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Post date: Jan 19, 2015 2:48:31 AM
image: The Daily Love
Sharing this post from Tango Chamuyo: 'How to give a great hug'. It's about the health benefits of hugging and hugging in the context of dancing tango.
"I recommend ten minutes of hugging at the beginning of each class."
"Tango makes it possible for us to get our daily dose of hugs on the dance floor!"
How to give a great hug
Our world is trust deficient. People need to hug more.
We trust when we accept an invitation to dance tango with a stranger. We bring our bodies together and hold one another for three minutes without speaking. This simple act of trust, accompanied by the music of tango, is changing our world for the better.
Have you gotten your 12 hugs today? We need four hugs a day for survival, eight hugs for maintenance, and twelve hugs for growth. It’s unfortunate that certain cultures are touch deficient, but tango dancing is helping to change that. There is no deficiency in Argentina where hugs and touching are common. Tango makes it possible for us to get our daily dose of hugs on the dance floor!
A good beginning for a tango class is teaching how to hug another person. A hug isn’t common in all cultures. Teachers can’t assume that everyone in class knows how to hug or that they are comfortable with putting their bodies close to others.
A good way to start is lining up the class participants in two rows facing each other. Everyone raises their right arm vertically and extends the left arm horizontally. Then the two rows of people approach and give a full body hug with both arms wrapped around each other where they stay for a minute or so, taking time to breathe and feel the other person. Then one row moves down one place to practice with another person, until everyone has hugged. Men can hug men, women can hug women, too. I recommend ten minutes of hugging at the beginning of each class. Everyone will be more relaxed for class after their daily dose of hugs.
A hug requires trust and no holding back, but that doesn’t mean tight squeezing or discomfort. A half-hearted hug doesn’t count. It may take practice for some to relax and surrender to the hug from a stranger, but it’s worth the effort if one wants to dance tango. Feedback to a partner is proper and often helpful. This is good preparation for going to a milonga where you will dance with others for the first time.
I’m certain that most of you can recall attending your first class that began with the eight-step basic and trying to memorize the sequence. You focused on your feet from the beginning and felt clumsy. When you had to dance the sequence with a partner, it was worse. You had no practice with the most important part of tango — the embrace. If you’re uncomfortable in the embrace, you can’t trust. And if you can’t trust, you can’t dance tango.
Our world needs more tango dancers. Our world needs people who trust one another.
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