Skill

Almost everyone has some skill that I can admire.  I'm impressed by fast footwork.  By elegant posture.  By pure musicality.

I'm impressed by people who have such an intuitive grasp of the dance and the music that they look like they were born into it.

I'm impressed -- perhaps more impressed -- by people who did not have this free ride into the dance.  The people who have worked and worked and struggled and struggled to get through the wall.  These people have really earned their place on the dance floor.  Often they turn into the very best dancers.

I love to watch people who have skill in using the cabeceo to negotiate dances -- perhaps the only bit of choreography involved in tango.  She looks at him, he looks at her, she looks away.  Later he comes back to her when the music is different, or the room has cooled down or warmed up.  This time they smile and nod at each other and it all comes together.

Sometimes I watch someone transform herself into a different dancer with every tanda and every partner, and yet keep an essence of herself that's constant.  Something that makes her her.  It amazes me.

In admiring all of this, I realise I have barely scratched the surface.