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

There is no tango, nor life, without community.

I am getting ready to attend my first tango festival. I’ve just signed up for a new block of classes with my teacher in Totnes, and I am also adding my next practicas and milongas to my diary.

Improving my dance is hugely stimulating; however, at a deep level, what I’m after is community.

I can only go so far on my own. I sometimes dance in my living room and find solace in quiet moments, where I cultivate presence and replenish my energy. But, yes, I value my autonomy as much as I treasure being in touch with others.

I ran out of milk one evening, and there was just enough time to hurry to the supermarket before it closed. It didn’t occur to me that I could knock on the door of a neighbour and ask. We have forgotten how to do that. Why bother people?

My neighbour Debbie did it the other day, asking if I had potatoes or garlic, I can’t remember. She was at my door, asking.

I didn’t have what she needed, but Debbie left me with a warm feeling in my chest. This is community, and that is my soul dance.

Even with my lone wolf tendencies, I realise more and more that I cannot go solo. If anything, connection has been the main pursuit and fruit of my dancing in the free-style movement spaces of Totnes.

I’ve been in many tango classes where instructors tell me that I have to maintain my own balance. Regardless of the role you embody in a couples dance, they say, your primary responsibility is to keep your axis in the right, upheld position, at all costs and hold yourself without relying on your partner.

Sounds like good advice, but something in these statements makes me tired and a bit lonely. Part of me suspects that dancing with total self-reliance makes us islands, and separates us even in the closest of embraces.

Life doesn’t work like that. And neither tango.

“When you dance, and especially in a close embrace”, my teacher Ruth said, “the two of you are co-creating a single axis. You two are in that axis dancing around it and trusting that you are supporting it together”.

What a wonderful insight.

Tango Feast Summer will be held from
June 20th to June 22nd, 2025

Separated plants and trees are in constant contact and communication below the surface.

There is room to sense and practice this. If you have mastered the perfect, self-sustained posture, that’s a foundational achievement. Great. But then, again, you could start letting go a bit (I’m talking to myself).

Start here: commit to the connection, be grounded, connected to earth, and be listening intently to the propositions of your partner and people around you.

Asking for help is a sign of strength

Collapsing is the opposite of what I’m trying to convey. Being vulnerable and expressing your needs or longings takes courage (and a good posture). You could try —as I have— to always be “self-sufficient” in a survival dance, but then you will miss a whole other wonderful side of life: the nourishing of connecting and trusting.

Last Friday, it was important to go for a walk earlier and be in nature here. It was important to have time for stillness and silence, sitting quietly on my sofa for almost an hour. And then, the spontaneous arrival of a new friend to share tea and little stories for half an hour brought another quality to my day.

Beth showed up at my door with a hug and was willing to taste a piece of walnut cake. It was nourishing at the most profound level.

And just as I was writing this line, someone knocked on my door. It was my friend Tierra, leaving a little pebble she collected at the beach in the morning. She left a hug and a pebble.

It takes two to tango, at least. We don’t go dancing because it’s a good workout. We go dancing because it connects us, it gives us the relational nutrients we are craving in our day-to-day lives.

That’s why I am delighted to learn that the second edition of Tango Connects Conference in Berlin is dedicated to this subject: building communities.

In a world with societies erecting barriers between citizens, we need to remember constantly and make very clear how much we need and long for each other.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Thriving Communities & Social Change in Tango

4-6 September 2025
Tango Connects Berlin Conference brings together voices from diverse disciplines to explore the social, cultural, and emotional dimensions of tango communities.

I broke my glasses frame beyond repair, making me walk with extra care.

The beauty outside comes into our souls through our eyes, and the bluebells blooming in the hills of Dartington this season are just a small, wondrous example. It is a comforting, exhilarating sense. Seeing is also crucial for our balance and orientation.

The insecurity in my walks comes from the blurred world around me, and a sense of losing identity. After all, I have worn glasses for decades. They enhance my appearance, and not wearing them feels like walking the streets naked.

As I write and reflect on this, I realise that the subpar quality of my walk may not solely be attributed to my diminished visual acuity.

On my walks, my past comes, my health shows, and thoughts, emotions, and feelings are a constant company.

It’s perhaps easier to navigate this journey by pointing out where I want to be.

