Touch

I must say I miss the discipline of writing a blog every day. This morning in the shower I was especially disappointed that I did not write the series on Service Product, which was due for August. Anyway, this topic still lingers with a need within me to be expressed. When I don't know. It'll be another of those three month marathons, when I go deeply into a topic that is at the heart of BodyChance's service model. Recently Sarah Barker, one of BodyChance's Associate Directors, spent an intensive three weeks teaching in Japan and had some feedback for me that is relevant to BodyChance's model. Firstly, she was surprised and concerned that BodyChance's 2nd Stage students were sparing in their use of touch as a teaching tool. These 2nd stage students are being assessed to enter into 3rd stage, which covers their two year "provisional" teaching period. Same concept as a "provisional" drivers license: first get your hours before you get your full license. In the case of 3rd Stage students, they must teach 50 lessons, run a group and meet five times over the period with one of the Resident Directors, then a Full Diploma will be issued. Graduation can happen anytime within this two year framework. Sarah's second observation was their excessive reliance on anatomical information to convey issues of co-ordination to their students. Her third comment was on their almost obsessive insistence on the primacy of the head's relation to the whole, with a notable absence of spinal integration within that concept. What's a man to do? Of course I loved to hear Sarah's astute observations, and I grasped immediately how this is actually a true expression of my own deeply considered model of educating teachers. To-day I'll touch on the issue of touch… M cousin Peter – who took lessons from me in London when I first qualified – plucked up the courage many years later to ask me: "Jerry – what the devil were you doing all that time you were standing behind my chair in Finsbury Park?" He was referring to his situation of sitting in a chair, looking forward while I stood behind him, waiting an interminable time until he felt my precious hands upon his expectant person. "Why did it take so long?" he wondered. Once laid, my hands would rest there a very, very long time – listening and feeling; communicating all manner of messages; being an extended mirror of my own kinaesthetic state. Perplexed Peter, sitting there, wondering what the devil was going on! Almost 20 years later in Kyoto, as I changed my teaching style, Tomoko-san - one of my KAPPA students - remarked: "Oh I miss the way you used your hands before. It was powerful." As I evolved away from my method of touching the student without break throughout my lessons, I experienced years of guilt, confusion and fluctuation before I gained the confidence and cognitive clarity to pursue the path I am now on. Looked at this way – I have excessively reduced the amount of time I am engaged directly touching a student during a lesson – so is it any surprise that BodyChance students are exhibiting a similar tendency? Why I do that is to give the job of change to the student. However, for those who are starting to think that maybe I now disown the practice of touch in teaching, let me state for the record that this special way of touching is quite simply one of Alexander's most remarkable achievements. It is the single, marking characteristic of a true teacher of the work: a mark that can not be forged or copied without the deep understanding that underlies it. Any teacher not utilizing this ability is really being a bit silly in my opinion. So, if I believe that, then why in heavens name would I appear to be downgrading such a tremendous skill set in the way I educate my teachers? Why indeed. Have to get to that in another post…