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I find that I don't write so often and I think it is for a few reasons.  One is that I live with my partner and life is now filled with another person.  But another reason is that much of what I experience and think about is related to the students with whom I work and as such, I don't wish to share to much of them without their permission.  There is a lot of cuteness, a lot of courage and I respect them and don't want to ossify them in words.

But this morning I received an email that is part of the essence of what I enjoy about teaching.  I encourage parents to send me videos and pictures of their children practicing, or to verify things they don't understand.  And this morning I watched one that was prepared for me by one of my families, that I just began teaching last week.  They moved to New York about 2 years ago from the Ukraine.  This was a video of her entire practice session, her sisters sitting behind her, holding her book of the exercises I had assigned her, sometimes distracting her, sometimes helping.  If one of them said something in Russian, the father would say, "in English" and I knew this was for me.  This was a practice performance made for me.

I got to see their family, their space, their interactions, posed but honest.  For ten minutes I was almost uncomfortably close.  How rare that we are invited into another space in such a way.  And yet this is what happens every time that I teach, or what I feel is the goal of every time that I teach.

It occurred to me in a lesson yesterday that I can calm my body when I am with a student to a place of trust where I have no fear or discomfort of their mistakes.  The goal is to be with them, completely, to give to them what we all wish we could give to ourselves or another, that sense of safety and trust.  I sometimes like to just think about them before I start a day of teaching.  Each individual person, apart from our work.

Every since I was little I fantasized about being another person.  What would it be like to leave my body and experience the world as another?  It is something that none of us can do, a super power I wish I could have if I could have one.  How strange that we cannot understand one another, despite living together, despite living for a lifetime.  But it seems that in teaching, perhaps there is a beginning to this possibility.  How deeply can one listen?