dances with wolves

as fun and furry as concepts are, let's not let them get too wild. let em rest.

dancing with concepts of what ‘should be’ is dangerous.

concepts themselves can be dangerous if we are not careful to become ensnared by them. just the other day I found myself infuriated over a concept..over what ‘should have been’, but was not. due to concepts, reacted. i didn’t chose a reaction, i simply reacted.

technically, everything is ‘as it should be’. and the word ‘should’ itself is rather worthless.

it’s a lot easier for me to dance without concepts than it is to go through my daily life -that takes work.

and to be honest, concepts are not entirely bad. it’s when we become attached, and ensnared by them.

the concept of turning under a lead’s arm when he raises his hand is not bad. but when you simply react to a raised hand automatically with a turn (you’ve all done it!), you’ve just been hung by your own concept.

your idea of what a follow should do, took precedence over what may have been the physical reality, and perhaps the lead was simply draping the arm over your shoulder. we’ve seen this one a million times in class.

Jason Laughlin of Tangophilia put it this way: “It is NOT up to the follow to figure out what the lead is doing”.

why?

in order to figure out something, you typically will apply a concept, filling in what you don’t know with an idea of what should be.

most times your guess is wrong.

dance with uncertainty in your heart, it’s ok.

you don’t know the next step, next turn, next anything.

just move. just dance. just live. ditch the shoulds. or at least practice doing so in life and in dance.