It’s Festival Time! Maybe the festival is in town or perhaps you have travelled to another country. Either way, you have prepared your best dancing clothes, signed up for workshops and milongas and you are totally psyched for the weekend.

After a day of workshops, you have cleaned up and made your way to the milonga. Even though your feet are still sore from the afternoon, you can’t wait to dance.

You found a seat at a nice table. You scan the room looking for a partner. One mirada and cabaceo later, you are on the floor melding with your partner and preparing to dance.

Instead, you enter the arena of combat tango.

Combat tango is what you experience when the people around you decide that floor craft and etiquette can be tossed out the window because they will dance their dance the way they want regardless of how many people are on the floor or how much room they have.

Leaders don’t respect the line of dance, lanes or rondo or however the floor is moving. Followers kick their heels as high as they wish. Couples helicopter their way through turns and spins as if they are the only people on the planet.

If you encounter this circumstance and you wish to survive, you have few options.

One option is to sit out. Wait, that isn’t an option.

So that means you must train and execute your very best style of ninja tango dancing.

Try to dance where others aren’t. Look for the spaces wherever possible. Estimate the trajectory of the heliocouples and move out of the target area before they arrive. And if you are the leader, put yourself in between the worst offender and your partner. You might have to take a hit to make a point.

A last ditch effort would be to wear armor. At least when the inevitable collisions happen, you won’t be bruised.

P.S. Dancing in Underarmor, if you prefer it to steel outer armor, is very comfortable.