What an incredibly frustrating book! I loved the exercises, because approaching tango from the bottom up as a mindfulness practice really works for me. I enjoyed the insights about the relationship between the assertive aspects of leading and the receptive aspects of following, and how they each contain the other.

But the author's insistent connection of the energy of leading with men and the energy of following with women made it very hard to get the good stuff out of the book. I found it transparently sexist, but in the kind of sexism that you from people who are confident that they are just expressing how things are and not making a value judgement. Indeed, the author goes to great lengths to distance herself from traditional sexism, which is what makes it all the more maddening. Why, I would ask her, can't she just call it assertive and receptive energy, rather than "male" and "female"?

Posted by Michael on 8/26/05; 11:19:41 PM