10 surprising lessons I learned in 2020

Everyone has unique experience, but I’m sure that we’ll all remember 2020 for one thing — the pandemic. Some of us lost their job, others lost their dream, and some unfortunately lost their close ones.

I’m sure all of us experienced periods when we were trapped at home — with time to do nothing. When those moments come, we all instinctively look inward and reflect on the things of the past and the future, and our place in it…

“You should find another hobby”, she said.

“Why?” I asked surprised.

“I didn’t like it even before, but now, I think sticking to tango is having bad influence on you… and, I don’t think you’ll be able to dance as before — maybe never again!”, she was telling something that sounded reasonable.

But, it was not!

Dancing tango was never something that this world liked. Even in its height during the Golden Age, it was not considered a good thing if you were a milonguero who spend most of his evenings dancing with different women… It was even forbidden to say “Hello” to a person you know from milongas (not to get him/her in uncomfortable situation).

When I think about it – these months of 2020 gave me some valuable lessons. I must say that the bottom line is that I must continue with tango – it’s even our obligation as people who know how valuable is the human connection and are not afraid to openly admit it.

So, what lessons I learned? Check them out – some of them were surprise for me:

1. My social life was not 100% tango

There were many times in the past where I sincerely believed that all my social life was reduced to tango. I had this feeling that my only friends were my tango friends, and that my only world was my tango community.

Well that was not true.

I used this period to meet some of my non-tango friends (in my everyday vocabulary the are the “civilians”) and, despite the fact that I miss my tango world, I understood that my social life was quite healthy even without them.

Of course, generally speaking I’m often so much focused on my projects, that I don’t socialize much, so, when I say healthy social life, I mean as healthy as it can be in this unhealthy world we live in.

2. I’m not addicted

I love tango so much, that I often ask myself what would I do without it? Spend few days without it and you start missing it. Postpone few tango events and you start to feel a dark empty gap in your schedule.

It really feels like it’s an addiction, but in fact it’s not. I’ve got my answer when I was forced to stay away – not by my choice… And the answer is; no, I’m not addicted.

After the first few months, when we were all more assured that it’s not that serious, I had few practicas and I recorded some videos, but it was still not the real deal. Now, after the second wave, I don’t really feel any “symptoms of withdrawal”.

3. I don’t listen to tango music

All this months, my tango music collection is standing there collecting dust in it’s folder. Untouched. I didn’t opened it once since February when I was DJing in Germany and, to be honest, I didn’t noticed that until the moment I started to write the draft of this article.

I don’t miss it at all! It doesn’t play in my head! I don’t feel an urge to play it on Youtube as well.

4. I don’t watch tango videos

The only reason I watched videos this summer was because I decided to share my tango videos collection with my readers (the project My Tango Mentor). Part of the project was for me to share my notes about some of them, so I had to re-watch my favorites and write down the specific lessons I learned by doing so.

Yes, there were moments while I was watching that I wished to dance to the song that was playing or on that particular way the milonguero danced – but the desire disappeared the moment the video finished.

5. I do miss dancing

If I am not addicted, why would I miss dancing? Well, missing it doesn’t mean you are addicted. At least this is how I feel about it. Not everything you want to do in your life passionately means it’s addiction.

And, I want do dance… passionately… with passion…

Here I don’t want to elaborate any further, since I agree with those who say “talk less – dance more”. Talking is for the civilians.

Hey, sorry to interrupt…

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6. I miss my students

I love teaching and I feel something special when I see that “A-ha” expression on their face when I help them understand something. Despite that, it sometimes feels hard for me to disrupt my normal daily routine, leave home and go to the studio where my students are waiting… and to be honest, I needed this period away.

Now, that I’m well rested and full with energy and motivation I would give everything in the world to make one workshop. I would pay them for that pleasure (said the starving tango teacher in time of social distancing).

7. I miss the trips

Tango is not a dance: for the milongueros it’s a way of life. It often includes a lot of traveling and meeting new people.

I mean, you can invite your favorite dancer home and dance the crap out of her – but it still won’t be the same.

I miss buying the airplane ticket, packing my bag (that’s patiently waits in the corner of my room all these months), calling taxi and getting on an plane… and in few hours you’re meeting great new people.

The dancing there is bonus.

7 things I’ve learned traveling for tango

8. I learned many non-tango things about my tango friends

I always said to my students that the biggest thing you get from tango is not the dancing itself, but rather the opportunity to meet a rich diversity of people. Tango cuts across the barriers in the society, cuts across the class, profession, character and belief, across the political and national divide… And it touches what’s human in all of us – in that universal part which connect us despite all the differences.

Since I was not able to dance with them, I finally had a chance to ask people substantial questions beyond that polite chat between the songs or between milongas. When you remove the dance, the connection and the community is still well alive… and people feel the urge to change one way of communication (dance) with another (talking) – it’s just using different form.

With changing the form of communication we change some of it’s content as well, so I had chance to find that a friend of mine works at the embassy in a foreign country and not actually lives in her hometown; that another brave friend is a cancer survivor and almost no one knows about it; that a nice lady lives alone and despite the outside image of happiness and success she feels lonely and unhappy; that otherwise silent and introvert friend who never smiles has talent to make people laugh when he feels comfortable around them…

You know, those kind of things we know intellectually, but we don’t feel like that; things that make people look like real people, not just two dimensional background of places we visit.

9. I learned that this world works against genuine human interaction

It’s a real treasure when you meet someone who has no fear to be open and interact in non-superficial way. The world is mean: it punches us and mistreat us; which causes people to live it with their guards up.

When someone is “brave enough” to lower the guard and talk about what he/she really is – you should just respond in the same way and express your admiration… and you tango is a great way to have those kind of encounters.

But then, the pandemic gave us that blow under the belt. The virus was not that bad as the fear that followed (even though for some of us the virus itself was also devastating)…

This world favors substitutes, not the genuine human connection… and now, even more.

This is why – now I appreciate the connection even more.

10. It’s good thing I don’t watch TV

Maybe at first you might think that this has nothing to do with tango, but I think you’ll be wrong. People often watch TV out of boredom or having nothing else to do. But we, the tango people – we have the dancing, and practicas, and videos, and articles like this one…

What a bless it is!

Unfortunately this period I returned to my habit of watching TV. I can tell you – I’m now even more assured that it has bad influence on my mental hygiene. TV, especially the news is like planting a bomb in your inner garden…

Boom!

… and your inner peace is gone.