The student is an excellent follower, sensitive, flexible, soft. Everywhere – except for the back, shoulder blades. It feels like plates of armor. The muscles are so powerful that they bend the spine, pull the chest inside. I feel the years of crushing responsibility and cementing anxiety. There is almost no space to breathe. The back is ten years older than the rest of the woman.

It seems that to relax these muscles, straighten the back, free the chest, you need years of a mild climate, thermal springs with mulatto masseurs and a diet from prana with champagne. I’m not even trying to do something with this, I’m looking for a way to get around, to dance with such a back somehow.

We say goodbye, hug, step back, hug again. Both have to reach out. And under my arms I feel a soft back, breathing, light, lively. The woman is the same, the context is different. Another context  – another body.

They used to think about the body with its muscle shell as of furniture that does not change, it is always the same, regardless of where we put it, whether we look at it.

If you allow yourself to slightly shift the perspective, you can see how the body changes depending on the field in which it is located, on the figure with which it comes into contact, and on the content and nature of this contact. It does not exist separately. “People change their posture under the eyes of others” (Lena Hernandez). More can be said: people change their bodies next to others.

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