I loved tonight’s intermediate lesson with Luis and Natalia.

The eventual aim was a lovely flowing circular sequence with a double sacada. It’s again the sort of thing that would have had me running for the hills a few months ago, but tonight I was able to keep up with the various versions along the way, and I think the final one too. We actually ran out of time on that one, so I can’t be 100% sure as there was no opportunity to video it, but I’ll try it at Saturday’s practica and we’ll see …

Although my aim from these classes is understanding the component elements, the complete sequence was effectively another way of doing a giro, and I think would be useful in its entirety. But it did also help me made sense of sacadas, so was a win-win.

Earlier in the lesson we did an exercise of dancing in small spaces. The entire, very crowded class danced in a single ronda, then they used chairs to gradually reduce the size of the dance floor. If you touched anyone or a chair, you had to sit down.

The floor ended up less than half the size it started, and it very much brought to mind that evening in Salon Canning! I did a very similar type of dance with tiny forward, back and side-steps, and actually found it quite liberating – there’s no pressure to do anything other than steps as there’s no room for anything else.

Tango Terra

Then it was time for my Tango Terra fix!

I’d been singing its praises to a friend, who finally joined me this evening. We danced a really lovely tanda to the live band as soon as we’d changed into our shoes, and she instantly understood why I rave so much about this milonga!

I sat out the fast tandas, but otherwise danced non-stop. I don’t think my friend sat down! She was literally crying tears of joy by the end. It brought back my own feeling of joy at discovering this place.

Dancing with my favourite followers at Tango Terra is like a mutual admiration society. Couple the incredible music to a partner who loves the same type of dance and you can’t not be in heaven.

I didn’t attempt the final sequence we did in the class, but I did try some sacadas here and there, and they worked well.

The floorcraft is the only downside of Terra. A really scary number of leaders are utterly oblivious to those around them, either holding up the ronda with a county-sized gap ahead of them, spinning out of control in random directions or leading boleos when there is absolutely no room to safely do so. So it can feel a bit too dodgem-like when it’s very busy.

But I do wonder whether that’s perhaps an unavoidable side-effect of the free and fun approach here. It’s very liberating atmosphere, and perhaps that’s not compatible with a disciplined ronda. If that’s the case, then I’ll take the deal. I’ve learned how to find safe pockets when it’s crazy (diagonal dance helps even when no-one else is doing it), and to be amused rather than annoyed by the more … interesting floorcraft examples.

As always there, the time just flew by. But I only have to wait until Sunday for my next hit! Meantime, I have both a practica and a private on Saturday – I’m really looking forward to both.