"Just relax."

It's one of the least relaxing things you can say to someone whose body is already tense.

A dentist once said those words to me just before starting a procedure.

I looked back at him, still holding my breath.

"Are you kidding?"

It took me years to realise that my body doesn't understand commands. It understands breathing.

A tense body might need to hear those words sometimes: be calm. But only if they become an invitation to breathe.

That is the language our bodies understand. Not the thought itself, but the conscious act of taking a deeper breath.

Taking a few slow breaths before entering a milonga, or even before a single tanda, can do wonders for helping us settle. It is what therapists often describe as cultivating a somatic sense of safety.

Let’s explore intentional breathing in tango.

We can approach breath from many directions.

Anatomically, what happens in the body when we inhale and exhale?

Physically, how does breathing change our state? What happens when two people begin to breathe in sync?

Spiritually, breath is the first thing we receive when we are born and the last thing to leave us when we die.

But what interests us most in our Tango Sensaciones circles is this: what does breath mean in our dance?

When do you need it? What changes when you begin breathing more deeply in a milonga? How might breathing help in uncomfortable moments: when you are not getting dances, when you are overthinking your steps, or when someone declines an invitation? How can it regulate your nervous system when you become overexcited or overwhelmed by the joy of dancing?

And what happens when two people begin to breathe together?

Saturday, August 22
We’ll meet on Zoom at 5 pm UK time.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta & Alla Petcheniouk

Falling has been one of the greatest fears of my life.

You would notice it whenever I walk the hilly paths around Totnes and Dartington.

You would see it in the way I hesitate before walking down a steep path or a flight of stairs. The first step feels like a cliff. Once I’m moving, I’m fine. It’s beginning the descent that frightens me.

At the start of a descent I take maximum precautions. My body starts constraining, clenching, which, ironically, makes falling even more likely.

So, I make sure I’m close to a bannister, or a tree, or a branch or a rock I can grab in case I stumble.

Back in January I decided to launch Dance in Conversation, to go beyond digital realms, and meet people face to face.

For months, I’ve been imagining and shaping an in-person space where we enquire into what is alive in the dance.

It’s been months of training, dancing, and co-creating with my mentor.

I’m ready.

And I’m not.

Over the last few weeks, the fear of falling / failing has undermined my readiness.

I’m still looking for a venue. I still need to set a date and begin telling people what Dance in Conversation is.

It’s a first step that feels gigantic, so I keep looking for bannisters: reviewing plans, signing up for another training, delaying.

It's a familiar tactic. It's the same one that shows up in dance spaces: once I am on the dance floor, I let my body navigate the space. What delays me is extending the first invitation.

Would anybody show up?
Is the message clear?

Writing and posting this is me not being ready, and taking the first step anyway.

The first in-person gathering will happen in Totnes this October.

Gulping.

My mind racing.

I’m inviting you to come and dance with me.

Fall with me.

The theme is Landing. It’s not flying or rising, but dropping into our feet and the ground.

From head to toe. Onto the floor, and meet each other in the descent.

We’ll explore what it means to fall into the body.

Into the ground.

Into relationship.

Perhaps that’s what landing really is.

I haven’t even booked the venue yet. That’s how close to the beginning this is.

I’ll share the details soon.

I'm not asking you to bear with me, but to dance with me. Unready.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Does sharing a meaningful dance create any responsibility toward one another?
What happens when we remember that we are human beings dancing with other human beings? Our minds can tell us many things, but our bodies speak a much older language: one of touch, presence, and connection. ​In this gathering of Tango Sensaciones, we'd like to explore these questions together, listen to one another's experiences, and discover how differently we each make sense of closeness, expectation, and connection within the world of tango. We'd love to have you in the circle.

Last week, I was in the middle of a dance when I realised I'd stopped thinking about my steps.

My breathing was following the same rhythm as the person who was in my arms.

The music moved through us. There was only listening. Only responding.

For a few minutes, we knew each other.

These are the dances that stay with me.

What puzzles me is what sometimes happens afterwards.

You meet the same person days or weeks later, and it’s as if nothing ever happened. No smile. No “good to see you.” No acknowledgment of what, for a few minutes, felt real.

Maybe it was simply a beautiful moment, complete in itself, asking nothing of us once the last musical note had faded.

Maybe that is enough.

And maybe not.

I am not longing for more.

Not for friendship.
Not for romance.
Not for promises.

Only, perhaps, a smile.
A “hello.”

A quiet recognition of what was shared.

The small humanity of remembering.

I don't have answers.

I only know this:

For me, the dance doesn't end when the music does.

If this question speaks to you, we'd love to explore it together in our next Tango Sensaciones circle.

Tuesday, July 21
Zoom, 6 pm UK time

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

A sign that says “Slow” changes what the body does.

Drivers see it and, in the best cases, their foot goes to the brake.

We respond to real warnings, external signs, instructions, and commands. A driver reads the signs; a dancer anticipates the melody.

We also respond to inner invitations. Something tells us to slow down, seek safety, or pay closer attention. Sometimes it is an old survival instinct. Sometimes it is an intentional pacing to recollect ourselves, recover a rhythm, or listen more deeply.

A sense of inner safety can be reached on our own. One resource that has helped me is taking deep breaths when I feel threatened, whether the threat is real or only perceived.

