A Question of Balance

No, I don't mean the Moody Blues album from 1970, although it is one of my favorites. I wore out my vinyl copy the year it came out, when I lived in the Kappa Sigma Sigma house at the University of Redlands. My favorite song is "Question." Here is a sample (lyrics by Justin Hayward):

Between the silence of the mountains
And the crashing of the sea
There lies a land I once lived in
And she's waiting there for me.

But in the grey of the morning
My mind becomes confused
Between the dead and the sleeping
And the road that I must choose

I'm looking for someone to change my life
I'm looking for a miracle in my life
And if you could see what it's done to me
To lose the the love I knew
Could safely lead me to
The land that I once knew
To learn as we grow old
The secrets of our souls

The question of balance was posed last night at Aikido practice by our instructor Dave. As we worked through a new set of exercises, he talked about being able to perform them equally well on both sides of our body. As I learned the techniques of rolling after a throw, I realized how much I favor my right side. He referred to our sides as children: one of them has been neglected -- never allowed to throw the ball, for example. Now, suddenly, this child was being asked to do something he was never asked to do before. And he was clumsy at it.

When I got home, I sat at my drum kit and sensed the differences in how I used each side of my body when keeping a beat. I spent an hour drumming with only my left hand. It took a while for the neglected child to get the hang of it, but after a while, he was pretty damned good!