Step one - Trusting my body

For a few days, I found myself meticulously calculating my steps. There is a great deal of tension in that way of moving, a lack of confidence almost akin to the early stages of learning tango, where beginners often believe that failing is not part of the dance.

Basic control and a sense of balance are essential, but I am gradually developing a greater trust in my body’s capabilities and ability to respond wisely to any terrain.

Step two - Arriving

I want to be here, present. Landing is arriving fully. I can only make the next step if my moving leg lands entirely. The ground provides the reassurance and energy we require to move forward.

While pushing the floor is part of the process, it is ultimately about receiving the immense gift of the solid earth.

Step three - Letting go of agendas

Generally, I know roughly where I’m going, but I am also convinced that my paths don’t need to be fixed. They cannot be. Life is too vast and mysterious to presume that the shopping centre will always be there.

I left home one morning to buy bread when an exultant friend showed up in the street and asked if I had a minute to spare. When I got to her flat, she gave me a bag with the bread she had made that morning.

I’m guessing the supermarket is still there, but I didn’t check that day.

Step four - From the core

One day, a tango teacher was trying to tell me how to signal a forward movement to my partner. I was dancing with someone also eager to learn, but I was constantly stepping on her feet and losing mine and her balance.

“It’s an inner thing”, the teacher finally said.

Let your legs follow your core. That’s how you communicate, not by pushing, dragging, or manipulating others, but by moving with an intimate knowledge of where you stand and what intention lives in your heart.

Step five - Attuning

Pauses are crucial to my journey. Stopping regularly helps me to calibrate, reorient and recover pace.

Last week, I went into a period of solitude and introspection. During this time, I refrained from social interactions and community events. Sometimes, the demands of external voices and expectations can be too loud, and my soul needs stillness to remember its rhythm.

I love the almost imperceptible movement of tango dancers when they collect.

It happens in a split second and provides pace and space for attuning.

Step six - Relaxed

Trauma or hurtful past experiences might show in our cadence and level of confidence when we walk.

In contrast, walking fully relaxed with a healed nervous system exudes grace. We humans often hold incomplete and detrimental energies within our bodies. Other animals deal with these energies by running away, fighting, or shaking themselves, which helps them to return to a state of safety. Understanding how trauma works and practising somatic exercises make a dramatic difference to our dance.

Step seven - Walking in the dark

I have danced with my eyes closed. There have been occasions in my tango practice or during 5Rhythms sessions when surrendering happened. In those exquisite moments, I am in flow.

I want that level of trust more often than not. I crave the capacity to walk and dance with trust and abandon even in the dark.

Nobody puts it better than Saint John of the Cross in his poem Dark Night of the Soul:

In summary 

The kind of walking I aspire to comes from the core, with constant listening to my body, relaxed, present and trusting that, in the end, I am guided.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

The path to falling fantastically bad

A hilariously backwards guide to falling more and balancing less—this tongue-in-cheek article flips fall prevention advice on its head to highlight the real habits that keep you safe, strong, and upright as you age.

The science of walking

Nothing seems easier than putting one foot in front of the other

Is it possible to walk without using our brains?

Intention, journey and landing

It’s mid-February. I’m attending a dance practice with Rosie Perks. The music she plays is soft and calming, but this time, I am feeling a vague discomfort that I cannot dispel.

Around 20 people are moving freely in the space, navigating a three-hour practice guided by Rosie’s words. It’s meditation in movement.

That evening, it took me a long time to find the energy to get up. But eventually, I saw what was bothering me inside. An old grief surfaced: the fear of being alone. It was a moment of realisation and an urge to stop fighting it.

I don’t need to push this pain or put it in a box so that I can dance. The opposite is true. I can only dance if I trust it and let that pain be my dance partner for one evening.

Strangely, that embrace lifted me from isolation, and I saw myself finally engaging with the group at ease.

I moved my sadness by making it my companion and letting her whisper her teachings.

There is another source of anxiety these days. A lot is going on, and the news overlaps and, at moments, overwhelms my capacity.

With so much going on in a dire direction, fear has a way of getting installed in my tissue.

I believe there is a responsibility to be aware of what is happening —Gaza, Ukraine, the last few weeks in American politics— without falling into a dumb consumption of news channels. It is difficult, however, to be well-informed without getting stuck in paralysis.