But nothing brings me to the same level of security and inner relaxation as the acceptance and unconditional love of another human being.

My body reads that and, in the best moments, it surrenders.

I am fortunate to have been received like this many times in my life, sometimes to the point of tears. I have been loved in a way that makes me stop building defences and become permeable to the care of a loving friend, an endearing partner, someone simply saying, “I am here.”

I can see how a tango embrace has the potential to become exactly what my system craves.

A tango embrace that is not that is a wasted opportunity.

The comparison with drivers on the road stops here. In tango, slowing down is not about applying the brakes; it is about inhabiting the movement.

It is not about making tango serious or deep, nor is it simply about dancing slowly. It is about creating the conditions in which the body can soften, listen, play, and truly meet another person in the moment.

In our next Tango Sensaciones circle, we will share and practice a simple yet powerful tool to help us arrive there.

Join us.

Saturday, June 20
We’ll meet on Zoom at 5 pm UK time.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

The most familiar no in tango is the one we see.

In milongas, an invitation is rejected without words. A glance is not met. A head turns away. A body doesn’t move.

“No, not this dance.”
“No, not this moment.”
“No, not this person.”

We call it choice. Etiquette. Preference.

And before the head turns away, we feel that no.

A shift in the diaphragm that doesn’t open. A readiness that doesn’t appear in the feet. A small internal withdrawal that happens before thought.

I have said no many times. Often it felt immediate, even bodily. And yet, later, I found myself wondering what exactly I had been responding to.

What if the no comes before the encounter? Before I know exactly what I am rejecting, before I have truly met the person in front of me.

How quickly do we turn a person into an idea?

Can a no feel embodied and still come from a story?

How many dances have I declined without ever meeting the person?

What is the difference between intuition and prejudice in the body?

When does discernment become closure?

Alla shared a story the other day.

A man approached her to invite her to dance. The invitation came through a glance. Her answer was immediate.

No.

Not because of the dance. Not because of the embrace. Not because of anything that had happened between them.

The no arrived together with a story she had been carrying about him for some time: that he was lonely, that he came looking for contact more than tango, that she already knew who he was.

Afterwards, a question appeared:

Was that no coming from her body, or from her narrative?

The question stayed with me.

Beyond the dance floor, I notice my own no’s. I notice how quickly I close to people, places, and possibilities.

How often have I said no before the encounter?

How often have I said no before the encounter?

How often do I listen to the hundred reasons not to go, rather than the small part of me that knows I need challenge, surprise, or growth?

Not every no comes from the same place.

Some protect us. Some keep us honest. Some help us stay connected to ourselves.

And some arrive before we have actually met the person, or the situation, in front of us.

Perhaps the practice is not simply learning to say no.

Perhaps it is learning to recognise where a no is coming from.

The no that comes from presence.
The no that comes from fear.
The no that comes from exhaustion.
The no that comes from an old story.

The no that opens space.
The no that closes it.

What do you say no to?
And where does it begin in you?

Join us.

Saturday, June 20
We’ll meet on Zoom at 5 pm UK time.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

A few days ago, someone said to me that I was not dancing, that “I was only talking” referring to my newsletter and more specifically the Tango Sensaciones circles.

Perhaps it was her way of saying that she missed me in tango classes, and yet her words left me feeling sad and completely misunderstood.

They made me realise that perhaps I haven’t been fully clear about what Tango Sensaciones is.

For one thing, what Alla Petcheniouk and I are creating through Tango Sensaciones is not “talking”, but something experiential.

This Tuesday we are gathering…
to feel,
to experience,
to share and learn
and to create connection.

Not to replace dancing, how could we?, but to deepen it.

The intention behind Tango Sensaciones is to cultivate awareness of what is happening within us while we dance. Our circles are a space for presence, and for deepening awareness of one’s own body and the body of a partner.

For the past three years, my writing has been an extension of my dance. I write from what has been alive when I'm dancing tango, practising Contact Improvisation, or moving through my regular Movement as Medicine sessions.

While I have paused tango classes for now, I’m keeping my movement and still attending other dance spaces.

Less visible, perhaps, is my practice at home: playing with my axis, learning to fall, walking with intention.

It is from this place that Tango Sensaciones emerges: bringing attention to the subtle and often unnoticed dimensions of our dance.

This Tuesday, we will explore what is evoked in our body when we watch tango.

Like contemplating a masterpiece, each experience is intimate and unique.

Let’s explore together.

Tuesday, May 19
We’ll meet on Zoom at 6 pm UK time.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Let’s be mesmerised

Instagram post

Tango entered my life through my eyes.

I was living in London when I attended my very first tango class.

I remember almost nothing about the lesson itself, only the discomfort of trying to imitate movements my body could barely understand.

The class was still going when I decided tango was not for me. Luckily, I stayed until the end, when the two teachers danced together.

It was hypnotic.

Something in me shifted instantly. I couldn’t stop watching. At that moment, I knew:

I want to learn that.

With Alla Petcheniouk, we’ve been reflecting on the many sensations that move through us when we watch people dance tango.

The musicality.
The precision.
The intimacy.
The pauses.
The atmosphere between two bodies moving together.

Some dances leave us untouched. Others stay with us long after the music ends.

But why?

What is it that truly moves us when we watch tango?

