ARGENTINE TANGO: A CASE STUDY

After living my life in 15-minute Outlook increments from 2000 to mid-2004, I decided to travel the world with no structure, no schedule, and no return date.

The only plan was to go where the wind took me. Juan Manuel, a Panamanian I’d befriended in January 2005, acted as a gust of wind that would change my life: “Argentina has the best wine in the world, the best steak, the most beautiful women, and you can live like a king for pennies on the dollar.”

And that’s how I ended up in Buenos Aires in February, taking a tango class to escape the oppressive heat.

Carolina, an assistant instructor, was my first tango partner and none too happy about it. She was 5'4", 23 years old, and dressed in what appeared to be—no exaggeration—a black latex catsuit.

Imagine Catherine Zeta-Jones from Entrapment.²⁶

Her opener was charming: “C’mon, I don’t have all day. I have my own practice. Just grab me and let’s get this over with.”

Looking at other men and imitating as best I could, I tentatively placed one hand in hers and delicately wrapped my other forearm around her back.

Not good enough.

She spat out “Ugh!” as if I’d just taken a dump on the floor, and she threw her arms down in disgust. It knocked me off balance and almost forced my megahead to butt her like a ram. Hands placed on her hips, she yelled over the music as an announcement to the group:

“This guy’s built like a goddamn mountain…and he’s grabbing me like a fucking Frenchman!!!”

Everyone broke into hysterical laughter. This lasted several minutes. Carolina then turned around to face me, expressionless: “Let’s go. I still have to help the others.”

Humiliated and angry, my Spanish inadequate, I resorted to playground tactics: I crushed her. I had no master plan, besides squeezing her until her eyes popped out like a stress doll or she let out a little yelp. Instead, she looked up at me in slow motion. Her mouth broke into the first smile I’d seen: “Now that’s…much, much better.”

Thirty minutes later, I bought tickets for another 10 classes.

Roughly six months later, I set a Guinness World Record in tango and made the semifinals of the World Championships.

How?

First, I started off backward, much like Josh did with chess.

I looked at what some male pros did later in their careers: they learned the female role. I made it a point to do this at the beginning. Understanding the female “follow” first allowed me to subsequently learn an effective “lead” (la marca) much faster. It also forced me to focus on footwork—the

equivalent of Josh’s three pieces on the chessboard—through which I learned the macro principles:

proper posture, foot position, weight shifting, etc. This seemingly reverse approach was actually common in the late 1800s, when men practicing with men was the norm.²⁷

Second, I did an inventory, separating implicit from explicit.

As soon as I recruited Alicia Monti (later my teacher) to compete in the Buenos Aires World Tango Championships,²⁸ I began to collect and categorize tango video, much like George Carlin categorized his jokes and ideas. From Pepito Avellaneda to Miguel Angel Zotto, from black-and-white bootleg VHS to broadcast video of the World Championships, I went over tapes like a boxer researching the greats. What did the maestros have in common, and what did they rely on when the stakes were highest?

Next, I met the greats in person, since most of them taught in Buenos Aires. I invited them to coffee, or went to their classes, and asked all of my usual questions (see “Deconstruction”): what did they recommend I do or not do?

There was clearly explicit expertise (what they told me to do) and implicit expertise (what they did under pressure that they weren’t aware of or couldn’t verbalize).

Third, I identified what I could become good at quickly if I leveraged past experience.

Given my background in wrestling and breakdancing, were there facets of tango I could learn faster than other people?

In short, I looked for the answers to three questions:

1. What are commonalities among the best competitors?

2. Which of these aren’t being actively taught (i.e., implicit) in most classes?

3. Which neglected skills (answers to #2) could I get good at abnormally quickly?

1. What are commonalities among the best competitors?

2. Which of these aren’t being actively taught (i.e., implicit) in most classes?

3. Which neglected skills (answers to #2) could I get good at abnormally quickly?

The sweet spots were the places where all the answers overlapped like the center of a Venn diagram. If you’re competing against people with 20–30 years of experience, and if you have four

months to train for the Buenos Aires Championships, followed by a short 6–8 weeks to train for the World Championships, you need to be surgically precise.

I ended up focusing on three skills, ordered by margin of safety:

1. Large, elegant steps.

2. Creative pivots, especially when moving in straight lines.

3. Variable speed—using fast and slow movements together—particularly in sequences assumed to be exclusively fast.

1. Large, elegant steps.

2. Creative pivots, especially when moving in straight lines.

3. Variable speed—using fast and slow movements together—particularly in sequences assumed to be exclusively fast.

Then Alicia helped me choose, after many auditions in paid classes, one world-class teacher who could teach all three together: the inimitable wunderkind Gabriel Missé.

Loved by old veterans and avant-garde dancers alike (unheard of in the divisive world of tango), Gabriel offered two additional advantages: he’d judged competitions before, and he led primarily with his forearm, not his chest. Men who lead with their chests, the standard, need to develop incredible strength in their toes to maintain a strong forward lean.

I didn’t have time to develop a lot of attributes, so Gabriel was perfect: a pure technician.

The entire process worked, and a similar sequence can work for you, whether you’re training for a job interview or Cirque du Soleil.