There is a conversation going on here that has been happening in my head for awhile.
When I am in the embrace of a lead, I am surrendering a certain amount of my own direction. I follow his lead, I take the steps he leads and hopefully, we find a synchronicity. One of the few true decisions I retain is the intention I bring to the dance.
When I step, what is my intention? When I place my arm along his shoulder, what is my intention? Am I completely connecting? Am I holding something in reserve? Am I allowing myself to be vulnerable and open enough to the dance?
I think the key is that my body is the vehicle of the extension of the lead's energy. When I feel him make the intention, I allow that intention to move my body in response.
When I surrender, or submit, to my lead's intention, what I really am saying is, "I hear what you are asking of me, and I will allow you to use my body to communicate your intention" and this is not in any way passive. This is a conscious acknowledgment on my part that I like your energy, and I like matching it and I enjoy how we move (it) together, and I have my own flavor to mingle with your intention.
And I can stop it cold if I don't like it.
Recently, I have found myself backleading into the music, which is a terrible thing to be doing! I wonder if I am reading the intention of the leader that he isn't following through on, or am I so lost in the music that I miss his subtle cues that he is pulling back from that next step?
Shouldn't there be a symbiotic connection? Shouldn't, or doesn't, my lead read me as I am reading him? I don't want to sacrifice the beauty of the connection to the music at the sake of reading my lead. How do I have both?
3 comments:
that sort of speaks to my own question about tango (from a pre tango mind here): what if I don't want to learn to follow? Or what if I don't want to spend a lot of time following the way men's bodies move to music?
you rock however
For me, It's not following the way men's bodies move to music. It's more of a meeting of two people, who happen to be the genders they are--but typically it's pretty hetero-centered-- and agreeing to fill the roles of the dance. You can't both lead, or things get muddled.
You don't have to follow based on gender. I follow because I like giving it up. I like when that magic moment comes and I can let go and follow...when the dominant can be swept away and the only essence I have to be in is to listen, to agree, to meet, to surrender with strength.
At some point I will want to learn to lead, and there's no reason you can't start as a leader.
You can lead me anytime. :)
And, it's rare to find a woman that can take the lead and do it in a way that makes me want to give in, to give it up. Her touch is too light, too hesitant, too intuitive even, maybe?
I'd like to find that female leader; it would be mind-blowing for me, I expect.
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