Back to Being Present

For a long time, I thought that being attentive meant staying still.

I still pay a lot of attention to posture, but I no longer think that staying still is the only way to be present.

In fact, many times I do exactly the opposite.

In the middle of circle time, when I notice that we need to reconnect with what we are doing, I introduce some movement.

Right now, we are working with spiders.

So, suddenly:

Spiders go up!

One arm stretches up while the other hand walks like a spider along the arm.

Then we switch sides.

Spider walk, walk...

And our hands walk forward as we stretch our bodies.

And we stretch!

And suddenly:

Change legs!

Everyone changes the way they are crossing their legs.

It looks like a game.

And it is.

But it is also a way of waking up the body and bringing our attention back to the here and now.

Sometimes I clap my hands and everyone knows it is time to change places in the circle.

And then we keep going.

We do not have to wait until they become restless to move.

Many times, movement comes first, precisely so that they can become attentive again.

I used to do something similar with my older students.

In the middle of a class, while they were sitting in their chairs, I would say:

SAS time! — Stop and Stretch!

We would stop.

We would stretch.

We would breathe.

And then we would keep going.

For a long time, I thought movement interrupted attention.

Today, I feel that, many times, it helps us find it again.

Because being present does not always mean being still.

Sometimes it means being able to listen to what the body needs.

To move.

To stretch.

To change position.

To breathe.

And to come back.

I think we also learn this as teachers.

Not everything that looks like movement is distraction.

Not everything that looks like stillness is attention.

Sometimes, in order to be present again, we need to move first.

And perhaps one of the most beautiful things about teaching is learning to recognize when we need to pause, when we need to move, and when we are ready to come back.