Hi
Frank, I find it hard to believe that your trainer, would be against CONTACT. Perhaps there is some misunderstanding about exactly what you mean by CONTACT and then again maybe not. Perhaps you will expand on what you/ your trainer means after reading this.
Here is my understanding of CONTACT. CONTACT is necessary between the couple for two main reasons:
1. The appearance of perpetual togetherness and the beautiful continuity and blending
of body lines between man and woman. This captures one of the fundamentals of this
artform.
2. The achievement of optimal lead & follow: the amount of swing, turn, sway, direction,
rise & fall, length of stride, expression, etc.
The disadvantages of CONTACT are as you state:
1. Restricted movement.
2. Being unbalanced by your partner.
So the issue is optimal CONTACT, neither too much nor too little, so that you maximize the advantages and minimize the disadvantages. This is precisely what makes standard dancing an artform that makes us gasp in awe when we see it being done to perfection or when we experience it ourselves. How can two people be so together and yet be so fluid and unrestricted?
So what is OPTIMAL CONTACT?
I believe that there are two elements to CONTACT for the purposes of lead & follow:
1. The size of the area of contact. You want to make these areas as large as possible
(long and wide) without adversely affecting your posture or poise. The smaller the area of contact the less information you communicate. You have smaller bandwidth.
2. The amount of tension that exists at the area of contact. One does not want to be forcefully grasping, forcing one's partner backwards, forwards or adversely affecting their balance (the feeling of heaviness or hanging on to each other). But you do want to be able to clearly indicate your actions/ reactions to your partner.
There are 5 areas of contact:
1. Man's left hand to lady's right hand.
2. Man's right hand to ladies back.
3. Lady's left hand to man's upper arm.
4. Lady's left arm (bottom) in contact with top of man's right arm.
5. Lower front of the bodies.
Area 5 (I assume) is the area in question.
Removing area 5 has more disadvantages than advantages:
1. A gap appears (even a slight one) between the couple destroying their appearance of togetherness
and their body lines as a couple.
2. A unnecessary reduction in bandwidth for communications, since it is quite possible to achieve unrestricted movement while maintaining this contact area.
3. You will automatically compensate for the loss of information flow through area 5 by increasing the tension at areas 1-4. This has the effect of you adversely affecting your partner in the ways that I described earlier. Your tops will also take on a stiffer and harder appearance.
4. The correct technique for most figures requires you to treat your body as distinct but integrated blocks of weight on a central axis running from head to toe through the centre of your body. These blocks of weight are the head, chest, hips and legs. What this means in practice is that the blocks of weight align in various ways, turn to varying degrees and move at slightly different speeds relative to each other
as the central axis moves through space. This enables you to achieve a very high quality of movement (flight & balance) and musical expression. The concepts of CBM, CBMP, right/left
side leads, sway, swing, etc, so necessary in the correct execution of all figures, is built on this fundamental idea. The only way to properly
communicate what figure you are dancing, how you want it danced and to provide feedback is by communicating how all the blocks of weight are moving with respect to each other and the central
axis. Having contact at area 5 enables you to do this. Otherwise one is restricted to contact
through the arms, which mainly communicates what one's top is doing.
I agree with Melissa that a practice hold (without area 5) is necessary as a teaching or practice aid in the introduction of a figure. However I hold the opinion that a figure can only be danced optimally (technically correct) once there is full contact (areas 1-5) between the couple.
Len.
