Tango caught me at 40. Since then, I have covered over 20 thousand kilometers [in steps]. This journey was long. A lot has changed in me. I am trying to figure out what exactly and how. 

The Body

I have done martial arts and yoga and always believed that I was more than fine with coordination and balance. And it was probably fine in the first few lessons. Only three years later it became clear that it was not actually so. In tango we move together and, unlike martial arts, with a different purpose. That’s why it requires more coordination, balance and sensitivity. It’s possible to do without all of this but you kind of want to, and it greatly changes the quality of the dance. Some external changes included discovering and growing new muscles, losing 10+ kg, and forgetting about feet and lower back pain. 

The Women

Now it seems to me that before tango, I really did not see them properly. And if I did, then I must have missed some important dimension. They are deeper, more complex and more beautiful. Tango teaches to be impressed by the female beauty. 

My timidity in communication remained but began to give a tickling sensation of pleasure. Then came more spontaneity, respect, admiration and gratitude.

The Men

I realized that before tango I was a hardcore homophobic. It took me four years to understand: there is more than just competition between men. Now there is less aggression and hostility, more willingness and ability to cooperate, more openness. I realised that homophobia can be treated with large doses of communication with women. 

Sensory Hunger

Over the course of dancing years my body became sensory-full, it even seemed to make up for the previous forty years [of deprivation]. After all, 20 thousand km of embraces is not a small sum.

Sensory hunger is somehow special, unlike any other. I think many suffer from it and try to satisfy in the most twisted ways.

In tango, sensory hunger is satisfied not so much with the quantity as with quality, delicacy and variety. Delicious food fulfills enough, especially with good music. So, when the hunger subsides, the body relaxes. Those parts of it that seemed almost wooden come to life, regaining their sensitivity. Some parts of the psyche come to life along with them. Living with such a relaxed and vibrant body really does feel great.

The Music

Take a gang of street crooks without any money, food, shelter, family or alcohol; explain to them that if they don’t become the best, it will only get worse; let them steal a couple of instruments, add a couple of blacks playing candomble, for political correctness; find a dozen of charismatic Italian conductors and tell them it’s just a type of Italian opera, but they need to play it in such a way that the all the exhausted thugs and the bored provincial aristocrats, as well as the housewives and prostitutes, who are sick of all of the abovementioned, would straighten their backs and fill the dance floor; write lyrics for them about dying of unhappy love and how much fun that is; hire a couple of angels as vocalists; pass all of that through a blender, record the best of what they performed, burn those records, ban it all and send them on a tour around Europe, and then bring them back if you can.

That’s how tango music was born except everything happened a little differently and in a random order.

I can not answer the question of what tango music is, it is too varied. But I recognize it instantly, as a child can recognize a dog in both a Great Dane and a Pug without a showdown. I would love to relive once again those first six months or a year of tango classes, when I raved about the songs I heard, when they filled my dreams at night, lifted me up and dissolve the heartache, amazed and promised a whole world of beautiful melodies and new, previously unknown feelings. The beauty of tango music is that it does not get old; you can listen to a song you heard a hundred times, as if rereading a favourite book.

The Contact

If you take off all the jewelry, clothes and underwear from tango, what will be left is the core – the contact in a couple. Actually, it was from this understanding, the idea of ​​Tango therapy began to grow and the interest in Gestalt, which is also about contact, intensified. More than once I tried to write about what prevents me from dancing well and freely. Each time it turned out to be exactly the same thing that interferes with living well and freely, being in contact with oneself and others, being spontaneous, alive. I am convinced that psychotherapy in any form is no less useful for dancers than the workshops of stellar maestros.

The People

Tango has a very high concentration of talented and beautiful people. Something draws them to it. Most of them present themselves as traumatized cynical sociopathic sectarians, while they are in reality open to communication, stable and are generally warmer and more careful than the people from the harsh external reality. Among these dancers I found friends, teachers, and connected with those who I admire and get inspired by.

Igor Zabuta, psychotherapist, tango-teacher; http://izabuta.com/en/

Translation: Nadia Gativa, https://www.facebook.com/nadia.gativa