Lately I've been rocking out on the djembe and the darbouka (African/Arabic hand drums). I started taking lessons for no reason in particular. I guess I just had this visceral need to beat the shit out of a drum. I can't explain it, but from the very first lesson I had this profound feeling of peace that said I'm in exactly the right place right now.
Last class we learned a more intricate rhythm than the ones we'd been practising - a really funky offbeat groove with a sneaky extra hit in the 4th phrase.
I was diggin' it, really feeling the vibe.
It's interesting to watch the mind as it's incorporating the new rhythm.
At first it is so focussed, so intent on getting it. You nail each beat. You can visually see the pattern in your mind.
You come up with all sorts of cues to twig your muscle memory. One right hand base, right hand tap, left base, right base, right left tap. It suddenly becomes a mental diagram, like one of those footstep diagrams showing dance steps. Or maybe something akin to Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero. It's all coming logically together in a pattern, and goshdarnit I'm nailing it!
That all happens in about 45 seconds to a minute.
After about a minute when that thought has become a well-formed presence in the mind and you're thinking, "I'm nailing it, I'm nailing it! Yes, check out my groove!", of course, you're thinking about how you're nailing it rather than what you were thinking about before, which is what you are actually doing, playing the rhythm. So, of course, you lose it.
You drop one beat at first. Then you become so completely clusterfucked and confused that the whole pattern is completely eradicated from your mind. Gone.
So I look up at the instructor who I imagine to be laughing at me, but he's not because it's actually me who's laughing at me. And I look around at the others and I get back into it.
Base tap base base tap tap. Base tap base base fumble. Now I'm confused and frustrated and thinking about it really hard. (So it was one base and then which hand do I use....) My shoulders are hunched over, my face twisted in concentration.
Ok, I see what's going on here, I'm taking this a bit seriously. Relax face, relax body. Ready, set, groove. And I'm off again, into the rhythm. I notice that as I shut my thinking mind down and let my hands move automatically it begins to happen again. I'm nailing it.
Feelin' good. Feelin' groovy. It's all coming out creatively. The diagrams are gone and now there's just this raw creative impulse. In fact, my body has begun to move in some bizarre drum dance motion, which feels really nice.
And that goes on for a bit. Until I think about it. Until I think, "wow check me out, I'm doing this without even thinking! It's all just happening!" And then what is happening is that I'm not feeling it any more, now I'm thinking about how I'm feeling it and so, of course, I lose it.
It's around this time when I begin to notice the interesting thing. I know the rhythm now; I feel the rhythm now. It comes with no problem, but as soon as I let my mind wander to another thought it's gone. I am being taught a lesson in presence.
I notice that I cannot be playing the rhythm and thinking about stopping at the store on the way home to pick up dinner. I can't be thinking about what somebody said at work today. I lose the rhythm.
I can watch my hands. I can watch the instructor. I can listen to the rancorous cacophany of the drumming circle. I can even look around the room (which is actually a yoga studio) at the pictures of BKS Iyengar in eight angle pose and such framed in black and white on the walls.
It seems that as long as I am somewhere in the room, living in this moment, the rhythm will permit me to continue the experience of drumming.
On this day, once this recognition had really set in I went about trying to stay as present as I could, and I am telling you now, it wasn't perfect, but I rocked it truly for the rest of the session.
That evening I took away two things: a really funky new groove, and a powerful lesson in presence given to me directly through experience.
That was on Wednesday and it's Friday now and for those 1.5 days I have been taking that lesson into various situations in my life and feeling the rewards of it. It's that intense focus into what you are doing, the rhythm of it, the feel of it, the sound of it, that has the capacity to uplift a task you do into a task you rock. And man, that's groovy.
Love always
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