On Saturday 16th, in a Tango Sensaciones circle, we will explore that space together.

We’ll watch a tango video and notice what it awakens in us.

What captures our attention?
What touches us emotionally?
What leaves an imprint somewhere deeper?

Together, we’ll reflect on how differently we perceive the same dance, and how our own sensitivity, memories, and longings shape what we see and feel.

We’re looking forward to sharing this exploration with you.

Tuesday, May 19
We’ll meet on Zoom at 6 pm UK time.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

What moves you when you watch tango?

A few years ago, I experienced an exercise in pairs. We were lying on the floor, on cushions, yoga mats, and mattresses.

For the first 30 minutes or so, we were guided through breathing, a slow scan of the body, small adjustments… until each of us dropped into a deep sense of calm.

We stayed there, face up, for what felt like a long, delicious while.

At some point, still with our eyes closed, the facilitator invited us to slowly move one foot towards our partner. I remember vividly the moment our feet met. A soft, almost imperceptible touch.

My whole body responded, as if receiving a gentle stroke. The instant I came into physical contact with my partner, something shifted.

Then our hands found each other, fingertips lightly touching.
And eventually, we opened our eyes and met each other’s gaze.

It was sublime.

We were breathing together, co-regulating, creating a bond that felt almost timeless.

We all want that kind of touch.

The actual touch of another’s hand.

That meeting with another.

When two people drop together, a simple fingertip-to-fingertip contact electrifies the whole system.

By dropping, I mean moving out of the head and into the body: into sensation, into breath, into being here.

Once we drop like that —out of thoughts, agendas, and stories— a certain quality of being arrives, calming the system and bringing us into that intentional, wholesome state we call presence.

And in presence, trust is born.

The physical touch that comes from that state is not grabbing or taking, is not even giving. It’s not the eagerness of wanting a cuddle, or offering a massage. Those, of course, have their place.

The touch I’m referring to here is the contact that happens between two attuned people, simply experiencing the wonder of their proximity.

That is electrifying. Your hand meets another’s, and your heart pulses just a little more.

Last week, David Basak, in a Contact Improvisation class, called it "empty touch", a touch where you are not trying to give, nor trying to take.

He called it "empty" for comparison, but it is a touch fully inhabited with an energy that feels utterly safe.

Slowness helps. Our tentative bodies need it.

Nobody is trying to make the other feel good. Nobody is trying to extract pleasure from the contact. The stories in the head don't need to be resisted, they can simply be left alone, allowed to dissipate.

Another energy is in play.

Someone in front of you, simply being there with you, and you with them.

Touching.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

If you want to go a bit further into this:

(Re-)engaging Touch as a Tango Dancer
The article argues that when practiced as a form of kinaesthetic listening, tango is conducive to a process of sensing and feeling together. In this process, it becomes possible to be touched both physically and affectively by the movement impulses negotiated between the partners. This possibility unsettles the reductive idea of one’s body as a separate entity preceding the encounter.

An invitation
Aydan Dunnigan offers his hand here with poetic lines landing in “the desire to be touched”.

Touch
David Whyte on touch and how we all need it, “a sign of our own gifted vulnerability”.

Candela Ramos’ students progress at remarkable speed, and she points to something simple, and often overlooked: our inner sense.

Here’s what she says:

This Saturday, we put this into practice.

Less copying. More sensing. Faster learning.

Join us.

Saturday, April 25
We’ll meet on Zoom at 5 pm UK time.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Movement from within

Instagram post

The body as an open channel

In conversation with Candela Ramos

El eje no es estabilidad, es disponibilidad.

The axis is not stability, it’s availability.

If you’ve ever tried to “hold yourself together” in tango, or in life, you might recognise that effort.

Because we’re taught to stabilise. To control. To fix ourselves in place.

But what if the axis was never about that?

That question didn’t come from a book or a theory.

It came from Candela Ramos, and from the way she speaks about the body.

Candela Ramos

We reached out to her to explore how “the axis” could be a living topic for our next Tango Sensaciones circle.

Our meeting was richer than we expected. It marked the beginning of a dialogue about how our bodies are made for movement, and how the axis is always a conversation in motion.

“Being in your axis is a dialogue with gravity, with the earth. Never rigid and never fixed,” Candela says.

Finding your axis, she underlines, is not necessarily about finding your balance. For Candela, it is about finding a place where your body is fully able to respond.

“That place is not always comfortable. It challenges you; it exposes you. Sometimes it makes you feel as if you are falling.

“Finding this place is not about avoiding the fall. It’s about learning to respond to it…”

With extensive experience as a dancer and a teacher, and a practice rooted in anatomy and biomechanics, Candela Ramos has nourished her research through somatic practices such as Feldenkrais, Body-Mind Centering, Contact Improvisation, and Movement Emergence.

She’ll be with us at our next circle, helping us go deeper into the body’s capacity to organise itself in response to whatever emerges.

I feel deeply touched by her transmission, as it resonates far beyond tango.

A few weeks ago, I learned, rather unexpectedly, that I had to leave my flat. I live in a small town where I’ve built deep connections, and yet I couldn’t find anywhere to stay.

It felt as if the ground was being pulled out from beneath my feet.

As plans fell through and options narrowed, I began to feel like I was falling, unsupported, and slowly losing my sense of belonging.

