Thursday, June 5, 2008

Feeling the Beat

I started my djembe (African drum) class last night with Come Drum for Fun and it was a very interesting experience. I was feeling pretty nervous and was glad to be sitting in the corner away from most eyes. I found that I did best if I closed my eyes and focused on the beat. As soon as she started shouting out instructions and/or I thought about it too hard, I lost the beat. I will certainly be practicing. My hands are just a teensy bit sore this morning, but nothing too tragic...
It was actually hardest on my back. I know I have terrible posture and I do think about how I need to work on it all the time, but I am too lazy. It hurts to sit up straight! I think I will make working on this one of my goals for the summer.
I tried REALLY hard to keep my vibe positive, but one lady was making me freakin' insane by drumming constantly even while Mae was talking. I needed to listen to the demonstration closely and it really threw me off to have another beat going. I will try not to dwell on it so much next time and hopefully she will not be in the Tuesday class with us once we switch. But I won't have Leah Ann sitting next to me next week to commiserate solely through eyeball movements!
It is DAMN far south - more south even than Southpark Meadows!!!! But with other mamas to carpool with it will be bearable. It will be nice to have hang-out time, even if we have to be driving to have it.
Mae (the instructor) has one of the most amazing trees I have ever seen in her front yard, literally as an entryway. I pledge to take my camera and photograph it sometime. The first time I took a photography class my instructor had to take me aside after a couple of weeks to tell me to stop photographing trees and move on.
Anyhoo, when I stood up at the end, I felt buzzed. Not only were my hands pleasantly throbbing and tingling, but I felt kind of tingly all over. I realized on the way home that it was the first time I have been able to get close to "quieting" my brain (if you call intense focus on a beat quieting 0 which I do). It felt good. I was exhausted afterwards and slept like a baby. Can't wait to do it again.

2 comments:

anja said...

Totally relate to everything you wrote about the djembe experience. I really loved it too, it was the closest I came to meditation coz I thought of nothing else. I felt still and natural everytime I had my eyes closed. I was sitting next to a very good drummer and feeding off her energy, it was amazing. This is wierd and not something I would usually say out loud, but when we had finished our organic group drum session in the end and closed our eyes to say thanks, I felt white light energy coming in from my head...ok don't roll your eyes please.

I found something interesting that I was thinking of getting, check it out.
http://www.healingdrummer.com/

Mother of the Freakin' Year said...

I'm not rolling my eyes at all. I have had an experience like that before - we'll talk sometime.