It can be too much when tension builds up, and deep personal sorrows are intermixed with uncertain horizons.

We need moments of solitude to learn to hold ourselves, crack open, and cry, just as we need to hold our radiance and embrace our communities.

A winter rose

Embodiment and movement are precious resources.

Shaking physically to release stored tension in our bodies is a great tool. Fifteen minutes of jumping, shaking, or going for a power walk can make a difference.

Dancing is medicine as much as it is a statement. Given the behemoth of lies and hypocrisy in public discourses, going and dancing with others can be a way for us to reaffirm our deep values and humanity.

In the face of collapse, dancing is essential to our response.

Dancing can make us whole and ready for what’s here and what’s next. It connects us with ourselves, our bodies, and to others.

A winter rose in my garden is blooming even after bitter dark days and recent storms. Although all her leaves are badly damaged, she’s upright, bringing her scent and beauty.

My winter rose

She shows me what it means to trust while keeping our faces turned “into the winds of sorrow” because, as Francis Weller puts it, that is the way to “keeping our hearts open to the immense beauty of this earth.”

That evening, the quality of my presence was transformed when I decided to dance with my sorrow and make it my dance partner. I was connecting. I was having fun, making art, and being of service.

We are not powerless in our vulnerability. By honouring our grief, we can create, show up and offer support to others. Moving our sorrow through dancing brings an energy that can help us to counteract decay and pursue a culture of care.

There are no small movements. These days, every conscious step on the dance floor matters.

Let’s double down. Together.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Yes to monsters, Yes to the dance

Margie Gillis dances to poem "To Margie Gillis" by Dahlya Smolash.

A companionship with grief

The broadcast journalist Anderson Cooper, in a courageous and deeply moving conversation with the psychotherapist and author Francis Weller.

Releasing stress and its grip on my body

Sharing a little practice

Put the phone down, open the door, and spend some days in the moorland. Eat there with frugality, like receiving a few of all the Earth’s gifts. Walk by the river and honour the stream and the moon. Dance as if responding to the resonance of the stones below your feet. Be in awe of your existence. And, when you are called, help others embrace each other and start a tango in nature.

This is an abridged list of invitations I leaned into during a New Year’s retreat in Dartmoor. Keeping it as a list is perhaps the easiest way to share what I learnt.

1. Put the phone down

Thanks to the minimal use of technology during the retreat, I managed to get out of the loop of passive consumption of social media content and movie channels. The pull of checking the news and my feed is still there. How often do I choose distractions over Her? As I land back home, I’m making changes that make it easier to see nature instead of screens.

Someone shared with me a quote stating that no gardener ever made a rose. One can only tend to the conditions in which it has a chance to grow.

2. Open the door and honour the stream

I see the river Dart from my living room, and that’s a privilege I enjoy daily, but the decision to open the door, go out there and feel the elements is a different matter. Being in Dartmoor, in particular, exposed me to unimaginable beauty. Keeping with the group and the retreat schedule was important, but I sometimes wanted to stay alone for hours in the magical spots we visited.

3. Eat honouring the gifts from Earth

This was a detox retreat. We had one smoothie for breakfast and another for dinner, and only a veggie soup and salad at lunchtime. It was enough to keep me hungry for days. We had the most loving juicer and cook in that place, and that’s what I miss the most after coming back home. I don’t have the necessary equipment and culinary skills to keep myself afloat on a diet like that, but I learned what is good for my body and what doesn’t serve me anymore.

One habit I would adopt is eating mindfully, cooking with love, honouring every ingredient, and eating slowly, taking in every flavour. Given the overabundance of Earth’s gifts, it feels just fair.

4. Dance to the resonance of the stones

I didn’t dare to take a morning plunge into the cold waters of the Dart as the rest of the group did. But I was immersed in the landscape and sensed the resonance in the ground. One evening, I stayed behind on one of the tours and returned to the house alone. There was a little piece of land covered in grass where I felt the invitation to lie down. I stayed there facing the stars above me, feeling the support of the underground granite in my back and being one with the sounds, the wind, the strong waters and my breathing.

That memory of wholeness has stayed with me and has become an inner resource I can recall whenever I need to ground myself.

5. Be of service

On the third day of the retreat, I was invited to introduce tango to a group of non-tango dancers.

