Imagine that you're walking down the street with a small child. You hold the child's hand to keep them beside you and away from hazards.
Anytime you approach a potentially dangerous situation - an intersection, a passing dog, or if the child tries to dash away from you - you can respond by increasing the pressure on their hand, and if necessary, by adding tension to your arm.
However, most of the time your arm will be relaxed, and the pressure on the child's hand will be only as much as is needed to maintain connection.
If you can stretch your imagination and picture yourself as the child in this situation, you should feel a sense of assurance from the hand of the adult. If the grip is too tight, it will feel domineering and unpleasant. If it's too loose, it will feel as though they're not paying attention and they might slip away.
The Embrace
This is an effective analogy for the optimal level of muscular engagement in the tango embrace.
The embrace needs to be comfortable and reassuring. It should never feel domineering or unnecessarily rigid. Nor should it feel flimsy, disconnected, or unsupportive.
Look around the room at your next milonga. I'll predict that the quality of the embrace will vary somewhat from couple to couple.
Some embraces will seem rigid, while others seem more relaxed.
Some dancers will seem to be comfortable within the embrace of their partners. Others, less so.
You might see an embrace that looks as though it's restricting the movement, causing stumbling awkwardness.
Someone might be pulling their partner closer or holding them rigidly at a fixed distance. What would change if these dancers relaxed some of that muscular tension?
You might notice a follower who uses her partner's embrace in order to steady her balance from time to time. What might change in the embrace if the follower were able to maintain her own stability?
Optimizing the Comfort Zone
I've written about the embrace before, and I always come back to the same set of terms: comfort, reassurance, functionality.
First and foremost, the embrace has to be comfortable.
It has to be a place where you're like to spend some time. No one ever wants to feel dominated, manipulated, clung to, squeezed, knocked off balance, or pushed around.
The embrace has to be functional.
Improvisation and creative expression require freedom of movement. It doesn't do any good to hold onto someone so rigidly as to impede their movement, interfere with their axis, or to block them from putting their feet where they need to step.
And the embrace has to be reassuring.
The follower needs a certain degree of connection in order to feel the lead effectively, but she needs to be able to move freely within the embrace. The leader needs to feel enough connection to sense how the follower is moving so he can make any necessary adjustments in real time.
Maintaining a good embrace requires a fine balance or strength, skill, and sensitivity, but it's critical to seek that balance actively with each partner and in every moment of the dance. The payoff is worth the effort.
¡Buena suerte, amigos, y muchas gracias!
Daniel
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