Since October, 2011, I’ve been teaching tango at La Pista dance studio in San Francisco. I teach on Wednesdays with Tom Lewis, the owner and architect of this amazing salon. Mila Salazar, the beautiful dancer seen en apilado with Jesse, below, had been teaching with Tom but she is now gearing up to start a […]
Beginner’s Mind Tango
January 24, 2012 by
We focus on beginners to tango and to aspiring tangueros who have never danced. All our classes start with exercises to help you keep all-important technique in mind as you execute steps. Tango technique can be summed up in three important body mechanics: spirals, weight change (or transference of weight around your axis), and pivots
Writing is writing, fiction or non
January 24, 2012 by
We are all weavers of our destiny. We are all reading our life as its plot, theme, and larger story unfolds before us. Or, we might say, taking in the woof and warp of the tapestry as it falls into place. Some of us are just more aware of the loom and the materials at hand.
Writing As Refuge – workshop overview
January 22, 2012 by
3. Process from the inside out: Brief chat on blocks & obstacles (acute & chronic) to writing process, real & perceived (or imagined). I’ll share a bit on my work to break through (using meditation, art therapy) and point to Tolstoy, Hemingway, Woolf, Styron, and other luminaries who all had it. Can you name writing’s Public Enemy No. 1? 4. From the outside in: We’ll read a couple of short pieces, one on the magic & mystique of writing (how it lets our hidden self/material float to the surface); and a second short essay that exemplifies how the deeply personal telegraphs or unpacks the universal.
How is writing like drawing?
January 19, 2012 by
Writing is drawing that’s been untied and retied. But he likes it as Drawing is writing that’s been untied and retied.I like both. Food for thought.
Tango is like a pulsar, like Venus, like Earth . . .
January 8, 2012 by
pulsars are stars that are wearing down, falling apart like worn out humans. Pulsars are “the remnants of once-mighty stars that emit beams of energy like cosmic lighthouses” and they are born when the core of a massive star stops producing energy. However, says StarDate, f they partner up with another pulsar they regain energy and get strong again. Just like in tango: “. . . if they have a companion star, they can spin up again by stealing some of its gas — a process that can make the pulsar spin hundreds of times a second.”
Kuan Yin’s Prayer for the Abuser
January 8, 2012 by
Read at SF Zen Center by Jana Drakka, Saturday Sangha lecture, Jan 7, 2012 Kuan Yin’s Prayer for the Abuser To those who withhold refuge, I cradle you in safety at the core of my Being. To those that cause a child to cry out, I grant you the freedom to express your own choked […]
Tango in Nairobi, Africa
January 7, 2012 by
Oh, how many people told me “You won’t find tango in Nairobi?” They didn’t know Mario Ruggier, a native of Malta and naturalized Canadian who came by way of Geneva two years ago to work in Nairobi in an engineering capacity for the U.N. also. (There are some 25,000 expats in Kenya.) Mario found that only ersatz tango—the ballroom stuff of stiff frame, bodies held apart, making like a tulip. So he began to teach the real thing, Argentine tango and now he has a good following. I was received with open arms and close embrace.
When is tango like a horse?
January 6, 2012 by
My favorite radio show, WAIT, WAIT DON’T TELL ME had a guest on who said, “You have to have strong legs, a good back, and stamina, but it’s all in the technique.” He could have been talking about tango. But he was a famous horse jockey.
