Well, it's really interesting. It's been a bit of a study for me because I wasn't very familiar with Zen. And after Reb was a student for some time, he said to me, you know, I find it very interesting that you use a lot of Zen-like terms like being present and things like that. And I said, I had no idea. that I was doing that. And then he started to discover that there was a lot of similarities. And as he explained some of those to me, I thought, well, my goodness, there really must be something to it. And so it took Rob about another year to convince me that I should at least visit Green Gulch. I have kind of a busy tango schedule, you know. And then I just came for a visit and I met Meg and I met Reb and Rusa here and had a lovely day and I was very impressed and I just thought it was a wonderful environment. And then as I read a couple books and studied a little bit, I understood that there truly was a great connection between Zen and tango. in many forms, really, and it has to do with even things that I mentioned earlier, like formality, like we have all of our formalities when you enter a milonga, which is where people dance tango.

[01:05]

There's a certain etiquette that goes on there, a certain way that we ask one another to dance, the way that we end a dance with that person, what you do during the dance, there's no speaking during the dance, and truly it's a type of meditation. And while we may not be trying to clear our minds, if that's the right terminology, we're very much meditating on the music. Oftentimes I say that when I finish a dance, I've sort of forgotten who it was that I was dancing with because I'm just in sort of another world. And then the music ends and we open our embrace and then I think, oh, it's Daniel. So it's truly quite a feeling of meditation for me, although I'm not an experienced practitioner of meditation, but I believe that there must be a lot of similarities. Yes? Yes. It's really interesting.

[02:09]

It's been a bit of a study for me because I wasn't very familiar with Zen. After Reb was a student for some time, he said to me, I find it very interesting that you use a lot of Zen-like terms like being present and things like that. I said, I had no idea. that I was doing that. And then he started to discover that there was a lot of similarities. And as he explained some of those to me, I thought, well, my goodness, there really must be something to it. And so it took Rob about another year to convince me that I should at least visit Green Gulch. I have kind of a busy tango schedule, you know. And then I just came for a visit and I met Meg and I met Rev and Rusa here and had a lovely day and I was very impressed and I just thought it was a wonderful environment. And then as I read a couple books and studied a little bit, I understood that there truly was a great connection between Zen and tango. in many forms, really, and it has to do with even things Breb mentioned earlier, like formality, like we have all of our formalities when you enter a milonga, which is where people dance tango.

[03:13]

There's a certain etiquette that goes on there, a certain way that we ask one another to dance, the way that we end the dance with that person, what you do during the dance, there's no speaking during the dance, and truly it's a type of meditation. And while we may not be trying to clear our minds, if that's the right terminology, we're very much meditating on the music. Oftentimes I say that when I finish a dance, I've sort of forgotten who it was that I was dancing with because I'm just in sort of another world. And then the music ends and we open our embrace and then I think, oh, it's Daniel. So it's truly quite a feeling of meditation for me, although I'm not an experienced practitioner of meditation, but I believe that there must be a lot of similarities. Yeah.

[04:16]

Well, if the center is receptive, in other words, each experience has a receptive center, and you can tune into that, you have a kind of feeling of receiving the moment. And then in that mode of witnessing reception, you'll notice that something arises out of that receptivity, and that's an intention. And when you are witnessing the reception, your intention is not to step on your partner's feet. Your intention is to express gratitude to this person and care for this person when you have that point of view. But if you have the point of view of, I've already got it, you know, I'm already here, and now I'm going to do something, then I'm going to suggest you do this and you should. That way of doing is not, that kind of, that's diluted activity. So I think, again, the spirit of tango is you meet a person, and in that meeting you're born.

[05:26]

And if you witness this, you want to offer them something. But it's a gesture of gratitude, not a gesture of control. And you don't want to hurt them. You want to pay back how you're born in the meeting. So you do want to be careful. However, even though you want to be careful, you may not be trained enough to pay attention to the dynamism that you're experiencing and you may get flustered and tense and then miss the next offering and trip and so on. But when you see that, the activity that arises will be skillful. But then the next moment you may lose it again, because it's so dynamic and changes so fast, you may flip back to the usual perspective, the non-meditative perspective of, I'm already here, and I'm going to do this. That's the non-meditative, and I think non-dancing spirit. Wow. I feel like I'm learning things about Daniel today. Yes.

[06:28]

Well, you taught me a lot, too, already. So we're teaching each other. That's also part of it. Really, there's no teachers here, right? Of Zen or Tango. But maybe there's Tango and Zen somewhere in the area. Intention is an important word for leaders in that you really have to be clear that you're showing... Okay. The leader really has to show the intention to the follower. But of really bad leaders, the leaders I hear about in the car on the way home from the mall are the leaders that push the women around. So they're not using their intention to get the woman to move. It's a very easy thing to do to take a woman and take her hand on her back and turn it this way. and push her where you want her to go. But that's not an invitation. And that's one of the most important concepts that Red was talking about this morning, is that we invite the women to take a step. Then we follow them to wherever they go, even if we didn't intend them to go there.

