The Talk

Recently returning from the dance floor after three tandas with a girl who dances a quarter of her life, traveled half of the world and gives partner the whole soul in every dance. And so she tells me that only two times in her life she invited the partner herself «by hands». And both times this partner was me.

Obviously, I am a recognized master of cabeceo, and this is like kung fu or Russian: real masters use their skills only in exceptional situations.

The good news is that there are partners of a different kind. For example, my recent companion, who started a conversation with an unexpected question:

Honestly, I did not think about the value of his cabeceo at all, but did not interrupt.

— I appreciate it, because it allows me tune in to a partner. The game that happens between us in these moments are the first steps to introducing a partner into a trance. I take her hand, and as I lead her to the dance floor, I can try to synchronize my breathing with her breathing, try to calm down, or on the contrary, to inflate myself so that my pulse coincides with her pulse. And when we embrace on the dance floor, the whole story becomes even deeper and more powerful.

— That's why I react so «inconsistently» when being touched on the dance floor: it's like nothing special, but I'm immediately knocked out of trance and all the constructed magic collapses. And it makes me sad.

At this point I definitely agree with my companion, because I personally smile in such situations and think the following: «Do not apologize, dude, I still hate you, please go and kill yourself with the washbasin in the toilet».

— By the way, there is nothing like that in the folk - he continued. - Well, I'm talking about cabeceo, leading a partner to the dance floor and things alike. Everything is so quickly - you have to manage to find a partner, run to the dance floor, losing slippers, and go! There are also details there that are aimed at synchronizing and putting into trance. For example, clapping at the beginning of the song, zapateo of partner... This is if we are talking about chakarera, of course, there is nothing like that in zamba, although I'm not an expert. Perhaps you can try to perform it with a handkerchief…

— However, I've digressed. This initial process of putting into trance is basically important. Let's even look at the group lessons. If you first do a warm-up, some kind of the same movements for everyone, then the lesson will be completely different than if you want to immediately dance in pairs, hoping that everybody know what to do.

— Wait, let's go back to companion dancing. Did I understand you correctly that, in fact, you create such a situation to dance alone?

«I.e The partner is kind of here, but she's put in to trance and does not show herself» - my inner troll gave a voice.

— Well ... you could say that, yes. I like to dance complicated and unusuall, find out some non-standard ways and steps and so on. I realized that not everyone is able to adjust to this, and the easiest way is to turn off the partner's mid by immersing it in a trance.

— I see ... Well, I have a completely opposite approach. Your description of cabeceo and the way to the dance floor is very interesting, I never looked at this from this point of view; the idea definitely deserves attention. Besides, I recently almost stopped using cabeceo with my acquaintances and invited with the hand. Maybe I'm losing a lot, simplifying my way to the dance floor... However, my final target in the dance is the opposite.

— said my inner bore.

— In short, it's like a well-known IQ, only EI, whose essence is in a person's ability to understand and use emotions for any purposes. In the concept of emotional intelligence there is the concept of empathy, when a person is able to understand emotions of another person. From the point of view of biochemistry, such a person imitates the processes of another person: breathing, pulse, micro movement, etc., whatever one is able to do. So a good idea to manipulate another person is to be empathetic to him, but at the same time to be able to control your emotions, so as not «to fall into» the second person, but rather lead him or her.

The concept of color coding awareness is also worth recalling: white, yellow, red and black help one to perceive the world. White means a state where you do not track anything around you. When you catch yourself on going to work in the morning, and remember exactly how you left the house and how you went to work, and the gap in between totally passed by the conscious. It's alike the state on which you are trying to put your partner to. Yellow is a state when you track everything around you, it's the state of a leader, one might say. Red is like yellow plus detailing the focus on a specific object. Since this concept was initially developed for special forces, the last, black code, is the code of direct combat.

So, in my terms, in my terms your concept is the following: you try to control the partner with empathy, so that she enters the white state, while remaining at the border of white and yellow, basically to not kill others on the dance floor.

And I have a different concept: I try to go into a red state with an emphasis on the partner.

In this case, in an ideal world, the partner also goes into a red state with an emphasis on me, and we dance, while listening to each other. This is nonpareil to which one should strive on the dance floor.

At the same time, I have no purpose and no desire to dance complicated. Well, from the point of view of a beginner it could be difficult, but from the point of view of maestro it is a childish babble. Like you, I dance the way I dance. But at the same time you explore the boundaries, you try to get out for them, you have a goal behind them. And I have a goal inside of them, and I do not try to go beyond the boundaries established by myself or my partner.

Of course, there is no point in judging which approach is better or worse than the other, especially because we are talking about about a desirable, but unattainable ideal. It's just that this ideal is different for us. And it's good thing, the differences give us and the girls more variations and opportunities.