Haunted by a past teacher

OK, so I’ve been getting a bit low about my tango lately (see my last few entries) and this bad period was punctuated by a chance meeting with one of my previous tango teachers. He taught me for about three months but by the end, I felt that I could learn a lot more at other schools (for various reasons, not just because of his teaching manner). Now, he had always been a bit disparaging of other teachers’ styles and methods so I was a bit apprehensive when I met him by chance one evening at a milonga in the centre. We made small talk and then he asked me to dance. He threw in quite a few advanced moves which I had not learnt during my time with him but had managed to pick up in the last few months myself. At the end of our tanda, he asked me if I had been learning elsewhere since I’d stopped attending his school. I admitted that I had and then waited with baited breath, knowing he would give me a verdict. Well surprise, surprise, I had failed to impress and he informed me that in the last few months I appeared to have picked up several bad habits namely, a bad embrace and bad posture (my bottom sticks out now and curves my spine). He informed me that I should come back to his classes and he could ‘fix me’ as it was still in its early days.

I must admit to feeling a bit miffed by his comments and I’m inclined to disregard them as even before I left his school, he had a habit of slating other schools but then is that my vanity speaking because I don’t like his comments? Like the obese patient that doesn’t like being criticised for eating too much and is convinced she has a slow metabolism, I’m going to demand a second opinion!