The Duchess of Cambridge hosted the ‘Together at Christmas’ service in London's Westminster
Abbey.
And this one was a great clip to catch quite a few body language signals to asses the current
relationships inside the Royal Family.
Welcome back, my body language buddies! my name is Jesús Enrique Rosas, I'm the Body
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It was nice to see the Royal cousins reuniting that night, and you're about to see the most
interesting clip of this encounter.
There's a lot of information here, but don't worry, we are going to decipher it all:
What's relevant about this clip is that you can see Prince William and Catherine, Zara
Tindall and princesses Eugenie and Beatrice.
Everyone paid close attention to the dynamics between the York sisters and the Duke and
Duchess of Cambridge and, by the way, here's the other clip we'll be watching today:
Why are these interacions so interesting?
well, you might remember Meghan on the Ellen show.
Yes, you cannot possibly forget THE SQUAT.
But what's relevant now is that she name dropped Eugenie:
- And you went to... you had to go to a Halloween party.
- We did! he came to see me in Toronto and, uhm... our friends, his cousin Eugenie and
her husband Jack...
So, Meghan made a reference that before she went public with Harry, they attented a Halloween
party in costume with Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank.
And Meghan did not say it explicitly, but the fact that they went together undercover
to a party, before there was any public awareness of their relationship, points to closeness
with the princess.
You might say that, a few years have passed since then, but if their relationship wasn't
relevant up to this point, then most probably Meghan would not have mentioned her.
So, that's why that interaction at Westminster Abbey was closely scrutinized to see those
interactions, especially between Eugenie and the Cambridges.
And the first signal we have, right off the bat is the way William greets Zara and Mike
Tindall.
First, you see that William's right arm is closely embracing Zara.
There is closeness, there's his open and relaxed hand, and you can see that his inner elbow
is basically matching the arm of his cousin.
There's enough contact to signal that they feel comfortable with each other and they
are happy to meet.
By the way, Kate looking at Mike, she's looking straight into his face and is tilting her
head a little to her left.
That head tilting usually signals that she's relaxed.
And being relaxed, she feels comfortable with him.
Mike usually has this same posture, quite upright, and his elbows spread out.
He might not be as tall as William but still has an imposing physique, and wider frame.
So the posture with the elbows out is actually more comfortable to him.
But then, Zara steps forward to meet Catherine and she embraces her with her right arm.
Again, I've mentioned other times that you should pay attention to the way arms and hands
make full contact of the other person's body.
And pretty much the same, like William's arm a second ago, you see that Catherine's embrace
to Zara, even if it's just with one arm, is intense enough to signal closeness.
There's also a full contact between their heads and faces.
Maybe the camera angle doesn't help much, but if you really pay attention to people's
body language, you should notice the angles of the bodies an the speed of movements.
If you see Zara moving towards Catherine, you'll notice that there is an intention,
a momentum, a speed so it adds up as a signal to understand the relationship between them.
Now, one last bit before we switch to William and Eugenie.
Catherine and Zara dissolve the embrace but Catherine stays close to her, touching her
arm and tilting her head forwards.
That's a way of closing the circle between herself and Mike and Zara.
Another signal is that Mike looks very animated because his body is oscillating widely.
It's the opposite to when someone is stiff because maybe, they feel uncomfortable.
So, this is just five seconds, FIVE seconds of footage and there is so much to see and
confirm the relationship of William and Kate with Zara and Mike.
Now we can switch to William and Eugenie.
And I'm sure that by this point you already noticed that there is nowhere the same warmth
and closeness between them.
There's also the possibility that they had already meet seconds or minutes before, and
that could explain the lukewarm greeting.
But I took a good look at the whole video and up to that point, it's evident that William
and Kate had arrived early enough, so most guests had to walk to the spot the Cambridges
already were.
And at that precise moment they were very close to the entrance.
In the background, you can see the painting of Richard the second, that is beside the
coronation chair.
That is, right as you enter Westminster Abbey, you've got that on your right.
So they were basically at the entrance.
That suggests that they hadn't met yet, that they were meeting at that moment.
And if they had already met, then it makes less sense that Eugenie and William shared
that mutual touch.
There's also a body language signal that this was the first encounter of William and Eugenie
that night, and it's that, before that touch, William looks intently at her, and takes a
step forward to reach out to her.
Again, if they had already met before this clip, then this body movement would not make
sense.
And if that's not enough there are a few pictures suggesting that Zara, Mike and Eugenie arrived
at the same time.
Now, about the touch itself.
William usually grabs people's arm to signal goodwill.
But we already saw him embracing Zara, so it could have made sense if he did the same
with Eugenie, but he didn't.
In fact, he just places his hand on her arm and back.
Nothing more.
But for me, the biggest tell is Eugenie's taps on William's side.
They have absolutely no pressure.
I highly doubt that William was even aware of them, and they keep a personal distance
betwen them.
Extremely formal, no warmth at all.
Now, some have claimed that Catherine didn't even greet Eugenie, but there is no way of
knowing it from this clip, since right at that point it jumped at Beatrice arriving.
And we can confirm that there is a chunk of video missing, because at this point you can
see this kid on the background looking at the group, and one frame later, he's looking
down, so there's one part of the video that's missing.
In fact, there's a picture that suggests that some time passed before Beatrice arrived,
and it's this one.
William, Catherine, Zara, Mike and Eugenie.
They had already met, they were talking and they were forming an almost perfect circle,
that is a common formation when a group is engaged on a conversation.
I don't notice any big gaps on that circle.
Maybe Eugenie was a little farther from William, but to be fair, William was at the same distance
from Catherine so I think we can discard that clue.
Now, Beatrice arrives, and the first thing that we spot is that her husband, Edoardo
Mapelli immediately bows to William, in a very subtle manner.
It's worth pointing out.
A sign of respect and protocol.
But Beatrice was obviously arriving, and it's interesting that William did not greet her
in the same way as he did with Zara.
There's no embrace, he just makes a gesture of his hands towards his chest, and turns
to make some sort of signal to Catherine.
Then Catherine walks towards them, greets Edoardo first and then proceeds to do basically
a very similar gesture to Beatrice as she did with Zara.
It's very easy to notice that both the time and intensity of that one arm embrace is much
shorter, much less intense than what she did with Zara, so that's also a signal of the
difference of how Catherine feels with each one of them.
Even if sometimes we will not be able to reach solid conclusions, these hidden signals will
give us enough information to navigate better the relationships of those around us.
And in this case it's obvious that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's relationship with
the Princesses of York, especially with Eugenie, is not on the best terms.
And you see how important it is in body language to check all possible sources, videos, images
and also the setting.
Where is the action happening?
It's just a matter of keeping your eyes open.
If you want to refine your observation skills, all you have to do is download my 100+ body
language tips, right in the description of this video.
My name is Jesús Enrique Rosas and it will always be a pleasure, my body language buddies!
Much Love, and Bliss.