Be Where Your Feet Are

 I can honestly say that I did not expect to learn a lesson on meditation while tap dancing, and yet here we are.  My original desire to take tap again, after a 43 year hiatus, was simply to invite fun and movement into my life.  I tend to focus my energy towards activities that do involve movement that is related to technique and precision.  Fun has been missing and being able to feel silly and expressive has been phenomenal.

Tap dancing has also proven to be a great way to engage my mind while being active.  My long runs and bike rides often lead to mental wandering, and although that serves a purpose, it is very different from the experience of learning new dance moves and choreography, and being shown sections of a dance routine and then trying to reproduce it while keeping time to music.  

Last weekend we spent our entire class learning choreography for a short routine which we were aiming to have ready to "perform" by the end of our hour together.  Our teacher is wonderful at breaking down our routines into bite-size pieces and then slowly adding them together until we have a full number ready to go.  I was enjoying this challenge - the song was one I loved and the moves were fun and I felt like I was on stage, even if it was just in our rehearsal room.  What I also noticed was how my mind was floating between dancing and the rest of my day - what I was going to do after I left class, what I was going to eat for dinner, what I needed to do to prepare for an early morning dip the next day...and the list went on.  Each time my mind started to drift, so did my tap shoes.  I would forget the next step, or step out of time entirely and found myself needing to bring attention back to my feet.  

It took a few "out and backs" before I realized what was going on - my attention was drifting away and I was needing to draw it back, only to have it drift away again, and again.  It was not that I wasn't enjoying class, it was simply that my mind was doing what all of our minds do - it was being busy.  As I left class I commented to a friend that the experience reminded me of meditating and the need to constantly refocus my thoughts to my breath.  Despite the many times I have tried to meditate, and the number of books and podcasts I have read and listened to on this very subject, the exercise of meditation has never made as much sense to me as it did in that moment.  

It also made me very aware of how often my mind gets away from me outside of dance class or moments of stillness.  My mind tends to be like an excited puppy always pulling on a leash and wanting to see what is around the next corner.  I love to plan ahead and contemplate the ins and outs of next steps and plans so I can feel like I have a good handle on what is going to be required of me and how I can best prepare for the upcoming task at hand.  In other words, I plan the heck out of most aspects of my life.  It brings me a sense of peace to think many steps ahead because it takes away that unsettling feeling of the unknown and establishes a sense of control, regardless of how unattainable that control might actually be.

What I learned in that one-hour dance class, aside from some fancy shuffle-ball-changes, was the practice of being where my feet are.  I am starting to notice when my mind begins to pull on the leash and am gently pulling back and asking it to heel, inviting in patience and grace while I repeat this action over and over again.  Perhaps this will lead me back to my mediation cushion at some point; for now I am happy to practice my mediation while tapping away and letting my feet sing.