Rhythms

I've said before that I am not a dancer. I have very little rhythm when it comes to a dance floor, and prefer to leave that stuff to the much more capable folks around me.

That said, I feel like I see a lot of dancing in my life, lots of different rhythms. When I lived in Houston, the morning commute felt like something of a dance - the cars, the predictability, the traffic flow. It was a familiar pattern, and the idea that it was a dance often occurred to me as I drove to work in the morning.

Today, I played a doubles match with three other women - I'd never played with this particular combination of individuals, and it was pretty evident that there were some personality conflicts. However, if your goal is to play tennis, you don't have to like everyone you play with, and that worked just fine today. It was a faster paced game than I'm used to (very little stopping, very little smiling or chatting), but once we all settled into a rhythm, I was again reminded of dancing. Everyone knew their role, the balls made their way around the court in a pattern, and the players moved to where they needed to be. Very little conversation was made, but it wasn't necessary. It was still some damn good tennis, and it was very nearly automatic. It was therapeutic. Of course, it's always therapeutic to hit the crap out of something, but it was quite nice to be on autopilot today.

On the court next to ours were four elderly gentlemen who were also playing a game of doubles. That court had the feel of a group that had been playing together for years. There were bent backs, wrapped knees (well, my court had that one, too), shorts hiked up way too high with shirts tucked in way too far, and various ailments. But they had their own rhythm going as well. It was much slower than ours, but it was well timed for them and they were having a great time.

A friend of mine, one who has just started running, told me recently that running felt incredibly hard to her. However, one day recently, she ran farther than she'd ever run before, and it had started to smooth out. My own experience tells me that I have to hit somewhere north of half a mile before my body even begins to settle into any rhythm and feel comfortable. Other friends I've talked to have the same experience - the beginning is a pain in the ass, but once you find your rhythm, it get so much easier.

Seeing rhythms in life, places were people 'dance', is fascinating to me. Thinking about in the context of running is a good reminder that beginnings are often rough, but that the way smooths as you get farther along. To me, this is a good reason to not give up at the beginning of something; sometimes the start is just plain tough, but the benefits - the dance - that comes later is completely worth it.