Then one evening, I followed the impulse to sit by the river. I stayed there for a long while, and at some point, everything became clear again.

A quiet certainty arose: I will find a place here.

And something shifted. My body felt at home, even without a house.

In the days that followed, a strange calm settled in. I no longer felt the need to resist or control what was happening.

I began to trust what my body knew.

I stopped trying to catch myself.

Two days later, someone got in touch to offer me a small annexe in an area I love.

El eje no es estabilidad, es disponibilidad.

With Candela’s transmission, I’m learning that staying in my axis means inhabiting a dynamic place, one that isn’t always comfortable, but where I can trust my body to respond to whatever arises.

In our circle, we’ll share a moment of conversation with her, followed by a guided experience, a taste of what she offers her students.

Saturday, April 25
We’ll meet on Zoom at 5 pm UK time.

I can’t wait to explore this together.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

The body as an open channel

In conversation with Candela Ramos

There is one word that perhaps captures the warm, tenderness, and care of a perfect embrace.

That word is apapachar.

It is ancestral. Rooted in the Nahuatl pāpa, and echoed in Quechua p’apa, it speaks of something simple and rare: to caress with quiet tenderness.

There is no single-word equivalent in English.

Imagine you are sick with a cold, feverish, and ready to sleep for the rest of the day.

Then someone comes and makes you soup. They bring it to you in bed with loving expressions: “Here it is, dear one, this will do you good.”

That is apapachar.

And if we are dancing, the verb can be translated as to hug with all your soul. That is how the tango teacher Silas Adriazola defined it in the last week Tango Sensaciones circle, dedicated to the embrace.

That is how he teaches the embrace to his students in Chile.

Of course, he includes technique, posture, balance, but when he wants his students to really get it and relax into it, he simply say: it is about apapachar.

In English, we could try and say ‘cuddling’ or ‘pampering’, but that feels somewhat insufficient.

When Silas offered his definition, we all felt it. We got it.

The embrace needs “an internal disposition”, Silas said. “Is that disposition when you really want to embrace someone”. When it’s not there, some tandas can still be pleasant, even fun, yet something essential remains untouched.

In that Tango Sensaciones circle, Alla Petcheniouk shared how in very few occasions in our lives an embrace is so emotionally intense that feels like falling in love. Perhaps that is the level of connection we crave. Perhaps that is the bliss we long for, and why we keep coming back to tango.

Like waiting for something that almost never happens, yet feels worth it every time.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

What does apapachar mean?

An extract from our latest Tango Sensaciones circle, with Silas Adriazola.

Visit our website: https://www.tangosensaciones.com/

What does the embrace in tango truly hold?

A meeting of bodies…
of distance and closeness…
of listening, permission, and quiet longing.

Somewhere between what I feel
and what you expect,
something delicate is negotiated.
Sometimes spoken, often not.

Tomorrow, we open a space to notice that.

To sense where we meet,
where we miss each other,
and whether we have the language
—or the courage—
to bridge that space.

We’ll be joined by a special guest, Silas Ramirez, whose experience as a dancer and teacher brings a grounded, human perspective to the embrace.

Together with Alla Petcheniouk and Jesus Acosta,
we invite you into a circle of dancers —to reflect, to listen,
and to gently explore how tango feels… and how you long for it to feel.

What to expect?

A soft, online gathering.
A space to arrive as you are.
A chance to connect,
and to notice what becomes possible
when we dare to meet each other in the embrace.

📅 March 24
🕔 6 pm UK time
📍 Online (Zoom)

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

It is about giving

Alla Petcheniouk in conversation with Ornella Simonetto

Visit our new website: https://www.tangosensaciones.com/

Rhythm, balance, awareness of the axis, presence… these are all elements of a good dance experience. They create the conditions that allow movement to unfold with clarity and ease. Yet technique alone does not give a dance its meaning.

What makes a dance truly memorable is contact.

Not simply the gesture that begins yet another tanda, performed almost by habit, but the conscious and attentive meeting of two human beings. A touch that is offered and received with intention. In that moment, the dance becomes more than a sequence of steps; it becomes a shared experience.

In tango, for the span of three songs, two people agree to travel together through a small fragment of time. Nothing more, and yet sometimes something much greater can emerge from it.

It is the embrace.

Over the last year, I have been learning technical dance skills. I want them. I need them to be there when the time comes to dance with abandon. Yet I know that having a large tango repertoire is not a prerequisite for a good embrace.

If you only walk, and you are attuned to your body—if you have the capacity to pay full attention and to respond to your partner’s movement—bliss is possible.

In my last Movement as Medicine practice, I spent most of the two-hour session dancing on my own.

I closed my eyes. I followed my sensations. I dropped into my belly, my legs, my feet. I felt the floor supporting my dance. I was present to the music, to the space within me, and to the space between us dancers. You could say it was a complete, nourishing, practice.

And yet, the moment of wholeness came in the final five minutes.

The session was coming to a close. The music softened, and we were invited to move into stillness and rest.

At that moment, almost accidentally, my arm touched Leo’s back. For reasons I cannot fully explain, I decided to keep my arm there. Not pushing or imposing—just a subtle touch, an invitation.

Leo did not move away. He received the contact.

