There are never enough leaders in tango classes/practicas/milongas/(fill in the blank), and so my partner has been teaching me how to lead.

I’ve always wanted to learn how to lead! I have this persistent belief that it would also make me a better follower, if I knew both sides of the story, as it were. And now Tango Gods heard my prayers and gave me an amazing leader, who first taught me how to follow, and is now teaching me how to lead. (Does this mean that I am now an amazing follower? I don’t know. But it’s still flattering.)

Remember me whining about how I was terrified about dancing with him at first because of our height difference? So now instead of following a 6 ft. tall guy, I am leading him. I love the smell of irony in the morning. You know the funniest thing? All of a sudden, this little (no pun intended) problem of mine about height disappeared! Maybe because I am concentrating on leading, or maybe because I realized that height does not matter and never has. Hallelujah for belated epiphanies.

I’ll never forget dancing with my maestra during one of our privates and having her lead me better than most men. That’s probably when the germ of the idea of wanting to lead has been planted in my brain. I still can’t get over the fact how confident she is as a leader; no hesitation, knowing what she wants and going after it. Quite predatory almost.

A lot of that “no hesitation” leading comes from experience and endless amounts of practice. I find myself still dithering at times, unsure where I want to go next. I’ve been extremely lucky with my followers because they follow impeccably. The mistakes they make are the same I used to make a year ago. Some are still present, and I am fighting tooth and nail to get rid of them, but it’s slow going. But when they’re making those mistakes and I can fix some of them and they continue dancing without making that mistake again. Well… there’s no feeling like that in the whole world.

Leading has reaffirmed my belief in how much I love teaching. Not everyone can do it.  A lot of excellent instructors have so much to say, but don’t have a way of expressing themselves. Some do, others cannot. And so the knowledge that they have is gone, because they cannot find a way to pass it on.

When I teach ballet, I give my students everything I have and everything I know. I catch myself many times repeating the same phrases my ballet instructors have used and then I start smiling. The torch has been passed, in a way. And when my students understand what I am explaining, then I am on top of the world. They are making progress, they are learning! I am teaching them how to do what I love most in the world – to dance – and they are getting it.