Ping ~ Pong: the dynamics of relationship

Ping ~ Pong:

the dynamics of relationship

Copyright 2017 By Ralph M. Ferraro, MSW, ACCSW, LCSW-R

In graduate school, Professor Fox, asked the class to write an article on relationship and be creative.

I thought for a while and the idea of ping pong came to mind.

The analogy of a ping pong game could be used to describe a relationship with oneself, or a relationship with another.

Ping~Pong allows the paradox of relationship to manifest. 

It also highlights how one enters relationship, how one responds to relationship, and the quality of the vibrational exchange.

Imagine each player in the match assumes multiple dimensions. Each player is the person holding the paddle, the paddle itself, the way the paddle interacts with the ball, the ball itself and the response to the serve of the other paddle. Each element is an emotional energy dynamic.

A key question arises in terms of how does one view the game of ping pong.

Do you use a typical sports perspective? One of us has to win, one has to dominate. The objective being to serve the ball, our vibrational offering of ourself, in such a way as to make the other person miss the ball or hit the ball foul. It is a competitive stance, a dominatrix (gender neutral, could be a man or a woman) stance toward the other. The perspective someone has to win, and the other has to lose. Someone is better, someone is lesser.

Does the stance take the perspective of getting and maintaining a flowing volley? In this case the winner is each server who can maintain the volley. The relationship sustains and nourishes itself.  If there is a loser, it is because one server or perhaps both servers allowed the serve to spin off the table consistently.

The stance, the perspective of a flowing volley, allows a person to find their own rhythm, their own value. It allows each element in the game to vibrate joy. To be who they are and to interact with another. Both can refine their flow, serve, and move toward their goal. The volley enhances the relationship between equals.

In having a ping~pong game with oneself, the volleys become quantum, i.e. entangled. The person is the energy of the paddle, the ball, and the response of the second paddle.

The person becomes the vibrational match of the spin and direction of the ball.

In having a ping~pong game with another, the volleys become quantum, i.e. entangled. Each person is holding the emotional energy of the other. Each person is caressing the emotional energy of the other. Each person is maintaining the flow of emotional energy with the other.

In both cases, the volley becomes an invitation to respond, to exchange emotional energy. The volley becomes an element of both personal and social growth.

Or

Each person distorts, fouls the energy of the other.  The game, the relationship becomes lopsided, toxic, controlled.  What is the quality of the emotional energy for the winner? What is the quality of the emotional energy for the loser?

Societal dictums seem to say, “nobody wants to lose.

Losing is a lousy feeling.”

Yet societal models, dictums, rubrics, seems to direct us to making the other lose. Accordingly, someone has to be the lesser.

Society, assuming it is a network that allows emotional energy to flow, seems to contribute to breaking relationship. Instead it creates a pecking order, who is on top, who is on the bottom.