Most of my best dancing at milongas happens when I am tired. That may be a strange statement to make but it is true for me. Over the last couple of years I took several trips where I did a lot of sightseeing and walking during the day and then went to milongas at night. I did this a lot while on vacation travelling – Berlin, Prague, Munich, Madrid, and most recently Montreal and Quebec City.



Those were where I did some of my best social dancing ever. Not only was I tired – I was also dancing almost entirely with people who I had never even seen before.

How can I dance better when I am tired than when I am rested? And how can I dance so well with people who I have never seen before when I am tired?

These are questions I thought a lot about lately.

There are several factors at work here. I would like to share these with you because they might also apply to you and help if you try them.

So why do I dance better when I am tired?

It starts with my mental attitude and way of thinking about what makes a good dance. To me, connection is most important – to have a nice embrace and connect well with my partner and the music.

I like to dance a lot, and will dance every tanda as long as the music is good and I can find a willing partner. Being a man and a leader I can choose how fast I dance, how energetic, and how complicated to make it.

I have been to dozens milongas that I have danced every tanda for 3 or 4 hours straight, and was dancing stronger at the end than at the beginning. It may help that I also am a former marathon runner. I know how to pace myself over a long period. I don’t want to have to stop dancing because I am too tired. I also want to avoid working up a sweat while I am on the dance floor. Although I rarely run these days, I do get in plenty of exercise to be able to do this – mostly on the dance floor.

When I am tired I don’t want to needlessly waste a lot energy or effort in my dancing. I also don’t want to tax myself mentally. This means I need to keep things simple. It makes me focus on the music. I simply want to walk and walk on the beat. And I want to take pauses. Since I am tired, pausing gives me a good chance to rest and listen to the music. Listening to the music makes me think about what beats to walk on and how to walk on them. Are they legato and long? Then I should take nice smooth graceful steps. Is the music staccato? Then I need to lead quick choppy steps.

And where are the pauses?

I need to find them.

Pauses are a dancer’s best friend. If I get tired I can simply stop and the two of us can pause in the middle of a song. I could also choose allow myself to rest a bid longer and lead a woman to do ochos or turns without even needing to shift my own weight.

Dancing this way also gets me dancing stronger as the evening goes on as I get more in touch with the music and with the flow of the ronda. I normally dance better after 2 or 3 hours than I do at the very beginning. My tango dancing usually doesn’t begin to fall apart until after 3-1/2 hours of dancing or after 2am. The roughest tandas for me are usually the first 2 or 3 of the evening when I am in the process of warming up.

Proper pacing is important, not just for me, it is good etiquette.

I see guys soaking with sweat 10 years younger than me coming off the dance floor. I see them dancing and taking 3 times as many steps as me. I have to ask myself – what music are they listening to?

They don’t give out prizes to whoever does the most steps in a tanda.

I personally feel that it is rude for the guys to dance too fast and too complicated.

A) It wears out the women and they will need to take extra breaks to recover. And I won’t be able to get dances from women who need to sit out to rest.

B) It makes the women sweaty when they work too hard and will make them feel gross.

C) It makes the men all sweaty and stinky. This also grosses the women out.

D) I don’t really want to be dancing with women soaked in sweat because some guy ran her around the floor or sweated on her. At that point I can’t tell if it is her sweat or guy’s sweat on them but it really doesn’t matter.

A huge advantage of dancing simply is I don’t need to worry much about who I am dancing with. As long as she has a good attitude, has a nice embrace, and can walk and pivot and turn I don’t need much more. And even if the woman is tired she will have no problem keeping up with me.

The only hazard I ever really need to worry about is a follower will occasionally have such a stiff open side arm that she could give me a sore shoulder after 2 or 3 songs. If this happens to me late in the night it may take a couple of tandas with relaxed followers before my shoulder feels better. But in dancing simply we should both be more relaxed. I will usually be too tired to be tense or will be trying hard to conserve energy and remain relaxed.

Since I don’t have to worry much about who I am dancing with, I have a much wider selection of partners to choose from. This helps keep me from sitting too long. If I sit out two or more tandas in a row I tend to stiffen up and find it hard to get back into the ‘zone’. Then I need a few songs to get warmed up again.

When I am tired I know I need to focus on my connection and don’t want to waste any energy on trying to impress people. I don’t feel a need to try to show off. I don’t try to impress the out of town instructors with my moves, or try to do flashy sequences to try to show my skills as a dancer to attract students. One thing I find interesting is that I rarely bump into people or get bumped into at milongas. But when there is a small collision, more often than not, it is with an instructor doing flashy moves and taking up too much space.

For me at a milonga it is nice not to have to worry about trying to make sure I am in the proper position to be able to make sacadas or ganchos or try to figure out if the woman I am dancing with can even do those moves. I also don’t have to try to mentally calculate if I have enough space for the fancy moves. Dancing tired makes me keep it simple. Then I can just react to the other dancers on the floor and stay out of trouble and avoid collisions and keep my place in the line of dance.

As a man, I feel very fortunate at the milongas because I get to use all of these techniques to my advantage. I can control my pacing and style and complexity. If I am tired I can slow down. I can also afford to have a glass of wine or two at a milonga without it affecting my dancing.

Unfortunately, the opposite for women. Women have very little control at milongas aside from choosing when not to dance and who to accept cabeceos from. Once she is on the dance floor she is at the mercy of her leader. If a tanda of fast music is playing and the man is dancing fast the whole time there is very little she can do to stop this. She could try to resist to slow him down – which may result in a power struggle. One bad tanda from a leader who exhausts her by dancing too fast or steps on her foot or has a strange embrace that hurts her back can make a woman need to sit out several tandas or can even finish her off for the night.

For me, dancing in simple manner with a focus on good connection helps me be a better dancer when I am tired. When I travel and still want to go to a milonga at night I feel like I don’t need to cut my day short to rest up too much for a milonga. It is reassuring to know that I can walk around all day and sightsee and still be able to dance well at the milonga at night-even if I am tired.

Do other men find this is true? How about women? I would love to hear your comments on this topic.