For five minutes we remained there, in quiet touch. Long exhalations followed. We breathed together, finding a relief we did not know we needed. Something in us was finally resting.

Gradually we found ourselves shoulder to shoulder, held in a simple, wordless support.

In the closing circle, Leo shared that those final minutes were when he felt most connected—with himself, with me, and with the group.

Listening to him, I realized that what had happened in those quiet moments was something very simple:

We had embraced.

What does the embrace in tango really hold?

Contact, closeness, distance, technique, consent, longing…

Each embrace is a small universe. Even if you once shared a blissful moment with a partner, the next time you dance together it may unfold in an entirely different way.

Every embrace, a universe.

Out of this curiosity, we are opening an online space to gently explore what the tango embrace means to each of us.

We will be joined by a special guest—and a deeply thoughtful human—Silas Ramirez, a professional tango dancer and teacher from Chile, who will share his experience and reflections with us.

Rather than a class, this will be a quiet gathering of dancers and movers. A space to pause, to reflect, and to listen to the many ways we experience the embrace.

Tuesday, March 24
We’ll meet on Zoom at 6 pm UK time.

What to expect?

A gentle online conversation.
A space for reflection and shared insight.
A chance to connect with other dancers who are curious about the subtle art of the embrace.

A place to listen and notice what becomes possible when two dancers allow a tender contact to happen.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

The embrace is about giving

In conversation with Ornella Simonetto

You hear the music.
You imagine the room.
Your body already knows something about how the milonga might feel.

Sometimes it leans forward.
Sometimes it tightens.

At times, your sensations may shift…

This Saturday, we’re gathering to explore these quiet, physical sensations we carry into milongas — the anticipation, the hesitation, the moments before contact.

We’ll pay attention to the sensations that arise when we feel familiar, seen, anonymous, curious, or exposed — and how tango uniquely allows us to travel, arrive, and connect across cities, countries, and cultures.

It will be a small, attentive online space, and I’d love you to be part of it.

If the question speaks to you, reserve your place now:

📅 February 28
🕔 5 pm UK time
📍 Online (Zoom)

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

What is Tango Sensaciones about

Each week, Alla Petcheniouk and I, Jesus Acosta, come together in conversation, listening more closely to what is emerging in our work and what we feel called to share with our tango communities.

We would like to offer a small window into that process by sharing a brief extract from a recent exchange.

Visit our new website: https://www.tangosensaciones.com/

Researching tango and mental health

Form researching the benefits of tango on mental health and wellness

Please click the link to complete this form.

eu-submit.jotform.com/260416181762051

Cindy Cooper is an advanced diploma student in counselling and a passionate tango dancer, researching the potential mental health benefits of tango within community settings.

As part of her research, she is asking for your help to complete this short form.

I still remember that milonga.

For a couple of long hours, I suffered — overthinking every step, tightening with every tanda — until I decided it was safer to stay in my chair and just watch.

But sitting didn’t calm me. It made everything louder. The anxiety. The urge to leave.

I didn’t go home.

Something happened during the last song of the night that made my body move from contraction into aliveness.

With the floor already half empty, my friend came straight towards me. She took my hand, leaving no room for refusal.

As I opened into the embrace, a thought cut through: To hell with tango. I’m going to dance as I know.

It wasn’t really a thought. It was a sensation. A decision in the body.

I am a good dancer. I know rhythm. I love music. But I had been letting the “not yet great” technique shrink me. For one song, I stopped correcting. I let my body move with what I have.

It was a deliciously imperfect walk.

On the way to the car, Natalie said, “That last song — that was tango. You were going somewhere.”

What I know is this: in that walk, I felt alive.

That night, I realised something simple. A milonga is not always the place to fix. Sometimes it is the place to inhabit.

If what you know is walking — walk.

Because milongas bring sensations long before they bring steps.

Fear of making mistakes.
Fear of not being chosen.
A subtle bracing in the chest.

And also anticipation. Softness. A quiet tingling. Joy.

As Alla Petcheniouk shared with me:

Before the first tanda, before the first embrace, the body already knows.

So how do we actually feel in milongas?

On the 28th of February, we are opening an online circle to explore this together.

Not to analyse tango.
Not to improve technique.
Simply to notice.

To slow down.
To listen.
To speak from the body.

We’ll meet on Zoom at 5 pm UK time.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

What is Tango Sensaciones?

Tango Sensaciones is an online space for tango dancers who are curious about what they feel while dancing — not only what they do.

Each time we gather, we aim to create a warm and welcoming space. In our first circle, it was tender to hear Aydan Dunnigan, a tango teacher from Canada, share his experience with all of us.

Visit our new website: https://www.tangosensaciones.com/

A bright and warm happy new year to you all! ✨

Yay - Last week I attended my first tango class and went to my first milonga of 2026. A new energy is visiting my body, and I have the intention of dancing more and getting to see more of you.

I have news I cannot wait to share.

Remember my last post, where I introduced you to the tango dancer Alla Petcheniouk?

Well, for a while, I’ve been daydreaming about collaborating with her and creating something together. We both love tango, and we both attended the same training on somatic therapy, so, in a way, there was a lot of confluence and shared aspirations. One day that might happen, I always thought.

Finally, and unexpectedly, that day arrived with the new year!

