Followers technique for Connection - Who owns the embrace

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As followers, we tell ourselves all kinds of stories.
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Maybe the leaders do too, but I know the followers do.
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And one of the things we tell ourselves is that the leaders hold us
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and then they move us,
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and that's not really what happens.
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So what does happen?
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What happens is that we hold each other, and
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my holding him is exactly as important as his holding
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me, and there are ways that we can test that.
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So as an example, if
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she was not holding on with this left arm at all-
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If she were
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... if she were not holding on with this left arm at all, you get a grammar lesson,
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too.
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Then right here you can say, "Well, can we lead, follow?
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Can we dance comfortably?" And I think most people, the answer to this question
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would be yes. But then we can reverse it and say, well, her
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left arm should be just as important as my right arm.
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So what if he let go and now it's her left arm?
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And this is actually, for most people, remarkably harder.
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Well, it isn't for me, but one of the things we need to be, as followers, we need
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to be willing to do in that exercise is hold as
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however tight we need to in order to make a connection between our bodies
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work.
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So in slow motion,
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and let's do more of a close-up for this.
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For the followers, first of all, it's going to be much more
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pressure than you expect. That when I'm here, if I move
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towards her in super slow motion,
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she needs to be able to get a sense of stopping me just a little,
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find the connection through her body, and then use that to
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move. And at the beginning, you will feel like, wow, this is much too much
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effort, much too much muscle. It can't be right.
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It can be.
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Yeah. For learning the skill, it's right.
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And then once you get the skill, in time, you can do it faster and softer.
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That's right.
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So when the leader does this-
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But by the way, it's a long road
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... when the leader does this, he'll say, "Well, I have to push through my arm
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without letting my arm yield." Now the pressure goes through your arm without your
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arm yielding. Try that. And not just that with the left arm,
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but with the other arm, too. With your right arm, you can
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push in gently towards him. So if you just watch this arm, if you do
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nothing, Mom.
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Do nothing?
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Yeah, just to be a statue.
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Oh, okay.
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So if I'm here
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grabbing this hand,
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I just pressed in.
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But-
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You said be a statue
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...
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But you're actively
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pushing out just a little to match rather than being completely a
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rock.
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Okay. I'm too literal. Okay.
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So,
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you push in on me.
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And let go. Do that many times.
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So here she pushes in, the pressure goes through my body.
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Now next time, don't move.
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I said don't move.
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Don't move.
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Here I pushed her. You push me.
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There she pushed me. Stop. There I pushed her.
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Oh, this is a good exercise.
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So as a follower, when your hands come together very
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softly, I want you to have this exercise of sometimes
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he pushes towards your body gently,
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and then lets go, and sometimes you push towards his.
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Because we can say even this side, the same as the other side, both
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people can initiate.