tango lessons

this evening my friend and i went for tango lessons down at the freeway coffeehouse. needless to say, it was an experience. i had a great time with her, but more than that, i learned a lot. not just about dance, or relationships, but about control, and even a bit about God. let me explain:

firstly, i learned about control. never did i expect that my problem would be taking control. i have a hard enough time giving it up. but sure enough, every five minutes "you need to take control, you need to lead more". it was frustrating, but kinda cool. my job was to do the moving, and make the dance happen, her job was to know what i was trying to communicate. it was pretty difficult at times. when our instructor - this argentinian man named zuber - came over and led for a few minutes he moved with such confidence that my partner knew exactly where to move. when i would try, quite often she would give me a helpless look and say "what do you want me to do?" i would tell her what i was trying to accomplish, and she would reply "i didn't know that". apparently zuber somehow expressed it to her. but by the end of the night we were a lot better, but we still fumbled with giving and taking control - she would try to lead sometimes, and other times we would just misunderstand each other completely.

at one point in the night, i was doing a really good job leading, we were moving together, spinning, and so on, and then all of a sudden i went to move my left foot, and she move hers as well; tangling us up, and i said to her "what are you doing?" she had anticipated a move i never made. i thought a lot about how we do that in our relationship with God. i don't know how many times i have thought "this is what God wants for me to do" or how many times i have just flat out taken control back on my own life. tangoing is a lot more like our relationship with God than we think, he leads us, and guides us, it's our job to feel where he's taking us, where we need to move, and so many times do we anticipate, try and move in our direction. when we do that we end up stumbling, bumping into people, tripping over our own heels, and as a result, the result is a sloppy dance. that's something i've heard for a long time, but dancing with chrystal clarified it, and brought understanding to former knowledge.

overall tango lessons were a success, i look forward to next week's