Tango and Emotions

Article from Tango-E-Vita

Tangueros have a fetish for feet, the way a foot touches the floor. However, it is still the face that shows the difference between hard work and exaltation. A less obvious component of emotion is the set of internal bodily changes caused by the smooth muscles and glands. Chemicals secreted by the body's various glands are activated during emotion and spread to other parts of the body, usually by the blood, to act in diverse ways on the nervous system and other organs. Smooth muscles of the digestive system, circulatory system, and other bodily components can shift from their typical level or type of operation during emotion under the effects of chemical and neural action. This component includes some behaviors that can be observed, such as dilation of the iris of the eye (copulating gaze), possibly erection of the hair, and sweating, blanching, and flushing of the skin, and other responses that are relatively hidden, such as heart rate and saliva production. Another less observable component in emotion consists of the imagery, fantasy-thoughts that occur during dancing. The facial and bodily behaviors called "emotion expressions" are indicators of emotion, as opposed to effecting some action or achieving some goal. These expressions can differentiate one emotion from another. The most widely discussed and investigated emotion expressions are the emotion faces. Emotion expression is an area of controversy, but at the descriptive level, some behaviors tend to occur with other components of emotion, and seem to reveal the quality of the emotion to an observer. Most psychologists can probably agree on a description of emotion, called the "components of emotion" here. These components are distinguished on the basis of physiological or psychological factors and include emotion faces, emotion elicitors, and emotion neural processes. The component that seems to be the core of common sense approaches to emotion, the one that most people have in mind when talking about human emotions, is the feeling component, i.e., the passion or sensation of emotion. Expression implies a revelation about the characteristics of a person, a message about something internal to the expresser. In the context of the face and nonverbal communication, expression usually implies a change of a visual pattern over time. The expression of a given face at a specific time is conveyed by a composite of signals from several sources of facial appearance. These sources include the general shape, orientation (pose), and position of the head, the shapes and positions of facial features (e.g., eyes, mouth), coloration and condition of the skin, shapes of wrinkles, folds, and lines, and so forth. Some of these sources are relatively fixed; others, more changeable. The most important source of change in facial expression is the set of muscular movements produced by facial muscles, which provide the most substantial changes in facial appearance over short time durations and contribute most to nonverbal communication by the face. Corresponding to the several sources of expressive information in the face are the many nonverbal communication messages that the face can provide. Some of these messages are validly related to characteristics of the person behind the face, some are fabrications of the viewer unrelated to the real person, and others lie somewhere between these two extremes. Much of the research on the face is centered on discovering the messages that fit into these different categories. Perceptions of performances are mostly seen from the point of view of the audience, reducing it to the privileged senses which are sight and hearing, reducing the act of dancing to its elegant and stylish visual image. Enacting inside bodily feelings somehow makes them more real, they are observed visually and processed cognitively. To make true contact in a conscious way, the signals must have the time to be explored and experienced by the body. In a way, all inner feelings can be iconographically displayed in nearly obligatory postures. Bodily postures express, reinforce and can even challenge inner attitudes. Sensations of the body affect the spirit. Yet, their intensity relates to all senses, they are all engaged during dancing. All of them play a shining part and it becomes a thing in itself. Through physical sensations, the act of dancing can make you recognize meanings on a bodily level, as if remembering something very much lost. There seems to be no essential difference between the language of seduction and the language of performance.

In sexual matters one often thinks that the sculpted bodies and the sensuality are the irresistible magnets. But there is a sexto sentido, the smell in the interpersonal relations showed that alone smelling clothing put on from other individuals - we can establish their sex, their age and, if they are more or little attractive, or even evoking a repulsion. The sex appeal actually goes to natural substances called feromonas. Feromona is a word that derives from two Greek words: pheran to (transfer) and horman to (excite). This substance is the one that the animals produce and that affects the reproductive behavior of another animal of the same species, and it acts distantly. Men and women produce variable quantities of "masculine" feromonas - the androsterona and the androsterol-, but only the women secrete the "feminine" feromonas of the coitus. The odore of the women in the fertile period is more sexy than in other periods of the cycle. Though we are not conscious of the feromonas of another person, we them cannot " smell " in the traditional sense, they have an important impact in us. Feromonas seem to affect the general impressions of the people. The ferormônios are distinguished from hormones, because hormones are set free internally and exert influence on the metabolism of the individual, while that the ferormoni are set free external, with activity on individuals. The property that characterizes these "skin extracts" is that they are in a position to provoke a sexual excitement also in absence of consciousness. The feromonas send signs which are catched by the vemeronasal organ (OVN), it is inside the nose. The órgano vomeronasal transmits these messages to the part of the brain that governs the most basic human sensations, as happiness, rage, love, hate and sexual awakening. The vomeronasal organ consists of a pair of very small graves that are to both sides of septo nasal. This structure is a sensorial organ. Plastic surgeons also are interested in the controversy around the órgão vomeronasal. After all, sometimes they surgically remove this sixth sense when making the perfect nose sculpture.

Tangoflow :
Some people become so deeply focused when dancing, they experience an almost euphoric state of joy and pleasure in the process. They lose track of time, are highly alert and feel they are moving to the top of their ability.
Flow is the sense of inspired freedom that comes when you lose yourself completely in an activity, allowing time, duty and worry to melt away.
Flow it is a a state of deep focus that occurs when people engage in challenging tasks that demand intense concentration and commitment.
Flow occurs when a person’s skill level is perfectly balanced to the challenge level of a task that has clear goals and provides immediate feedback. For dancers, steps flow out in a continuous, creative stream.

When an individual is engaged in a well defined task of his own choosing that is both challenging and within his capacities, he will experience optimal experience during its performance.

A flow-type experience includes one or more of the following features,
they are the elements that make experiences enjoyable:

- A task we have a possibility of completing/completus, a chance to make whole or perfect.
- Ability to concentrate on the task, merging action and awareness.
- The task has clear goals and provides immediate feedback.
- We act from a deep but effortless involvement that removes quotidian concerns, deep involvement transcending distractions and the awareness of time.
- We have a sense of control over actions.
- Absorption of self , concern for self disappears during the task, but the sense of self is stronger after the flow experience is over.
- Expansion of self through experience, the sense of the passage of time alters.

The Path to Flow :
1. Make it a game
Look at your task as a game. Establish rules, objectives, challenges to be overcome, and rewards.
2. Powerful Goal
As you play the game, remind yourself frequently of the overriding spiritual, social, or intellectual purpose that drive your efforts.
3. Focus
Release your mind from all distractions, from within or without. Focus your entire attention on the game.
4. Surrender to the Process
Let go. Don't strive or strain to achieve your objective. Just enjoy the process of work.
5. Ecstasy
This is the natural result of the preceding four steps. It will hit you suddenly, by surprise. But there will be no mistaking it.
6. Peak Productivity
Your ecstatic state opens vast reservoirs of resourcefulness, creativity, and energy. Your productivity and quality of work shoot through the roof.

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the world’s leading researcher on this subject and positive psychology, a joyful life is an individual creation that cannot be copied from a recipe... Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.