Segment 6, Day 6: panic-free moments

You know that point in doing an activity that involves skill and attention where you can suddenly look away without losing track of what you're doing? I recently reached that point with giving FI lessons. I don't know when the actual moment was, but I noticed it today very clearly.

The easiest thing for me to compare giving an FI to is learning a difficult tune on an instrument by ear. At first, you can't exactly figure out how to pay attention to the millions of pieces - how to play the instrument, what key the tune is in, what the tempo is, what all those notes or chords are, when they show up, when you think they should show up but they don't... It's easy to get stuck in the details and completely lose track of the tune. After a bit though, once you've got a few details down, you can begin to let the tune flow through you and pick up more and more details without having to work at it so hard. When those details are solidified, it becomes possible to stop staring intently at your fingers or clenching your jaw quite so tightly, and maybe even look around the room, laugh, or say something while playing.

Giving an FI, it's just as easy to get stuck in the details. What the hell am I supposed to be doing with this hand I'm holding? I don't have any idea what that demo was about. Are my feet connected to the floor? Is my spine as long as it could be? Is the person on the table bored? That person over there looks like they know what they're doing... Oh my god, I'm still holding this hand! ...What was I supposed to be paying attention to all this time?

Eventually, you learn to put your neuroses aside, and if they do come up, you remember to put that person's hand down, deal with the neuroses for a moment, then go back to what you were doing. You learn that if your mind is clear with nearly everything pushed into the background, you can do what you need to do with that hand (and arm and shoulder and nervous system and everything else) without thinking too hard about it, and it becomes possible to keep that attention going, even if you're doing something else at the same time.

While giving a classmate an FI today, I overheard my teachers joking with each other nearby. In some previous segments, I might have wanted them to shut up and go away so I could pay attention to what I was doing, but that definitely wasn't true this time. I caught the joke, laughed to myself about it, and looked up and smiled as one of them walked by me, all the while showing my classmate some options in how her wrist could move.

So now, the question of the evening - do I dare take my newly organized collarbones out to dance lindy hop, or will that just confuse me? They're in a completely different place than they were a week ago...