A couple of years ago, I lost a practice partner by being too nitpicky and critical, er, I mean, over-enthusiastically helpful with my feedback. This just isnt going to work, they told me, not angrily, just in a calm, matter-of-fact way. I need a more relaxed partner to work with. Im ashamed to say that I wasted a lot of time feeling defensive about this before I realised that they had done me a big favour and it was a wake-up call. Fast forward to the present day and Ive been thinking a lot recently about the concept that actors refer to as respecting the other persons process. Sometimes friends tell me Havent you noticed that The Slow Semite [my blog name for my dance partner] does x or y? You need to tell him to change that. And my answer is always the same. I can see his dance improving on a month-by-month basis. Its not always a lineal process: it could be plotted on a jagged line, but the overall tendency is most definitely upwards. Hes working hard and getting better and I dont want to get in the way of that. And, likewise, he relatively seldom gives me feedback. I know youre already working on your shit, he told me once. And once, when I asked our teacher for more critiques, he said you still havent completely dealt with the issue I told you about a couple of weeks ago; Im waiting for you to sort that out first. Being around such laid-back people so much is doing my bossy personality a hell of a lot of good. In a group class yesterday, we were practising an exercise in couples. So, what do you feel? Tell me, my partner (a stranger to me) said, after wed tried it for a couple of songs. Lets just keep practising it, I suggested, keeping it zipped, because it was very clear that we were simply trying to get the hang of it still. If youre teaching a lesson, it might be different. You might want to give the student plenty of information because they wont have that many chances to hear it and you want to make sure they practise afterwards with a good basis to work from. But with a practice partner, its different. Many things in tango cannot be corrected by just giving the person feedback. Tango isnt about intellectual knowledge, after all. You could know everything there is to know about tango and still not be a good dancer. Sometimes -- perhaps a lot more often than we believe -- what dance partners need is simple time and repetition, a chance to develop muscle memory. Freedom to get it wrong five hundred times until suddenly it clicks. Patience from us as they try to incorporate a new way of moving. And, of course, as always, charity begins at home. Erase the words I suck from your vocabulary and replace them with Im learning. Respect your partners process. And your own.
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 15:43:19 +0000
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