Transcript

(for those who are clicking on tango links while they were supposed to be working 😁):

Hey, this is Dimitris, the curious tanguero.

My goal is to bring more people to tango and more tango to people.

Today, we’ll discuss a very specific question: Do closed eyes in milongas help to get more dances?

If you haven’t followed this podcast yet, look for the Follow button.

It’s free, fun, and you’ll learn many ways to improve your tango.

Let’s start!

It all started when I began analyzing the results of a survey on how to dance more in milongas.

One question I asked leaders was: Why do you choose to dance with some followers and not with others?

I received lots of different answers, and I created a list of the 17 most mentioned reasons.

The 13th most mentioned reason was:

“I like to dance with women who have their eyes closed.”

That was mentioned in 2.8% of the responses.

For reference, the most commonly mentioned reason was mentioned 17.6% of the time.

You might be wondering: why should I care about the responses of less than 3% of the leaders?

Honestly, you don’t even need to care about what was mentioned in 100% of the answers if you don’t want to.

It’s your choice if you want to care about what your partners enjoy.

My thought is this:

If this is a 3% that you can easily incorporate into your dance, why not?

3% of 100 leaders in a mini festival or marathon is 3 more tandas, 36 more minutes of dancing. Not to mention that once someone dances with you, often more leaders choose to do the same.

So why not?

And if you find a few more small changes, you can easily go up to 10% or more.

So, if you are interested in exploring this, let’s continue:

When discussing the results of closed eyes with a female subscriber, she sent me the following description of a friend of hers:

“She always looks as if she is in love with her leader.”

We have all seen at least once a follower who has her eyes closed, in complete bliss.

And when you see this, you immediately want more of it.

If you are a leader, you want to feel that you are creating a nice experience for your followers.

If you are a follower, you want to experience the bliss of tango.

Closed eyes tend to create part of that impression.

So, if you want to make it actionable, try closing your eyes a bit more often and see what happens.

And maybe a little smile will appear on your face too.

Now, there are a few things to pay attention to:

Especially in crowded milongas or with beginner leaders, it helps to keep your eyes open.

You might want to be more active in embellishments and be aware of your environment.

Also, you don’t need to have your eyes closed all the time. Sometimes, just closing them for a small part of the music is already enough for you to experience a deeper inner experience and for others to notice you.

I hope that was helpful.

If you want to explore the results of the survey, you can find out more here.

Hugs,

Dimitris

The Curious Tanguero