We are going to hold a space together and invite tango dancers to a circle we are calling Tango Sensaciones. It is a space to explore and dive into how dancing tango makes us feel and how we want to feel it.

Sensaciones

We were discussing many names, and then, Sensaciones felt delicious. How else can I put it?

When I say it, it comes with flavour and with feeling. We went for it.

In a world increasingly shaped by AI and algorithms, this name feels human — like, returning to our bodies, to each other, to what is immediate and alive.

I’ve decided to use Sensaciones as the new name for this newsletter. The emphasis is clear: Tango Sensaciones is about sharing what we feel when we dance tango — what moves through the body, what awakens, what lingers.

Alongside Alla, I intend to place more attention on the body — on lived experience, gentle practices and exercises, and the reflections that arise from them. We want to open this space with you.

For now, we envision a rhythm of monthly circles — online calls and shared experiences — where we gather to tune into tango through body awareness and connection.

Come and join us. The first circle will take place on January 27th at 6:00 p.m. (UK time).

What to expect: an introduction to what Tango Sensaciones is and how we think it could grow. A chance to meet and know Alla and me better. Time together to reflect and connect with other dancers, all in a gentle and welcoming atmosphere.

For now, who is Alla? Let’s hear it directly from her:

And, about Jesus:

As we move through a time of many crises, Tango Sensaciones is our response: we will keep dancing together, keeping our humanity at the forefront.

Visit our new website: https://www.tangosensaciones.com/
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tangosensaciones/

La invitación está abierta.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

For more than a year, I’ve been attending a dance practice in Dartington, UK, which has become my regular playground for letting my body move with abandon.

We dance for almost two hours in a mix of stillness, sublime music, precise words, interactions with others, and, at moments, drawing.

To one side, we have a long white sheet of paper and boxes of colours to draw with, playing with lines and shapes. It’s amusing, and often amazing, what is created there.

It's wild, free, and childlike all at once. The figures drawn can be seen as a metaphor for the dance floor – where a mysterious force is at work, drawing us in with an unseen hand.

No other dance appeals to me. I could be in that space for hours on end, every day, at any moment. It would make me jump on a plane to land in it.

In that space, our movements feel like lines on a canvas: we move obediently, our bodies trusting in something greater than ourselves.

I have learned to recognise a dance that is not that. It exhausts me very quickly. I see it when my mind begins to wander, my soul is nowhere to be found, and my movements feel aimless and adrift. I've been there many times—self-conscious and disconnected from rhythm. It's as if I'm just a body bumping into others, clumsy in my execution.

The dance I love is clear and infused with beauty.

You can sense it in the conversation below, recorded a few years ago with Alla Petcheniouk, an experienced tango dancer. For the first time, we've agreed to share it publicly.

The dance of surrendering

In precious moments, I dance in intimate connection with myself, my partner, the surrounding space, and the music. It’s a threshold experience where strategy or manipulation has no place.

It has nothing to do with the way I move or any particular technique. It’s more a state, a disposition —a sense of intimate connectedness that persists throughout the songs. Yes, it is often sustained by music, by the feeling of a certain melody or a particular rhythm, but music is not its source. It remains mysterious, but my body knows. This dance comes with a sweet sense of being fundamentally okay. I feel able for joy, for grief and for trust. For the total expression of my true nature.

In that space, movements have their own authority.

The moment we start thinking, that’s when that dance ends. Thoughts, stories or beliefs are not the leading force here. In place is a primal rhythm, not rehearsed steps or strategies. Being docile to that flow makes it feel seamless and undisturbed. This is perhaps the main reason highly technical dances, like tango, require us to practice a lot, often obsessively. Not for perfection, but for submission. Because we want the body to obey when it’s time.

Letting yourself be led doesn’t come from a lack of agency or capacity. It’s not collapsing. A friend calls it “being on the horse”, not clinging or at the mercy, but in the centre, trusting and connected.

Photo by Jonathan Penny, dancers: Ian Cox and Grazyna Godlewska-Vernon

When two individuals meet from that place, a dance like no other emerges.

This insight was at the core of a conversation I had with Alla Petcheniouk. She is an accomplished tango dancer and has trained for years in the field of somatic therapy. We had the chance to meet once in Berlin, and that day we decided to record our conversation.

The video below is a brief, sweet exchange where we shared the same fire and longing: the chance to dance in the flow of life.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

The happy followers

The power of surrender, with Alla Petcheniouk.

The sense of beauty

British spiritual teacher and author Rupert Spira delighted me, along with dozens of others, in a recent talk in Dartington, UK. This video comes from a different event, and I’m sharing it here as it speaks directly to how beauty collapses our sense of separation.

A book for the way

Aleksey Vays is inviting us on a systematic journey into the bliss of tango

There is a dance that happens in the space between steps, in that moment when the invitation has happened and the response has not yet.

It’s a dance in between places, where possibilities stretch in many directions.

It is the dance of waiting.

In my recent tango class, I learned about a way of leading that changed how I see the whole dance.

For a long time, I believed the leader goes first —expressing energy, making a movement for the partner to follow.

I practised like that, but I was often left puzzled by the response —or lack thereof. I was blaming my partner, assuming a missing skill, a gap in experience. I was judging myself for not being clear enough or assertive enough.

What I began to discover is a way of leading that opens the dance —unpredictable, alive, and full of possibility.

