When I do Contact Improvisation it is as if my partner and I have climbed on a surfboard traveling on a wave. To do this well, we both need to be in humble service of the energies of the wave and each other’s movements. It requires heightened “listening” and co-attunement. If I started twisting my body and moving my arms in an expressive way just because I felt like it, I would likely fall off the surfboard into the water tumbling my partner down as I go. I still have personal expression on this surfboard, but I need to fit it in within my service to the wave, to the other person I am riding the wave with, and to the laws of physics that govern this co-relationship.