My Personal Peace Movement

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In late 2006, I arrived in Buenos Aires with hair under my fingernails and blood in my eye. I was down and out after a long relationship ended. I had done the unspeakable—pulled the other woman’s hair. Along with three suitcases, I had brought my chagrin, broken heart and adequate skills in dancing tango. I intended to stay two months and chill (and give her peace of mind). But after two days of dancing tango in the place of its birth, I canceled my return ticket. I stayed a year and a half.

Doing tango, a dance that elevates the hug to an art form, day in and day out didn’t just feel good—I began to notice that tango gave me the same euphoric effects I had long sought in practicing yoga and meditation. I needed relief from my raging emotions during that dark period. I pined by day and danced by night. It didn’t take me long to learn the Latin culture, the etiquette for dancing tango in the venerable salons of Argentina, where men and women are seated in separate sections. The man beckoned with a nod of his head (called a cabeceo); I strode wordlessly into his arms. I danced with the best. I danced with the worst. And everything in between.

After six months, by my most conservative estimate, I was leaning into more than a hundred male torsos a week. I began to feel happy, even off the dance floor. I perceived numerous subtle and not-so-subtle changes going on inside of me. Physically, I felt ageless, timeless. My face relaxed into a line-free smile and looked its best in the wee hours of the morning after I had spent all night in dance halls. Psychologically, I recovered from my poor-me funk. My confidence level soared.

Researchers have begun to give scientific support to tango’s untapped medicinal powers, showing how the dance benefits sufferers of arthritis, clinical depression, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and heart disease. Professors, you don’t have to tell me. My personal evidence of the healing power of tango is much more startling than any controlled studies.

I was dabbling in swing and some ballroom dance when tango inexplicably lured me away. I was the most unlikely candidate for glamorous, it-takes-two tango. I was an athlete. The bulk of my wardrobe came from mail order catalogues. My physical activity had to be highly aerobic, like cycling and swimming. I enjoyed workouts that didn’t require dependence on anyone else. You can imagine my clunky footwear didn’t include one pair of spike heels.