In the beginning...

In the beginning of this blog there was the tango argentino...
It has now been one year since I have embarked upon the path of tango. I´ve been through the stages well known to all other tangueros - at first the weekly lessons, the pleasure of learning and concentrating on my body (a ´I dance, therefore I am´ sort of a thing), then the first milonga where, to my horror, I realized I could hardly walk - yet it was there and then that I completely fell for tango - and then lots of work and dancing to improve, and then my first tango trance when I danced my eyes closed until my feet were sore, limping happily back to my place at half past two on a summer night, still more dancing, and finally becoming a real tango addict (I still remember that week, in Paris, when I went out to dance almost every night, to the practicas, milongas and, of course, les quais de la Seine - most romantic, but deadly for your feet). My feet would hurt non-stop, a night´s rest was no longer sufficient to make the pain go away and, as I walked to the metro station, I had the feeling of stepping, barefoot, on sharp blades.. Yet I do not think there´s any inherent masochism in tango, as a friend of mine (not a dancer, of course, so what would he know?) once suggested when presented with this recollection. Yes, I suppose one COULD dance in sneakers... but it just wouldn´t be the same! It´s not just the shoe fetishism which, I admit, is a part of the whole tango thing, even for someone like me, who had always scorned high heels before and thought Doc Marten´s were the hight of cool; it´s also the undeniable fact that the whole of tango aesthetics is based on high-heel shoes - both the figures and the walk. One simply cannot achieve the same result without that bloody heel.. :) Anyway, one learns to minimize the damage, eventually, and most of the time a good night´s rest will suffice (plus perhaps a massage, a foot-bath, and some exercises - all these do make quite a difference).

I have noticed some women will wear high heels throughout the day, to work or to walk around the town in (though how far they actually get, or if they ever manage to catch a bus, I would be very curious to know); but I have never been one of these women and I find it rather alarming to see what a girl - including myself - will do to her feet when she gets into a tango trance (except for the fortunate specimen mentioned above, who can indulge in high heels without any apparent self-mutilation). Though, on second thought, it may not be so surprising after all. I suppose we all know that fairy tale about the little mermaid - the one that fell in love with a human prince and, in order to become human herself and be able to walk the earth accepted the condition set by the witch who helped her in her predicament, i.e. that every step she would take would feel as if she were stepping on a sharp blade.. That´s where I got the idea, of course..