It's Just Like Riding a Bike......

Getting Back on the Bike

We all know the saying “It’s just like riding a bike - you never forget”. True enough, once you have reached a certain level of accomplishment with a skill it remains with you, embedded in muscle memory and cognitive response. At least that’s the idea - right?

My first bike was too big for me, but I didn’t care, it meant freedom and at any rate, my parents told me I would grow into it. I enjoyced in the feeling of the wind in my hair (no helmets in those days) as I wizzed across the little bridge that went over the drainage canal on my way to the library and my beloved books every Saturday afternoon. Or around to the local milk bar to get my dad his cigarettes (different times) or up and across the big busy main road to my best friend’s. In my early bike riding days I had a few scrapes, a couple of them memorable. One time I was going too slow, and tipped over breaking my arm, another time the cord from my beach bag caught in the front wheel and I went head first over the handle bars - the graze marks showed for months. But I always got back on, and off I went, free as a little sparrow on a dewy spring morning.

“A quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to it’s old dimensions” might sum it all up”

So, as restrictions imposed by COVID-19 pandemic are slowly lifted, are we simply going to be able to “get back on our bikes” and resume where we left off, or will we be a changed person entering a changing world. I believe that there are very few of us who want things to remain exactly as they were. We have a unique opportunity to be able to step back and observe what is working for us and what’s not. To look at our lives with a new perspective. A quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions”, might sum it all up. It is important that we take our time, hopping on the bike again may not be as easy as we think. There may be some skills that we will need to explore again, and adapt, energy levels may be low, the mind and body may be feeling contained and restricted.

Lets go back to my bike riding experiences for a moment. On holiday in Bali a few years ago I thought it was a good idea to go for a bike riding tour. This entailed a car ride to the top of a volcano, breakfast and then a bike ride back to the village where I was staying. Too easy. What I hadn’t taken into consideration was the time span between my last bike ride and this one. It wasn’t that I was unfit or incapable of riding the bike, but I was unpractised and although for the most the part the ride went well, I was a little shaky and lacking in confidence. The result being, that while trying to navigate the tiny tracks around the rice paddies, I ended up sitting spread legged in one. Nothing other than my pride was injured. So whilst we may still have the skills to pursue our life work, leisure interests and passions, it might be sound for us to look at them in a new light, explore and find new skills. To take it slow without creating expectations and imposing pressure upon ourselves. To see what unfolds. Perhaps life isn’t like a box of chocolates as Forrest Gump stated, perhaps is more like a bike ride. With extra energy needed when pushing uphill, control and easing the downhill, negotiating the curves, (and the paddy fields) and enjoying the flat straight bits.

“I hope you will join me in a new adventure, new classes with a different energy, new perspectives with positive outcomes”.

My passion and expertise lies within teaching, performing and dancing Argentinian Tango and when we are able to start dancing tango again - and we will, I hope you will join me in a new adventure, new classes with a different energy, new perspectives with positive outcomes. When you are ready to get back on your tango bike or if you have never danced tango before, but would like to start a tango adventure,I have prepared a new class format that I will be unfolding, designed to ease us back into dancing the tango we love. The classes will be based on somatic movement, fluidity, musicality, technique and connection built from a tango base and for a while, working as individuals. But there is no urgency, when you are ready, The Tangueria-Sidewalk Tango team will be there waiting for you.