Three types of lessons have occupied the time when I’m not working on the dissertation – jazz guitar, Taiwanese, and tennis. They all challenge and engage different parts of my mind and body in different ways. But I’m realizing that I end up making the same types of mistakes in all three classes. The mistakes all invariably return to some form of rhythmic cough-up; in some way or another I either can’t feel or hear the beat when I’m playing the guitar, the timing of my backhand is off, or I rush the way a sentence or word should be read.
Oliver Sacks argues that our sense of rhythm is what makes us human; you can’t teach dogs and chimpanzees how to dance. But how do you teach a person how to feel certain senses of time? Is the “groove” teachable? How can non-native speakers of a language sound increasingly native? I’m realizing in order to get into the the right rhythmic groove, it requires an intense amount of practice and preparation. But staying in the groove ultimately comes down to a matter of trust – trusting in yourself, in your body, believing that you’ve practiced and prepared enough for the moment at hand. This belief isn’t even necessarily conscious. Moreover, self-consciousness is the enemy. Even the slightest amount of self-doubt will throw you off track and jolt you. And that self-doubt is immediately apparent; even a minuscule hesitation can mean the difference between hitting a good backhand or shanking it wide, between a focused and tight solo or an unconfident, rambling one, between an intelligible sentence and gibberish.
The Duke was right – “it ain’t mean a thing, if you ain’t got that swing.”
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