“…At this point you no doubt see the joke I have attempted. Comparing the steps of a high school quarterback rehearsing his passing drop cannot possibly compare to the grace and skill required for a ballet dancer, as I have suggested. And yet, consider Barry Sanders. Sanders is widely considered one of the finest running backs to have ever played in the National Football League. He rushed for over 15,000 career yards and 99 touchdowns and was recently inducted into the pro football hall of fame. He was also a lifelong student of ballet.
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I have marveled many times as I watched a school of many thousand sardines move in perfect unison, stopping their trajectory as one coherent whole in a way that seemed impossible for so many beings, and continuing in another direction just as fast, like they are responding to some call or force or rhythm just below the surface of their being. Watching Sanders is like this at times.
Or consider Peyton Manning. Manning is like a surgeon performing a triple-bypass during a hurricane. There are grave and ruthless forces determined to thwart his every move, to crunch his bones and to foil the work of his hands. But he moves through the bedlam, he watches, steps, waits, and makes his incision.
Sometimes watching Manning reminds me of jazz guitar seminars that I used to attend. The master would teach us that practicing scales was the best method to learn how to improvise. How could this be? we asked. We had come for freedom from the restriction of practice. We wanted to be like Hendrix, to create noise that was free of troublesome scales and key signatures and finger exercises. But he corrected us. The freedom to improvise came after great patience and practice, learning the fundamentals of the theory, disciplining our hands to know when to go where.
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