A little bit of 'nuevo'

Now who would have thought all that practice with good dancers dancing 'milonguero' style (i.e. v intense unbroken close embrace) would transfer directly into throwing crazy nuevo in an (unbroken, rather 'apilado') v-embrace? I haven't done this for a really long time but I delivered it much better than I ever have before. And otherwise I thought I'd largely lost what I'd gained (not all of it, but a big chunk of it).

It's not the style that I feel most naturally but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. It's not as intense mentally, and it's a lot more physically demanding, but it's really musical when it works and I love it.

This particular partner dances very musically and we were dancing to a tanda that included "Recien", a piece I like very much, and I feel this style works well with that kind of music, so I could do it sincerely. However, few people who dance that style would choose to invite me if there were alternative partners who dance it regularly (in this case there I don't think there were).

It has practical problems in that it's big and requires a lot of space, which is one reason I really wish we had enough actually-good milongas that there could be a real 'nuevo' one where there was good music, plenty of room and not quite such a mix of styles and competencies (which makes it so much harder for the leaders). At least you need the space. It wasn't crowded, so we got away with it, but it's not ideal.