That ultimately pushed me out of my comfort zone, as I am not a teacher, and my tango repertoire is limited.

But I said yes to the nudging and framed the exercise by saying I was only sharing what I believe is the essence of tango: the possibility of experiencing connection and the sweet intimacy of an embrace.

It was a nerve-racking experience, but I learned that I can be of service. Despite my fears, I am already slow-cooking an offering for my community. I will need inspiration, and today, it comes in the form of a rooster crowing and celebrating every sunrise in Dartmoor. Without his particular note, we might have sensed the gap in our mornings.

In a nutshell

I brought these memories, small rituals, and tools with intuitive possibilities. The breathwork sessions and sound healing journeys were remarkable.

Not everything was heavenly, though. On the first day, I arrived with no reverence, only criticism, as I judged everything and everybody.

One morning, when I was feeling empty and down, I received perhaps one of the key lessons of the retreat: I shared my feelings in a one-on-one exchange with someone I wasn’t close to. And she only said:

“That is okay.”

The ice melted away.

Today's challenge is forming new habits, and I am already learning that I cannot create the next version of myself. I can only tend to the conditions for it to grow.

And I need others to co-cultivate this garden.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Aluna Healing

At the White Lady Waterfall

Lana Lanaia and her team were generous in their teachings and held us with care and wisdom during this retreat.

For Calling the Spirit Back From Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet

For the Divine Mother of the Universe

This devotional episode of The Emerald podcast honours the goddess as the animating power of creation.

The Divine Mother of the Universe

Never in my life, have I danced more than during 2024. From the moment I arrived for the first time at the Civic Hall in Totnes for a 5Rhythms evening, to the most recent tango dance in South Brent, I’ve been fulfilling this deep longing to connect through dance. As I previously said, dancing has been my gateway to new communities.

However, even though this town has been fertile ground for me to learn and move my body with joy and abandon, I have also experienced moments when I said no to that, when didn’t allow myself to be that alive.

Last ocassion was Susie Ro’s concert in Totnes.

The church was packed, and we were all in a circle, with an ocean of cushions and people sitting on the floor, some on chairs, some standing, all looking to a stage illuminated with hues of purple and blue. Susie’s concert had this dreamy texture that made one feel at home.

From my spot, I had a clear view of all the musicians, but I suspected from the let-go that my body would ache from sitting too long on the floor.

And it did.

The first hour was delicious. I greeted familiar faces, rejoiced in a space that felt my kind, and music gradually filled my soul.

However, the discomfort grew and I soon felt the impulse to stand up and join the ones dancing at the back. My body wanted the dance, and I am still discerning why I stayed seated for another hour.

Last month during a tango party in Berlin, I had way more reasons in my head for not standing up and dancing. That milonga was full of skilful tangueros and strangers. My limited tango repertoire and personal introversion helped to justify stillness.

Not inviting anybody to the dance floor felt ultimately safe. Staying seated was, I suspect, a way of protecting myself from rejection or being seen as not-so-good.

Part of me wanted to go for it, but fear won the night for the duration of that party.

I live in the countryside and have a patio that overlooks a river. It is a stage filled with all kinds of flying friends, ducks singing in perfect formation in the air, seagulls, pigeons, and other birds painting the grey skies of winter. An occasional cat passes by and one or two squirrels play up and down the trees. Everybody flows together in a dance of life happening before my eyes. And then, too many times, I remain seated inside, looking at a screen in my hand, or watching yet another movie, even when my body aches and longs for a dance.

The discomfort at the concert, the unease in the milonga in Berlin, and the angst on my sofa have similar qualities. My body cries for the excitement of movement, but another narrative rules the show: being an audience is comfortable; no moving is riskless. A little voice, though, keeps whispering at some level, a voice I try to numb: You are missing out.

Susie Ro started singing this song.

I know that flow, as I have been there. And it’s exquisite.

It is a good aspiration to be immense, jump into the river, and get up and dance. As the end of the year approaches, I’m getting this reminder and setting an intention of letting go of doubts that keep me small when they arise.

It is “surrender and flow”, more than a sentiment, a thought or willpower.

