"Suggestions."

Oh, I'm so...frustrated! I feel icky. It's that "resonating at sucky energy" thing.

What up, you ask??

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I have an Argentine Tango class with my James on Monday nights. Argentine is great -- it's such a bizarre dance though. Unlike any "ballroom" class, each Argentine tango teacher teaches differently. Some VERY differently.

As a woman, one teacher could tell you to look to the right (e.g., at your clasped hand). Another could tell you to look straight ahead, with unfocussed eyes...another that you are right cheek to your partner...and that's just for starters.

But that's not the frustrating part.

The frustrating part is when another student, a "leader" (could be a woman or a man -- I live in the San Francisco Bay Area), "makes suggestions" with respect to my form.

OK sure, fine, I probably suck. But when the teacher walks past, he smiles and keeps walking -- I'm doing "fine enough." He has made suggestions to me in the past, so I know that I'm doing well enough that I just have to work on what I've got (at least, for right now).

But then there are these students who just want to "comment" to "help" you on your technique.

GET AWAY FROM ME!!

Fine. I'm overreacting now. But it really PISSES ME OFF. I asked this one guy today, in the middle of his giving me 'pointers,' "How long have you been doing this?" He said "oh, about a year." I said "Hm. 3 years for me." Meaning -- SHUT UP. Maybe, just MAYBE it was his big BEER BELLY that made it so that I couldn't "pass my feet correctly" or "lean into" him. How can I lean chest to chest with someone whose beer belly stops me, about 5 inches from where my breasts might even come CLOSE to his side? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

The thing is, though, there was this other guy there, who was no better (or worse) than the guy that peeved me so much. We were trying a certain move, and it was even harder for me to dance with him than it was with the other guy, because (a) OK because I was peeved and steaming and couldn't relax but also (b) he was a lot shorter. (And (c) he, too, had a beer belly.) I'm already towering over most of the guys -- doesn't help with the balance "thang."

So anyway, this second guy was trying to do one of the moves, and he said "Why don't we do..." "What do you think if we were to...?" "What if you put your foot over this way...?" It became a little "exploration" -- we were a "team" trying to master the move. Instead of my previous "pass your heels together" partner, I was on an exploratory journey with my new partner, seeing whether "we" could come to a more balanced position. (Which probably STEMMED from my not passing my feet correctly, OK, so fine, I said it. But that's not the issue here.)

You know what? ~I~ used to be this way in dance class. Oh dearie me, Saints Prayzerve Me. I was. But, just like when I was moving up the ranks in karate, I found that the longer that someone has done something, the less they will try to give little "tips" to others. It always seemed that it was the green belts that were trying to "give you tips" (or talk about how they "kicked someone's *ss" over the weekend) -- whereas the black belts would be very quiet, but would try to "team help" you ("let's work on this together, and see what's up") if you asked.

I am so glad to have been offered this opportunity to see what it's like to be on the receiving end of these little "tips" and "suggestions." Wowzah. Because I will not soon forget how evil I felt toward the "pass your feet" guy, and how grateful and kinda "part of a team" I felt with the "you know, let's try this" guy.

There is another gal (a leader) in that class, and she seems really nice -- but she "bounces" when she leads. (Argentine is supposed to be very smooth.) Bounce, bounce, bounce. And there she is, telling me to fix my form. So, you ask, do I tell her she's bouncing? I probably should. But I just can't do it, and the teacher isn't commenting so you know what? Why should I? It's really tough to follow her (bounce bounce bounce), but to me that just makes it more interesting. Maybe I will find a bouncy little guy in Buenos Aires, too. Bounce bounce bounce. At least I have some idea of how to figure out how to follow it.

My James is actually somewhat of a "direct" ("Keep your heels down!") corrector when it comes to ballroom dancing. He has been at it for a long time -- he figures that he would want to know things directly that he was doing wrong, and just get on with fixing them.

Not me. I want to be Ginger Rogers. And when I'm directly corrected, I feel more like Oh-my-darlin-Clementine (who, if you remember, wore shoe boxes because her feet were so big). I just don't want to know about it, thank you. Let me dream.

My James now knows when I feel "like a terrible dancer" when he's been a bit "direct" on his suggestions. How? I get upset, I try to "keep it in," so I collapse my chest in, and then it's that much harder to dance with me. What does THIS mean? It means that it's super important --if you must offer suggestions to someone to benefit the "team" -- you'd better know how to deliver them in a way that will work for that PERSON -- not how YOU would like to hear them.

This is a Bond grrl trait, most assuredly. The idea of the Bond grrl is that she's kinda invisible -- but indispensible. So, a Bond grrl would know exactly how to get someone to do something the way she wanted -- by just knowing how to push the "buttons" that work on that person.

I'm not talking manipulation here. Manipulation, to me, means making someone do something that they do not want to otherwise do, and you made them do it somehow under false pretenses (or via that old standby, Guilt). No, what I mean here is changes to be made when someone DOES want to change or do something "better," but needs to have some information about it to make that decision. It's kinda about using (or being) the right "delivery mechanism."

So I came home tonight and fired up the computer when I should be getting ready for bed -- because this whole thing affected me so strongly. I think this is really important -- do unto others how they want to be done to, NOT "how you want them to do unto you." I think that's the critical thing here -- it's all about THEM, not all about YOU when it comes to moving a team forward.

OK, I feel better now. :-)

Beer belly. Sheesh.