Connection, as I've come to see it, is not something created. It's not some posture or some line of force that we create with someone. It's not affected. It arises from our manner of being. Our posture, the way we use our bodies, the position of our bodies, our intentions. All these things affect our connection to another.
As our issues, lusts, fears, desires, and aversions become present in our posture, we convey these to our partner. How does our partner respond? How should they respond? There are as many responses as we see in everyday human interaction. The perfect man, the perfect dancer approaches all with love, accepting and simultaneously appropriating everything. Only with this person do we feel supremely comfortable. But where is the dancer like this? Most of us step onto the floor and try to politely lumber through a dance that may make us feel very uncomfortable. Our emotional instabilities surge through our connection in the form of tension, dependence upon the balance of the other, pushes, pulls, headbutts, etc.
My head and shoulders droop forward. This is my escape from the world. It's a protection for my heart - the avoidance of connecting with another. My eyes are cast downwards, and they do not accept what arrives in front of me. I hide and run. As my shoulders hunker forward, I literally push into my partner. I try to decrease this reliance and hold my own, but without noticing it, I tend to revert back to this state. This is the most obvious example, but there are so many more. For instance, I stay locked up in my pelvic floor - not letting my glutes and lower back do their proper work. Most of the weight of my body is diverted to the outer muscles of my legs, near the IT bands. The inner legs don't do enough work, and the pressures of the day are directed at my knees. This has an emotional basis, and it plays out in my dance in countless ways.
I've become fascinated with an author named Louise Hay who worked for many years on emotional issues with people. She took copious notes, and began to see patterns - namely, that certain emotional issues appeared with certain physical issues. It's not a surprise to most of us when someone droops their head that this has a certain meaning in their life, but Louise Hay takes this concept surprisingly far, matching particular issues with particular body parts - down to individual vertebrae.
In a partnered dance, we approach each other with our entire being. There is nothing hidden, and when we try to hide (as in the case of my shoulders), there is always an outlet. What happens when two people, with their own particular issues, come together? Is it a wrestling match? Is one person sacrificing all their comfort and desires to another? Is it some match of issues, so that we actually feel comfortable with each other? Is it a diversion? Is it creation?
Occasionally I see a glimpse of the dance I want to dance - it's rarely more than one or two steps long. I don't know how to describe it. It is what you think - just what a healthy relationship is. But, really, what is that? Everything is conveyed without the intention of controlling or depending on the other. I stand. You stand. We merge. If I can give no better answer, Whitman can at least describe the sentiment:
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"Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away."
-Song of Myself, 137-139
