Thursday, March 15, 2007

Sad But True

There are times I won't recognize someone's face because I only pay attention from the knees down. It most often goes like this:

[At a milonga. A woman comes up to me.]

Woman: "Hi, Planchadora, how are you?"

[Without any clue who this woman is]

Me: Oh...heeeey there....

[looks down and sees distinctive gold shoes]

Me: ...Joanne!*


This skill also enables me to spot an out-of-towner at 100 paces.


[At a milonga, scanning the floor.]

Me: Those purple shoes - she's not local.


It's done more to spur me into good technique than any lecture could, knowing that people will identify me solely by the way I hold my feet. Aieee!


* Joanne is a name I made up, and is no way intended to reflect on actual Joannes. If you are an actual Joanne reading this, I'm sure your gold shoes are lovely.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your post made me laugh. For the first 12 months that I danced the tango, I studied people's feet only because I was so fixated on learning the steps. Now that I'm more fixated on good connection, I look at their torsos to see how they embrace. Who knows, next year, my eyes may move up to their arms and the year after that, their faces. Hopefully by then, I will finally be able to see the sum instead of its parts.