The Growing Grass And An Angel Bending Over It

Here is another story about ballroom dance success:

“My student Ikuko who is very shy, but is warming up belongs
to the local Rotary which just sponsored a Crab Fest in support of the local
school district. She invited me as her guest although she shared that she would
be working for most of the evening.

The event was held at the state fairgrounds in a large
building inside of which were just tables and chairs. She was busy supporting
the serving of the approximately 1500 participants while I sat down and enjoyed
the crab and chowder.

Supporting the event also was a 17 piece swing band which
was challenged with everyone more interested in the food and not the big dance
floor.

So about half way through the event, someone taps me on the
shoulder and I look up and it is Ikuko. She smiles at me and says, "this
is a swing number, isn't it?” I responded yes and didn't think anything of it
because I am always challenging

her to tell me what she would dance to different music. She
continues to smile and says "shall we dance". I look at her and say
"are you sure you want to dance in front of all these people". Yes she says and off we go.

As we started to dance people started clapping and the band
started smiling; wow what a kick! No one else joined us so we finished it as a
solo! She bowed to me and said,
"arigato", thank you and she walked off with me with the

biggest smile and glow on her face. I asked her if she had
any apprehensions about the big crowd and she said no "you told me that
when we dance we only have eyes for each other". So she took a giant leap
forward and I am so very proud of her!"

As you can probably tell she is my favorite student!”

This is more than a success story, it is a true story of an
Asian woman who takes dance lessons from Steven Behr in Steilacoom, Washington
and she is surely a winner. She dances for fun and social activities and she is
doing a fine job. When she got on the dance floor with her invited guest,
Steven, she participated in a whole new aspect of her life. She felt confident
enough to get up and dance, when no one else was dancing. Jerry and I did that
many years ago when we were first starting out and we went to a wedding of a
co-worker of Jerry. No one was dancing and everyone was eating the wedding
meal; I said lets go and we did and everyone applauded our dancing. I had been
competing somewhat a few times with my dance coach at competitions and so I was
a bit bolder than he was.

He felt real good and quite competent as everyone applauded
and that is a feeling you never forget.

There is a saying in the Talmud and it goes like this: “Every
blade of grass has its angel bending over it whispering Grow Grow.” Some people
like to take chances in their workplace, in their social life or performing a
new hobby. They want to grow and grow some more and it makes them feel more
adequate and often it brings excitement in their everyday life. I know people
who have sky dived and did it because they always had the desire to do so. They
received great feelings of accomplishment besides the thrill of the feat
its

Others do as I did in previous years, I competed with my
coach in dance competitions and I won trophies and medals. To me at that time,
it was a spectacular achievement at the ages of about forty-four until age
sixty-seven. You know what I would love to do at least one more time, again
before I reach eighty, which will be June 2017? I would like to do competitive dancing with my
coach. This for me, a senior will be delightful and fulfilling.

Other seniors older than me still play tennis, play golf,
travel to other countries, still dance way into their nineties if they are
privileged to live that long. I heard this expression on a television show
yesterday “you have to devour life.” Devour means in the dictionary swallow,
gobble and engage. Engage is a bit of a better description of devouring life,
than the other two words. To engage in something, you sign on for, an act or an
adventure and that is what we do when we try something new.

This lady, a student of my friend Steven Behr had the
courage she probably never knew she possessed to get up and dance on an empty
dance floor to the music of a big band and to show how far she has come in her
dancing activities. Afterwards, she had the feeling from doing it that will
never leave her. It made her feel lovely, powerful, accomplished and I am sure
she felt her life was enhanced by this new challenge. She had tried, and as the
Talmud said to grow and grow, so she grew and grew and now, she no longer need
be apprehensive to dance before others, even if she and her partner are the
only ones. She also will feel that way about other actions she anticipates
doing.

We all can learn and grow in anything we want to do that is
out of the ordinary in our life.

When my children were small, I bought a six foot tall poster
and it had a giraffe on it and all the inches of a large ruler. The child stood
against it and you saw his or her height and you put a mark alongside of the
height and other than going to the doctor for a checkup; you could watch the
progress of the child in their growing height. I had the poster attached to a
door in the family room and only recently packed it away with other
remembrances of childhood for them.

It was a symbol of growth and so can your growth be measured
in happiness, in proficiency, in performance, in other things other than how
tall you are. You are as tall as you want in seeking things of happiness and
joy.

Sometimes, we have to try a bit harder, but the rewards are
as ‘tall’ as your ambitions. Grow,Grow and keep on growing and your own Angel
is whispering this to you all the time. Listen and you will hear it.