Wednesday, August 25, 2010

What Tango is all about




There used to be a time, when boys would covet the ability to dance tango, well. They would train after school, with each other, and a maestro, perfecting walking, following, leading, listening and understanding the fundamentals of the Tango. And they had a reason, reason was to impress a girl. The Milongas where the place to socialize and pick up ladies. You needed to dance well, if you had any chance to sway a woman. What happened to those days?

The time, effort, precision has somehow dissipated to a place of mediocracy. The importance of dancing well has been replaced with learning how to dance. Learning the steps and maneveurs out weigh connection and grace. Men can stomp along to get through a tanda and it's somehow acceptable, maybe even encouraged by the "teachers ", who give them the thumbs up. Why? Why are you encouraging movement that should be left in the closet? Perhaps this is too harsh of a statement, after all how do you get better if not without practice? But can there be a way to skip over the awkward leads, to fluid beauty without suffering? I think not, not yet at least. The follower, the female, must foster her craft as well. Can't merely get by on following and guessing. Proper balance of axis, weight distribution, connection, listening, confidence, creativity, and experience playa lot farther down the line.

The solution might simply be to practice as you know how. Ask for advice. Take privates if at all possible, with real maestros (as) and dance, a lot. Read about the history. Make friends and practice more. that's the way.
good night.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Thereau- Walden

Ch: Economy:

impertinent (rude, or behavior that is out of place)

but very nature pertinent (relevant).

"confined to this theme by the very narrowness of my experience."

outward condition or circumstances in this world approved to be doing penance.


immortal souls crushed and smothered under its load creeping down the road of life. But men

labor under a mistake;

as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.


to a blundering oracle.

"most men, even in this comparatively free country,

through mere ignorance or mistake,

are so occupied with the factitious (artificially created)

cares and superfluously (unnecessary) coarse labors (of life)...

that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil,

are to clumsy and tremble too much for that."


"cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men"

he has no time to be anything but a machine.


"The finest qualities of our nature can be preserved only by the most delicate

handling."

to treat ourselves and one another so tenderly.


Hardiness goes naked with impunity (exemption from punishment. immunity)


"Man's body is a stove and food and fuel keeps up the internal combustion in the lungs"~ Liebig

"All men want, something to do, or rather something to Be."


"A stereotyped but unconscious despair

is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements

of mankind. There is no play in them since they come after work"

But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.


Catechism

(a summary of the principles of Christianity that uses questions and answers for instruction)

"chief end of man is to glorify GOD and to enjoy him forever."

"and what are the true necessaries and means for life?"


Never to late to give up our prejudices.


No way of thinking or doing can be trusted without proof.

"my own experience has been so partial... as they believe."


Here is LIFE, an experiment to a great extent untried by me


Hinderances to the elevation of mankind

Life of luxury (the fruit is the luxury).


"courtier" (adviser to the king or queen)- like- success.

But if my jacket and trouser, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do,

will they not?

"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes; and not rather a new wearer of clothes."



"I do not mean to prescribe rules

(to strong and valiant natures who will mind their own affairs, who build lavishly and spend riches,

without ever impoverishing themselves;

nor to those who find their encouragement and inspiration in precisely

the the present condition of things, and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers;

i do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know if they are well employed;

but mainly

to the masses of men who

are discontented and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot

or of the times. who complain most energetically;

or the seemingly wealthy, who have accumulated (rubbish) and not know what to do with it, or how to get rid of it"




To stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and the future which is precisely the present moment;

to toe that line.


Symbols for the unattainable things of life.


Anticipate Nature herself.

enterprise- of being present for the sun's rising;

trying to hear what was in the wind;

to hear and carry it express.

My pain where their own reward.


Worst vice (wrongdoing) betrayed is

improvidence (inability to predict; thoughtlessness)

(double negative. in other words best virtue maintained is the thoughtfulness and foresight.)


Who shall say what prospect life offer to another?

Live in all the ages of the world in an hour.

One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.


I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.


an incurable disease, this incessant anxiety and strain

made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do, and yet how much is not

done by us!


All change is a miracle to contemplate. but it is a miracle that is taking place every instant.



Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in town. Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off,-- that the lawyer had only to weave arguments, and by some magic wealth and standing followed, he had said to himself: I will go into business; I will weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he had made the baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be the white man's to buy them. He had not discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other's while to buy them, or at least make him think that it was so, or to make something else which would be worth his while to buy."


yet in my case, I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate nature, by instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to by my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.



To know that we know what we know, and that we don't know what we do not know,

that is true knowledge. ~ Confucius


imagination reduced to ---> fact.





Monday, August 9, 2010

Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)

"if all consciousness was eliminated, vital physiological processes would continue virtually unchanged. Deeper states of unconsciousness are not necessarily more dangerous, as long as nourishment is provided... Survival under these conditions is possible because routine adjustments in physiological sustems are made by the ANS oustide our conscious awareness."

... ANS regulates: body temperature; coordinates cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, excretory, reproductive functions. It adjusts water, electrolyte, nutrient, and disolved-gas concentrations in body fluids.

Opposed to the Somatic Nervous System (SNS), that extends from the Central Nervous System, contacts and exerts direct control over the skeletal muscles.

Motor control
ANS- [the afferent sensory information of the ANS is processed in the CNS, and then the efferent impulses are sent to effector organs-- such as smooth muscles, cardiac muscle and glands] .
At least 2 neurons are involved in the pathways, one always in the periphery; Motor control involves- Preganglionic neuron- which send axons to synapse on ganlionic neurons whose cell bodies are outside the CNS.

So, the receptor and effector organ locations differ from the SNS. The arrangement of the neurons connecting to the CNS also differs.

Sympathetic- fight or flight. Preganglionic fibers in the thoracic and upper lumbar segments synapse. Stimulates tissure metabolism, increases alertness, prepares the the body to deal with emergencies.

Parasympathetic or Craniosacral division- preganglionic fibers originating in either the brain stem (Cranial nerves: 3, 7, 9, 10) or the sacral spinal cord. Rest and Repose. conserves energy, and promote digestion.

p. 452