness changed my Mindset, I started to unlearn the old beliefs, old habits, old thought patterns. I learnt to *Let Go*, of ego, perfection, judgement, and even knowledge at times. Every time I start a tanda (even with a familiar partner), I feel like a new-born tango baby — drop the knowledge and the expectation. I have no experience to compare good or bad, high or low, I am just grateful and humbled by my leaders as I move with them, I am soaked in the emotion that piece of music evoked in me, I express without thinking whether others will judge me… suddenly, when the music stops, I wake up smiling… The true flexibility Yoga gave me is not only the body, more importantly the mind and heart.
Yoga and Tango, they are just the synonyms of Life… Joy and Happiness come from a blessed heart WITHIN...