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Hug: A Brief Introduction

Group dancing is an integral part of almost any and every culture through out the world.

Hugging is a form of greeting followed through out the world. It starts from the infant stage, however only a small minority has the strength to sustain it for life. A little larger section of the population limits this form of greeting to family members, relations, and close friends. In majority of the cases through out the world this from of greeting diminishes considerably as one grows and soon enough it becomes totally unacceptable.

Most people from the very inside love the idea of greeting with a hug, irrespective of the roots of their culture, however when it comes to physically performing the activity there is a lot of hesitation and the end result is negative. This is normally blamed on the culture, when in fact all the cultures through out the world promote brotherhood of man, and hug being one of the formalities required.

Any way the culture has also very subtle ways to put forth this idea. For example we have many festivals, which if we observe very carefully, promote the basic emotional balancing requirements of touch, warmth, heartbeat and rhythm.

In India the festival of colours, Holi, being one of them. There are many tribal dances done on various festive that require the close contact between large groups, and every person has two persons of the opposite sex on the either side, as in case of the Warli tribe in North Western part of the state of Maharashtra, in India. There are also certain Indian Christian communities that follow the ritual of bride kissing by the gentlemen guests immediately after the marriage is solemnized. These are just very small parts that go in to make the powerful Indian culture.

All cultures similarly promote the harmonious coexistence, tolerance, and many such qualities for the better of the mankind.

And the Dance-Sport is one such ritual that subtly encourages hugging under controlled conditions that cater to the basic emotional foundation by way of the feel of the touch, sharing of the warmth, hearing the sound of the heartbeat and the experiencing of the rhythm.