Make Your Mama Proud

The segue wasn’t so hard, not like going from first to third, or playing a solo before a large crowd. It made sense to both my body and soul. Better yet was that it helped establish the groove momentum I needed in my class this morning. There are those moments where everything fits nicely together (just as there are moments when they don’t.) This one did. 

For whatever reason I got on the subject of mentoring. The example was that of a coach teaching the basics to a young player. He, the coach, brings as much acumen, experience and personality to the situation as possible. This is regardless of the sport. The coach coaches and the player absorbs the skills necessary to advance. 

But there comes a pivotal time in that development, when the coach runs the gamut of his or her knowledge base and must gently, with respect and courage, pat the younger on the butt and find the truth and poetry to announce that from this time forward the player gets to add his or her own unique understanding of the beauty of the game and improvise their interpretation of it. It is time to move to another level, make the quantum leap into the red-hot spotlight of the solo. And with that morphing movement, with the motion of maturity, the player is alone, no longer a student, yet not a master, facing an altogether new set of challenges, at his own pace. We know this as growth. It is evolution. It is moth becoming butterfly, boy becoming man. Destiny. 

Caught in the hubris of telling the tale of this classic rite of passage, feeling like a busking minstrel on a bike, the next song, JJ Cale’s Mama Don’t Allow, caught me in the flow of endorphins and metaphor. ‘Do you see the awesome responsibility here?’ I ask the small group rhetorically, ‘here we have a group of musicians, deliberately disobeying Mama’s house rules about playing music, among others things, in her kitchen. Their responsibility, just like that of the coach, is to play so well, with so much joy and sincere love of the game (song) that Mom, just like her son the player, is overwhelmed by the magic, inspired by the muse, and inwardly vows that the quest for meaning, the search for the sound, with the purpose and the mission crystal clear, and all the while showing outwardly that music, like the athlete’s dance, is as noble a quest as one can find, a quest that does not differentiate between stage or screen, field or court, bedroom or kitchen must be done.’

The musicians must make the sale, play so well and with so much bravado that Momma has no choice other than join in the mirth and celebrate life along with them. And her kitchen becomes a concert hall, sacred and secure. 

The coach, mentor, manager or uncle does similar with his or her guiding wisdom and loving support of the player along their path. We know this as Gandalf and Frodo. Hogwarts and Harry. Mister Miyagi and Daniel.

We all have these defining moments. In life, in sports, on the job, at home. We can deny, hide, conform. Or we can segue outside of our comfort zones and experiment with the miraculous and mix it up with the magical. We can see what we truly are capable of. Where potential ends and beauty begins. 

Pat yourself on the back. The cosmos will support your courage. Play your song. Do your dance. 

Make your Mama proud.