Following rediscovered. October 19, 2008.

I had another great lesson with my teacher today.
After the last week's one, dancing immediately started feeling better.

With everybody, except my teacher.

He and I danced quite a bit in milongas during the week. From my perspective, I felt out of control, my posture was awkward, my legs were too constricted, my feet in the way of his, etc etc. By Saturday, I threw a towel in, and settled for being with him on the floor, enjoying the music (he was DJ-ing that night, mixing very soothing, romantic, sexy sets). Basically, during the last tandas I proceeded to just melt (while probably collapsing my core, dragging feet, and overall moving sloppily) in his embrace.

The next day in the lesson a miracle happen. I could not remember when it had been the last time dancing with him or anybody else, when following a lead made me so unconditionally happy. It had been a while, for sure.
I was able to step smoothly, keep the connection, follow precisely, pivot effectively, and move my hips promptly. My posture, the head position did not bother me anymore.
Of course, as the lesson progressed, the teacher started introducing more complicated stuff. I began screwing up. We had to stop here and there, and go over the details. I also got tired. So by the end, I somewhat reverted to the old ways. But all in all, it was a great lesson. It felt like a breakthrough.

Driving home, I was thinking about what had I done differently that day versus the whole previous week, when it did not feel so stellar. I could not come up with anything specific. Therefore, I decided to memorize the good feeling I had while dancing with him that day, and seek it in the future.