My friend Natalie put it nicely the last time we danced in a tango practica: “You might be taking it too seriously,” she said, “you could loosen up a bit.” That was my last tanda of the year and perhaps the most fun I ever had in a tango scene.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Caressing the Earth

“And to the floor beneath. I caress the earth. I massage with my foot every inch of floor space that I traverse. I know exactly where I am and how I got there.”

My friend Aydan Dunnigan's latest entry post is a call to go and walk and dare to do it beyond the paved pathways.

No more holding on

This Susie Ro’s song is a good template for my New Year’s intentions.

Four tips

I’m adding this video from Pablo & Anne mostly to remind myself of four good tips to improve my posture and mindset on the dance floor.

Any guide map worthy of the name includes the ‘You are here’ signage. It normally helps me when I’m confused and relieves my stress in the street or complex environments, like hospitals.

We, dancers, need to find that signage too.

The first step is within, as David Whyte points out in the poem Start Close In.

Start close in
don’t take the second step
or the third.

…

To hear
another’s voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes an
intimate private ear
that can
really listen
to another.

These words encapsulate, for me, the essence of relating.

“The temptation”, the poet remarks, “is to take the second or third step, not the first, to ignore the invitation into the center of our own body”,

For years, we’ve been using the term “embodiment” to refer to that simple and humble invitation to start any contact with a dive into our true nature.

Tools exist to help with this inside gaze, like our daily, sometimes minute-by-minute practice of tracking where the body is. It is a practice of way-finding body sensations, and locating places where feelings and emotions are felt.

It is almost a matter of orientation.

Pinpointing your location

Next time you go to a dance, look within and find the marker “You are here” before you step forward or gaze at your partner.

It’s a little check. Are you really there? And if not, where?

The film The Matrix has this wonderful image: before they “awake” anyone who is trapped in a constant feed of stories and mind constructs, it’s imperative to locate with precision where the body is.

Any meaningful map should include an invitation to take three deep breaths at the beginning of journeys.

And if we are extreme: self-regulation and presence-building checkins, should be added at security controls in airports.

Fully seeing into me -this embodied me- relieves stress and expands my capacity to see another.

Dance of Yes and No, Martin Eichinger

The sculpture Dance of Yes and No, by Martin Eichinger, is composed of two dancing figures. These sculptures change their meanings as their bases rotate. “The couple’s interaction shifts from surrender to defence, acceptance to denial, and commitment to abandonment”.

Last year, I had the chance to practice exactly this in a workshop about embodiment and intimacy. It was an exquisite dance experience. We were moving in and out of closeness making sure we didn’t lose ourselves in the relationship.

In a dance of yes, separation is needed at moments. In the distance, relationships can reset and recalibrate with presence. 

Over time, I’ve been dancing my Yes in 5Rhythms flows and tango tandas, with friends in cafes, in walks with nature, when I cook, and when I make love. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been immensely fortunate to be dancing this gentle dance with my beloved.

Surrendering

Trapeze artists practice countless times, before attempting any serious drop or flying. Their life depends on it, but even with this constant thrive for training and hyper-focussing, they also experience surrendering.

That’s the point when we let go of all our well-crafted maps. In that sweet spot, the body already knows, and it is time to flow.

With good fortune, we will find ourselves in the sublime confluence of a Yes of two.

And that feels as good as finally arriving and letting mystery take over.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

The sensational intelligence of the body

Philip Shepherd explains in this video what embodiment is, and why living in the present is so elusive.

And if you prefer to read

An active letting go

The Dance of Yes, a demo

I’m glad this video is preserved on the Embodied Intimacy Facebook page. It’s a great demonstration of the Dance of Yes I mentioned in this post. Enjoy it!

The conference Transformations: The Healing Power of Tango came to a close and I left Berlin with a feeling I was not expecting: a sense of belonging.

I was prepared for a brainy conference, and I knew that keynotes and talks were intermixed with workshops about yoga, mindfulness, contact improv, circling, and even craniosacral therapy.

These workshops were, for me, the main attraction.

The question I took to Berlin was how they would link all those disciplines to tango. And I was anticipating responses like “this can be used in tango”, or “tango has elements of this and that”.

How little I knew.

My answer came straight from the non-verbal realm.

It emerged in a field of deep breathing, slow movements, and intentional gestures of giving and receiving.

We were co-regulating.

Moving from fear and separation to holding hands, from solo attendees to community, from “let me introduce myself” to embracing.

