The dancing couple

lead/follow - partners - unity   

capacity allocation - effortless dance   

willpower - music   

When I started to dance AT the leader/follower roles were fixed and no one gave us hint about that it could change by the coming years. Anyhow I did not got a hint I understood!

Today, many years later I consider the leader/follower roles to be just a good training aid, a good starting setup. It is helpful to organize the process in this way to create a clear structure for the beginners to understand the responsibilities during the dance. During the first period most of your capacity is needed to learn the individual steps and all the stuff about connection. There is hardly resources to continuously negotiate about the actions and who will be the initiator. 

When the skill is developed the dance gets fluent following the tango principles and the dancers are able to maintain the connection with each others as well as with the music during the whole tanda. From somewhere here and onward the dancing couple consists of equal partners and in the end you are not able to tell apart the other persons' impact, you are not able to feel the leading or following.

During this learning continuum the willpower to take a step - the willpower needed to lead and willpower needed to follow a step - the strength of the mental impulse will gradually diminish. After a certain point there is only a feeling that the couple is moving without effort together, without no leading impulses or following impulses to be recognised. At that moment the music is making us to dance, to take a step.


In an earlier posting, *Her dancing body* i think she had passed to the state of effortless dancing where the music is moving her body. In this specific situation I was not capable to join her dance but started to follow.