In the following lines, credit goes to my teachers Ruth Rozelaar, Norbert Staab and Roy Higginbottom, as well as the Irish poet who has inspired this post.

In between

In tango, one person always leads, which means, in essence, that someone is always initiating a movement. And someone responds accordingly.

Or not.

The leader is the one who initiates movement, not by stepping, but by signifying, by simply suggesting. He invites, waits for a response, and only then does he follow.

Leading in tango is not about going first. It is about going together.

Once a leader initiates, he needs to wait. And the response coming from the follower defines, every time, the whole song.

Your invitation can take many forms — an elevation of your torso, an opening of your arm, a slight dissociation. Sometimes suggestions leave no room for choice, and the follower —the one responding— only has one way to go. But often, the choice is hers. It’s a space full of possibility, and it can last as long as it needs to.

Because of the way they look, they may seem like pauses, but they are far from being a stop in the dance. It’s a suspension infused with energy — at times sublime and, at times, excruciating.

It is an abundant space that gives us the chance to collect, to connect, to move together, to deepen an embrace, and also to bear not knowing —to linger in uncertainty.

Naming

Dancing with rigid expectations leads to disappointment and makes us lose our way. It is like naming a movement before it happens —before it has a chance to emerge and flower.

“This is an ocho.”

“This is a giro.”

“This must be a sacada.”

“You are meant to do a cross.”

We are naming the dance before the response has even begun. How often do we label our experience before it has revealed what it truly is?

Like naming love too early in that tender journey of discovery — as the poet David Whyte reminds us — we risk mistaking potential for certainty.

What is the dance we are called to? What is the nature of the love that's possible? What revelation longs to unfold?

It takes courage to wait. To hold the not-knowing and resist the urge to control —especially when we’re hungry for a particular kind of response, or when we have a well-designed strategy... It’s an art, and a difficult one, to wait and let the response emerge in its own time and form.

In relationships, especially at the beginning, heartbreak often stems from premature naming —from fixing things in place before they’ve had a chance to breathe. As Whyte suggests, we can end up clinging to a grief that closes off the possibility of discovering what kind of love is truly possible —what kind of love might have become.

Every move, every invitation that you keep expressing, let it land, let it be suggestive, but open and free. Let your partner receive it, and let her decide the dance she’s having with you.

We can only know together. Once again: tango takes two.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Tai Chi Tango: Sensuality

All about transitioning…

On love and resisting the tyranny of relationship labels

“We contain in order to control, and whenever we control, we relinquish the beautiful, terrifying mystery of being… The writer Maria Popova delves further into David Whyte’s essay Naming.

If we are fortunate, we treasure the memory of at least one dance that brought heaven into our lives.

That memory is perhaps what’s making us go back to the party, week after week. We tasted bliss, and we want more.

But what was it?

Was it the music? Our partner’s skill? Was it the mood we arrived in the embrace? Was it the chemistry, or the way we both connected?

Sometimes it’s all of it, sometimes it’s just one thing; you both felt that song the same way, or it was simply the way you were held the whole time.

This is a reflection on an evening I experienced that. A reflection about the role of a community that includes people, but also nature: the way I was walking outside that led me into a dance I will keep in my memory forever.

The oak seed

That evening, I was leaving home for a dance when a heavy sadness came over me from nowhere. I paced my steps outside, wondering what was happening, but I could only feel the overwhelm. Walking even slower, I gave all my attention to that feeling. Familiar, yet new in that moment.

I hold the urge arising from knowing I was already late for my dance practice. Decided to be still. No one else was around in that path, so I closed my eyes. To feel.

I heard at the back of my head a phrase from a training course I’m taking these days: What is at the centre of your life.

I sensed that my disquiet was coming from that voice and, most of all, from an answer I didn’t want to hear.

You are making yourself the centre of everything.

When I worry about my dancing skills, when I want to impress people, when I feel anxious if no friend calls or texts one day, when I script my words so that I sound smart, when I think the weather ruined my plans, when my dancing efforts await praise from whatever corner, when what matters is that I am validated.

I saw in one instant how I have been making my life all about me.

It was getting dark, the river was streaming on my right, and a row of oak trees was leading my way. I felt consoled, as my realisation rang true in my body. An owl was calling in the distance.

In that brief, serene space, I heard the sound of an oak seed falling through the branches. The acorn rolled down on the floor and landed at my feet, between my shoes.

It was a remarkable sign. I took it in my hands, and that small seed began a soothing whisper.

Everything in life is a gift.

The seed was not mine to keep and possess, but to receive with gratitude and wonderment. It wasn’t about me, it wasn’t for me. It was part of the flow of things happening all the time. An immense stream of life, from which I am only a tiny part.

I bowed down to that acorn and went to dance with it in my pocket. It grounded me and led me through the floor among others. At the end of two hours of practice, I experienced one of the sweetest and most intimate dances I have ever had with a partner. I was held and received. I was holding and welcoming in my arms.

I still have the resonance of that dance in my body.

The language of longing

On my way back, it was already dark, and I was almost home when I reached into my pocket for the seed.

I put on my head torch to see it again. And it fell from my palm.

I panicked. I was losing the gift I had received, and started looking desperately, guessing where it might have rolled down. And then I saw dozens of them, making it impossible to distinguish which one was mine.