That’s where the connection with tango happened.

Co-regulation can be defined as a dynamic process in which two or more people lead each other to a calm and grounded state. There is extensive literature about this.

The journalist Marina Khidekel helps us here with an example: “If you’ve ever felt like anxiety or anger or any other big emotion had you spinning out of control—and then a friend’s calm, steady vibes helped bring you back to Earth—you’ve experienced co-regulation”.

In the circling workshop, Carlo Carcano led a ritual that started with presence and created an inner and a group sense of safety. If only we had got more time!

Andrew Wass guided a contact improv session where we played with balance, weight and touch. Besides classes, that was the only ‘tango’ I have ever danced with Veronica Toumanova.

Kristina McFadden took us on an exquisite sensory trip where we gave each other treats of soft touching and caressing with prompts like feathers and aromatic oils.

In all those exercises, principles and rules were agreed upon. Boundaries and a principle of free participation were set.

We could have had a workshop simply called “Tango”, where participants may have been invited to music, touch, intimacy and surrender. But we already had evening milongas for that…

And that’s my point.

In tango, as Veronica put it in a Facebook post, that is THE WHOLE POINT.

What heals us is the connection with ourselves and then to others. The first connection is to oneself: someone has to be at home! Only then, another can be welcomed.

Name the framework: circling, animal play, performing art, yoga, contact improv, mindfulness. And tango.

In Berlin, in all those fields, we were connecting.

With precise facilitation (and music), our nervous system moved from alert to relaxation, and from trauma to trust. We moved from being alone to being together.

Three days were enough to make a bond and forge a different way to see and talk about tango.

This conference was loaded with medicine.

That’s why, even after several days, rippling effects persist. That’s why, I realised, tango can be so addictive.

My system tasted what it can be, and it wants more of that.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Tango as therapy for life's changes

I love Yelizaveta’s podcast Tango Banter, and on this episode, her guest Caroline Tell Falk shares her journey into Argentine tango and how it helped her cope with the social isolation and emotional challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. She also talks about her challenges dealing with menopause and kids growing up and moving away. She describes how tango provided a sense of connection, co-regulation, and healing through touch and music.

Tango and modern-day tech addiction

Discover how Argentine Tango can help overcome addictions

Embrace mindfulness, connection, creativity, and community.

www.ultimatetango.com/blog/how-an-age-old-dance-the-tango-can-help-overcome-modern-day-tech-addiction

Trauma 2 Trust Training

Trauma 2 Trust – Deep Immersion and Facilitators Training

As Buster Radvik describes, Trauma 2 Trust is an immersive and experiential week-long training to enhance one’s tools for nervous system regulation, leading to greater healing, embodiment, and both personal and professional development.

I’ve been training with Buster and I can only say: go for it, don’t miss this education.

www.pathofrelating.com/trauma2trust

I recently attended what was probably my third milonga. It was a busy party, and friendly, and I felt extremely well cared as a newcomer and beginner.

It took a very long time, though, and some words of wisdom, to find my footing.

My friend Natalie was the first to invite me to do a walk on the dance floor. At the end of the tanda, I was exhausted.

Every step was full of hesitation, trying to think and remember lessons and techniques, change weight, what about an ocho, a side step, maybe if I walk this or that way. I felt everybody was watching my poor attempts.

The same happened later, this time Sally extended the invitation: “Would you like to do a walk around the floor?”. I still said yes, inexplicably.

The tanda resulted in a robotic, disconnected, also tiring, experience. Self-consciousness was underpinned by a sense that I was boring my dance partners to death.

So I went to my seat determined to be only observant for the rest of the affair. Feeling out of place, while trying to look cool.

That’s when the tango teacher Ruth Rozelaar, came to sit beside me to ask how I was doing. I confessed my apprehension. She made two observations.

“If it helps”, she said, “nobody is watching nobody”.

And then:

“As a leader, you need to be aware of the other leaders and where they are. Be as predictable as possible to them.

“For the follower dancing with you, however, be as unpredictable as possible”.

Somehow, a sense of quietness grew in me as I was making sense of her words.

The DJ announced the last tanda and the last song for the night.

Milonga in Exeter, Devon, UK

At that moment, Natalie rushed towards me with a smile I could not reject. She took my hand and dragged me to the dance floor for that very last piece.

