The art of following

Finding balance between surrender and strength

Fingertips barely touching. That's all the connection between us—just the edge of my index finger against his palm. Not gripping. Not clutching. Just there.

The Legion's upstairs room smells of pine floor cleaner and woodsmoke from the stove the floor below.

Through frost-edged windows, the Bay of Fundy appears as a dark expanse beyond winter-stripped trees. The red bluffs catch what little moonlight filters through low clouds.

My cargo pants swish against wool socks—I've abandoned my Ferragamo heels after the first song, needing to feel the floor beneath me. My reflection in the darkened windows: stocking cap askew, oversized Pilates shirt, a study in mismatched layers.

"Create tension," he says, lifting our joined hands slightly. I lock my elbow. Wrong.

"Not tension like that," he laughs. "Like this." He pulls away slightly, maintaining a constant, gentle pressure between us. When he shifts left, the pressure on my palm changes microscopically.

"Let the man lead," one of the male instructors calls out, noticing my resistance. I feel a flicker of something—annoyance? amusement?—but let it pass. This isn't about gender politics. It's about physics, about connection.

Have you ever tried to surrender control while maintaining your integrity? The paradox lives in that impossible space.

In the shopping cart exercise, my eyes close. Darkness. His hand moves right—my body doesn't follow. Too stiff. He can't steer me anywhere.

"Relax," a different partner suggests later. I let my frame collapse entirely, shoulders rounded, arms limp. He sighs. "Not that much."

The three-count of the waltz continues. One-two-three, one-two-three. Bodies move around us in organized chaos. My gaze finds the EXIT sign across the room, anchoring there during each turn to keep balance.

Weeks pass. The same room, different evening. Something changes.

His hand presses infinitesimally against mine. Without thinking, my body responds. My shoulder blades expand rather than contract, pressing back into his touch. The space between us becomes elastic, alive with communication.

When was the last time you felt yourself responding before your mind had time to interfere?

He steps backward; I follow. Not because I'm watching his feet—my eyes are actually focused on the junction of his neck and shoulder—but because I feel the subtle shift in his center of gravity through our connected palms.

When he guides me into a spin, my core engages automatically. Not rigid, not loose—activated. While turning, my eyes fix momentarily on a knot in the wooden wall before whipping back. The room blurs but I remain steady.

During a dip, my spine arches but my abdominals engage. The illusion of abandonment while maintaining complete control. If he were to disappear in that moment, I would remain balanced, self-contained.

When he releases my hand during a combination, there's no anxiety. The connection remains across empty space, like a magnetic pull that will bring us back together eight counts later, exactly on cue.

My conscious mind registers all this later. In the moment, there is only movement, only response. The thinking part of me has gone quiet. My body reads his intentions through that single point of contact, a language with no words.

I wonder how many conversations we have each day where we're neither truly leading nor following—just waiting for our turn to speak?

After, standing by the coat rack, I realize my jaw is relaxed, my shoulders dropped naturally. Something has shifted. Not just in dance—in knowing what it means to follow while remaining wholly myself.

What might change if we approached each other with this same quality of attentive responsiveness? If we created enough tension to feel direction, but enough freedom to move with grace?

Happy Sunday.

xoxo,

Lara

Still dancing, still trying.