This isn’t the interesting, focussed blog you might have been looking for…

"Pica Pica" has replaced my old blog at google, but without the dharma related material, which has gone to the chagchen site under the DangZang title, and without the translation material, which is now at my work site.

Oh yes, it's by Alex Wilding

Archive

Categories

  • Stomach ulcers amongst Tibetan monks
    Coincidentally this article is from the ABC and refers to people in Sydney! http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2010/s2915471.htm Not astounding, but interesting all the same. […]
  • Slow activity
    Yes, things have been very slow here. I’ve been preparing to move across the world again, and the move is now due to happen in the next few days. I should resurface in the “land of the moon”, Lunigiana, the northern tip of Tuscany, in one or two weeks time, and I hope that things will […]
  • Is Buddhism changing, and is that a corruption?
    Recently I was asked: Do you think that Tibetan Buddhism (and Buddhism) have been corrupted by Western influences? It seems like most Westerners interpret, or want to interpret, Buddhism as a religion with a much more social-activist and political bent. This is probably partly because most Westerners are pretty ignorant of Buddhism. However, as Westerner [.. […]
  • The wheel of life and death
    Tony Blair from top to bottom […]
  • Karmapa’s visit to Europe
    This news is well-known now, but I wanted to add my enthusiasm: http://www.karmapa-in-europe.net/ […]
  • Apple connives with the PRC government
    Dalai Lama purged from Apple apps in China […]
  • “Faith Traditions”- what?
    "Faith tradition" emasculates spirituality […]
  • Why am I not excited?
    His Holiness the Dalai Lama is in Sydney […]
Saturday April 11th, 2009. Posted by Alex:

Last week's tango lesson

The Patio de tango website has been down for more than a week, which is bad news for them. But here is the summary from last week’s lesson at Bondi, concentrating on forward and backward ochos:

Saturday March 14th, 2009. Posted by Alex:

Tango lessons

Tango lessons are usually Thursday night at the Spanish Club, but we couldn’t make it this week, so went for our Level 1 Lesson 6 to a different venue, Bondi Pavilion, this afternoon. The clip shows Pedro and Maria doing the steps from “Level 1″, although with more decoration – not to mention more elegance and panache – than we beginners can.

You can read about them at the Patio de Tango website.

Thursday March 5th, 2009. Posted by Alex:

Dancing shoes

New shoes – suitable for a tanguero! We must be getting serious about tango!

The problem is now for me to dance well enough to justify having such amazing objects of style on my feet!

Sunday January 4th, 2009. Posted by Alex:

Real deal tango

After all those years when learning to dance seemed like a great idea to do “sometime“, Sarah and I went to an introductory tango session on Saturday, and are fired up to have lessons at Patio de Tango.

The teacher was really reassuring, and started at the very beginning: first, just stand there. Then progress to shifting your weight back and forth from one foot to the other. Later we progressed to walking forward, using first one foot, then the other! And so on.

At this stage I just want to stress that this is Argentine tango, not ballroom tango (or the “dreaded slow-slow-quick-quick-slow” as it seems to be known).