[07:34]

And we think upon ourselves that I must have not been clear, or I'm Leading something that's beyond this woman, and again, that's my fault as a leader. So the follower is faultless, and I'm going to lead her step by showing her my intention, the invitation, but then I'm going to follow her through space. But perhaps she gave a lead for something you had no idea, but she was beyond. She was doing something that you couldn't have even imagined, right? Yes. And then they follow us. Like it's better than what I was, you know. Right, right. It's unique to tango that every single step can come after every other step. And sometimes this is what makes it difficult to learn because people are more comfortable with more rules. That after this forward step comes a back step.

[08:37]

And salsa, swing, anything else, they all have these blocks of movement. And there's a specific way that teachers teach you how to move. Tango has to be in the moment and ideally leaders want to be able to improvise and go any direction at any time and really be paying attention to the followers, the music, and the energy of the whole room and navigating the floor. One of the most important things that leaders need to do is not run the followers into the furniture or into other people. being able to improvise means that you can solve problems and it's not a big, frustrating thing. If you have a preconceived idea of, oh, I want to do this fancy back cicada with a, I don't know, with a molinette afterwards, and there's not room to do that, that's a bad idea to have a big, long game plan as a leader. And the followers, if they're not

[09:38]

They're just in the moment. One of the hardest things to get beginning followers to stop going is to stop apologizing. Because if you say, I'm sorry, you're in that moment that just happened. And you need to be in the moment that's right there. And the other thing is trying to get followers to, they want everything to go right, so they're trying to anticipate what's coming next. And that also takes them out of the moment. And they're more nervous. And so everyone can stay in the moment the leader and the follower, and improvise, everything works much better. But that's hard in the beginning. Like, you're a beginning person. You walk in the door, and someone tells you, OK, improvise a tango for three minutes. That's kind of like throwing you in a deep end. I should be honest and say that I am not the least bit virtual. So for me, it's a feeling of like pursuing art and beauty and doing something with another person is a very different experience in my life.

[10:44]

Pierre and I were modern dancers, professional dancers for a long time. You do it by yourself. So it's an entirely different thing to sort of create this one thing from a whole bunch of people. I like, Red, when you were talking about There's never just one person dancing, and there's not even just two people dancing at a malanga. That's the name of the tango dance party. There's a whole room full of people there. I know he was talking more like spiritual. There's other people that you can't see there. But... Then I finally left. Now I've been really messed up because... But it's... You don't see the Buddhas in the last night? There was quite a few at the thing last night. There were. I can't see that. I'm an insensitive boob. Because my spiritual side is... You know, it's not all... It's also, just to be honest, it's not always all lovey-dovey, hunky-dory.

[11:58]

There's also... people get their feelings hurt, and we're sort of needy in a way, because we can't do the thing by ourselves. I imagine you can meditate all by yourself. No. Oh, you can't? See, ignorant boob again. I don't know about that. But you know about tango. I know about tango. It's the same. But I don't know any more than you do. I don't know any more than you do. Yeah, so sometimes that meeting, I don't think I know, I've had my heart broken, and every tango dancer I know, if they've done it for a while, you sort of have to just take your licks and come back, and if you sort of get your feelings hurt and walk away from it, that's not good. Go back in there, and eventually all that will be in the past.

[12:58]

You won't get your feelings hurt as much as when you're learning it. And it goes back to what you were saying about the challenge that you like so much. And sometimes in Zen, do people get their feelings hurt? But you all seem so nice to each other all the time. When we were parking the car, the attendant was like kissing the people in the car. I'm totally like... But one difference between, I think, maybe one difference between, I don't know if I should say a difference, but I don't think in Zen that there's ever an end of your feelings getting hurt. They keep getting hurt. Otherwise, you're not going into some new area, probably. You're staying in some kind of like, with the people who don't hurt your feelings.

[13:58]

But if you keep growing, you're going to run into somebody who's going to hurt your feelings. And I think you said the main thing is that when your feelings get hurt, don't go away. Don't leave the practice when it gets tough. And also don't find a place where nobody hurts you, because then the practice will shrivel up. Yeah, you don't grow. So I think you maybe get hurt different ways at the beginning than you do later. At the beginning, you get hurt by your peers and your teachers, and you get hurt by all your students. Can you talk a bit about Tango Beyond Tango and how I see it in life? That sounds spiritual to me. Look at him. That's beyond angle. Somebody who's not afraid to be aware of things of truth. That's a spiritual attainment.

[15:12]

A worldly attainment is like not to be a boob. I'm not a boob, I'm like cool, right? That's a worldly attainment. You get a whole bunch of people that agree with you. But to realize you're just a person and kind of be at ease with that, that's spiritual attainment. And also spiritual attainment is not necessarily to think you're spiritual. So, you know, he has a great spiritual talent, don't you think? Now he has to get over that. I guess...

[15:46]

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