Do you know what is frightening to people more than anything? Death, illness or old age? No! just beauty!
Have you ever seen people in a museum? They usually look at the detail or at the frames but few look at the paintings and works of art, just abandoning themselves to the enjoyment of the moment. To cope with the concept and actuality of beauty takes courage. And how many of us know how to cope with beauty of the body in the people we meet? We are suffering from a disease that I have called "fear of contact" .
When someone exceeds that limit of our virtual being (the ‘comfort zone’ as some call it) we feel uncomfortable, or even feel a sense of revulsion against physical contact (whether it occurs or not). This phobia is given by hypersensitivity to physical contact, feeling it as an invasion of our own or other people's intimate area.
As children we approached and touched other people without inhibitions. We were driven by a pure spirit of discovery of such a beautiful world. Touching the hair of others, we feel the hands of grandparents and so on. And then? And then our parents, society, civilization gradually have "taught" us that there were the limits to be kept with others, what and where to touch.
So one day we found ourselves having to keep larger distances. If a stranger approached less than half a meter and touch our arm it started to annoy us. Obviously the limits and distances vary from person to person, from place to place and from culture to culture. Taking a great approximation, generally the people of the south world know how to be "closer" more than people of the north.
Thank God that there's tango
I have no evidence, but I'm sure God can dance the tango. Tango is one of the best tricks that human beings have ever invented to overcome the taboo of touching a stranger. In tango not only do we touch strangers but we hug them, and very often the embrace is deep without shame and fear. "In the tango one closes his eyes in a blind embrace of trust." The tango overcomes social limitations. In reality, tango is close to placidly accepted adultery. It breaks all the rules of propriety in a ‘sentimental’ relationship.
Couples in life ‘break up’ in tango to dance with other people, then return to sit next to each other happily. Tango subverts all the canons of good education, dictating new concepts. The simplest discovery I made dancing is to understand how tango affects me through the other person. I discover my beauty through the beauty of the other. Tango makes you realize how to be more than what you know you are. When it happens, the tango dance becomes an existential prayer.
The tango is a medicine
When we touch - or are touched - our body begins to secrete oxytocin, which improves our immune system. Tango - as love - gives us strength and increases self-esteem of those who practice it.
Tango has done so well in recent years it has become a real cure: the Tango Therapy. As Dr. Monica Barassi explains: "Thanks to the precision with which the roles in tango are established, participants in groups of Tango Therapy experience different parts of themselves, especially the active part of the male, determined, outgoing, masculine and for the woman the receptive , ‘lunar’, sensitive, feminine.
The tango is the setting for all of this, with the music, the meeting of the couple, and the contact, both within yourself and among the people dancing. Why practice Tango Therapy? Because it improves self-knowledge through experiential work on the masculine and feminine sides. In addition, through the couple working together, it helps understanding by contact, how to relate better with others. "
Tango for her
In tango, a woman explores her sensuality and femininity, too often previously lost or damaged. Tango helps her to feel and understand what happens when her body comes into contact with another.
Tango for him
In tango man enhances his self-esteem, especially in men who are struggling to manage well the commitments, relationships, everyday life; having to lead the dance, lead his partner, reproduce the anxious tension of performing, the burden of responsibility that he feels in those situations, but also helps to manage the relationship with greater security.
In short, tango, is a metaphor for life. Because exchange occurs, both for men and for women, there must be an embrace. Contact.
"And you realize how easy it is to live fully if your body marries your soul and if, even for a few minutes, this new alliance joins with another body and another soul."
Follow us