As I prepared my stand, a thought came to me: “To hell with tango. Drop the project and dance as you know”.

And there I was, throwing “whats” and “hows” out of the window, and staying only with the “want” of my body. I was dancing, relaxed, dancing, navigating the floor, leading my partner, dancing, with a rhythm, as my body wanted.

It was a deliciously imperfect walk.

On the way to the car, Natalie commented. “You know, that last song, that was tango. You were going somewhere”.

Form and flow

As I reflect on what happened, a memory of a recent lesson comes to me.

I was learning what some tango teachers call walking ochos.

It wasn’t again an easy endeavour, but after some stumbling on my part, and lots of patience from my teacher Stania Diffey, I got there.

For a few seconds, in a close embrace, my torso was feeling and following hers, I invited ochos while walking with diagonal steps. My hips moving around her. She was a master at responding with grace, slightly dissociating and taking back steps.

In that brief moment, the technique moved from the head and got embodied.

It was not a conscious act of embodying, but an act of dropping the design.

It was an act of surrendering, with a meaning that is far from submission, and more akin to a sense of trust. Yes, I studied the movement and practised consciously, even to the detail. And then, for an instant...

Within the structure of a tango lesson, we both surrendered. If you allow me a metaphor, it was a stream flowing through river banks. Ease and direction. Form and flow.

Exquisite.

I don’t need techniques, but I need to learn them and then let them go, giving my body a chance.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Transformations:
The Healing Power of Tango

On 6-8 September, an International Transdisciplinary Conference will take place in Berlin. Leading experts in neuroscience, medicine, yoga, and mindfulness, together with trauma therapists, tango dancers and performers will explore the effects of Argentine tango on mental and physiological health.

Registrations are still open to participate in person and also to watch the most important parts of the conference online.

tango.connects.berlin

Tango in Totnes

The experienced tango teacher Ruth Rozelaar is teaching again in Totnes, where I live. Many of us cannot believe our luck!

Anatomy of Surrender

This is an analytical take on the meaning of surrendering in Argentine tango. Published in 2001 by the psychoanalyst Susan Kavaler-Adler, it comes with a warning that now feels painfully familiar to me: “Learning steps that create an agenda in the man's mind can interfere with him surrendering to connection with himself, with the music, and with his partner in Argentine Tango”.

Since I moved to Totnes, a couple of months ago, I’ve been attending weekly dance events and workshops focused on movement. It has made me visible. “You look familiar” is the expression I hear more and more in shops and the street. It’s sweet. Dancing has become my entry ticket into new communities.

Dancing connects me.

Dancing connects me to my body in ways no other practice does.

It connects me to my feet, to earth, to the solid, reliable ground, sustaining my flow.

It connects me to my gut, where wisdom resides.

It connects to my breathing.

It connects me to the expansion of my chest, and my arms, and the impulse to fall with gravity or jump with joy.

I play when I dance.

“I dance because adults aren’t allowed on the playground”, says Christopher Neville rather wonderfully.

Dancing connects me to you, my beloved partner, whoever you are at any given song.

It connects me to other bodies as mine navigates the floor and draws butterflies in the space.

It connects to my art and self-expression.

It connects me to love. To me, to you, to the group, the village, and my world.

It connects me to the mysterious lingering of every pause.

Why do you dance?

You might have a why or you might not need one. When it comes to dance, it’s no wrong nor right answers, only your personal or tribal vibration.

Dancing is fitness for body and soul. It makes us ready and it is a way to respond to our world.

It connects us to the precious part of us that bets on presence and openness.

In the world we face today, dancing gives us the chance to stand up, show up, and be part of the solution.

Stay attuned
Jesus Acosta

Why I dance…

In 2012, the Ontario Arts Council produced this video where performers shared their passion for dancing. 

The Dance of Peace

Dance has always been one of the most powerful catalysts for non-violent resistance, social change, and emboldening the will of the people, as Aydan Dunnigan writes.

Facing Collapse. Together

In May, David Cates led a retreat in Berlin, and at the end, the intimacy teacher, mentor, and beloved elder wrote a letter to participants. Reading it felt like a lightning strike in my bones. For me, it is a powerful compelling call to be present and alive. With his permission, I’m replicating it here in full. You’ll find it also on Facebook.