These days, it is raining acorns all around, and I have only noticed one. A second realisation was slightly more painful, but strangely calming: gifts are not possessions.

I don’t possess flowers, or the rain, or the birds. No partner is truly mine, and even this body will fade. We use my, our, and theirs —words born from the need to survive in a world of limits.

Perhaps possession is just a language of longing — our way of saying this touched me, this passed through my hands, this mattered.

That evening, the music found fertile soil —an open, grounded human being. I was in my axis, not self-absorbed, free to receive and surrender.

With good fortune, we received life, and with grace, we can let go.

Just as with those precious dances we’ll never forget.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

When the tango embrace stays with you for days

“You have to start loving yourself”

“That’s… that’s… I don’t know what to call it”

In a recent episode of How I Write, the Anglo-Irish poet David Whyte described writing as a path discovered step by step, never fully visible in advance. His words stirred unease in his interviewer, David Perell, who confessed to the fear of losing control. Instead of explaining further, Whyte simply asked him:

“Where do you feel that fear?”

What followed was the most beautiful exchange about the physicality of the creative process.

“In my heart racing, sweaty palms, on the right side of my stomach”, said Perell.

“That”, Whyte interjected, “is where you write from. That physical contact, that has a voice that speaks to you”.

“In the writing, you can actually put your hand over that part (where the fear is felt), almost like you put a hand on a speaker and feel the vibration of the woofer. That’s a membrane too, that’s where the revelation is”.

It is in that membrane where I want to root my dancing.

Connection in tango does not begin at the point of touching another, but in the way we notice our body, our breath settling, the subtle rhythm of our own heartbeat. It begins in the moments of discomfort—when we choose not to turn away, but to feel them fully and dance with them.

Before we ever step into the embrace of another, there is a quieter meeting waiting for us—the embrace with ourselves.

In an age of distraction, it’s easier to escape from what we feel. The comfort of TV and the numbness of endless scrolling keep us from truly listening. It takes a lot to put a hand on that part of our body and investigate that voice.

We tango dancers have an advantage: our preambles are highly physical. We shift our weight, sense our axis, adjust our posture, and root ourselves through the soles of our feet.

Being intimately in touch with ourselves is perhaps the greatest gift we can bring to the embrace with another.

Last week, over coffee, a friend shared the struggles in her relationship. Her deepest realisation, she said, is that every connection begins with the one she has with herself — and that this inner relationship must be at the heart of all others, especially the romantic ones.

Intimacy demands we love and respect ourselves first.

There was a spark in my friend’s eyes when she shared that, and it ignited something in my belly, as I was already drafting this post.

A place to land

Her words stayed with me as a gentle reminder that self-connection needs space in the fabric of daily life. It’s one thing to understand the importance of loving ourselves; it’s another to give that love a form, a practice, a place to land.

One way I do this is by sitting in my favourite place at home, a comfortable sofa I have in the living room. I give myself fifteen minutes or more to do nothing—yet it is not quite nothing. It is an alert stillness, a quiet tuning of the body. I am not trying to “meditate” or to breathe in any particular way. I am not trying to chase thoughts away.

I sit in silence, simply witnessing. From my sofa, I look out to the trees and the River Dart, and for these short minutes, I put aside duties or worries that cling to me. Thoughts arise; I acknowledge them without focusing attention on any one. I let them flow through, like leaves drifting on water. If a thought glimmers into a good idea, I might scribble a note and resist the urge to leap up and act. The invitation here is to listen with full attention. On rare days, I can linger for an hour, even half a day, but most often, fifteen minutes feels like a tender, doable ritual.

Expanding capacity

Not every sitting feels fruitful. At times, the whole thing is a struggle. And yet—even then—a subtle calmness threads its way into the rest of my day. In that stillness, something shifts. I sometimes sense myself arriving at a deeper layer—finally in touch with what I feel.

Often, I notice that what I find in that space begins to guide me, as though the body itself remembers a path forward.

Not sure I’m finding the right words here, but this daily act of listening is not only for myself. Each time I pause and rest in that stillness, I expand some capacity. First, to hold myself with more patience and care. Then, to hold my partner with steadier arms and a softer heart.

I feel that every time I drop into that calming well, my partner’s nervous system responds to it. The conversation between bodies becomes one of resonance rather than effort.

The embrace is not a closed circle but an expanding field. Photo:
Live music with Ruth Rozelaar & Orlando Dibelo, in the Ashburton Arts Centre, Devon, UK.

Beyond the couple, this practice ripples outward.

Tango teaches us that the embrace is not a closed circle but an expanding field. As we learn to stay present with our own truth, we strengthen our ability to hold a community, and even to stand as witnesses to the wider world. Even in the face of global unrest, grief, or change, we can meet events not from exhaustion or despair, but with a clearer energy—an embrace that does not collapse, but supports.

In this way, the fifteen minutes on a sofa, the hour in quiet practice, are not small at all. They are rehearsals for a larger dance: the dance of being human together.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

On paying attention

This is a long conversation with David Whyte, a poet who has mastered the art of turning life's deepest experiences into beautiful writing. I listened to it in one go and I honestly wished it had never had to end…

The age of distraction

Our media has been engineered primarily to capture and hold our attention.

The importance of grounding yourself