Frazzling.  Train after train, rush hour commuting, people's foot steps, I want, I want, I want.  Shoving my cello on the right train, the wrong train, the wrong train, the wrong train, the right train.  Frazzling.

After teaching I walked to Riverside Park for the sunset.  It was underwhelming, consumed by New Jersey before the colors could come through.  But the bare trees were brilliant, dark cut against the sky.  Airplanes and helicopters and the Henry Hudson Parkway, people and dogs running, and a very still rock outcrop in the middle of it all.

Pedagogical Purpose

What is important to teach and how do we teach it?

Suzuki's pedagogical goal is to create a noble heart.  How does one do that?  How does his method do that?

The Dalcroze method seeks freedom and responsiveness in its students.  What is the goal of this?  Why is it important?  How can it be measured?

How does one build a pedagogy that will do what one wants if it is anything beyond purely technical?  It seems there is a part of the human being that is difficult to quantify.  When I play I think about the space, time, and energy that I use, I try to tap into the affect of the piece through these physical touch points.  I am trying to be more relevant.  I am trying to listen to what is in the piece and what more could be there.  I am using my mind and physical being to conjure this.

But how do we measure success?  How to we measure the goals of Suzuki and Dalcroze?  Is my heart more noble?  Are my mind and body more free and more responsive?  What is important to teach and why?  And how does one teach it?

Goodbye Blahblah

We said goodbye to our friends and the little one, who had recovered from her spill last night.  And then we sat at the table, reflecting on what we had just lived with this young family, what it takes to have a child, what it does to the balance of the relationship that is already there.  What does is natural and required of a mother, of a father?  Are these biologically determined?  There seem to be a few parts of life that really challenge the notion that there can be a new interpretation of gender roles, and having a baby seems to be one of them.  But every family is different, there are so many ways to balance growing up.

And now we are back to our childless New York life of taking care of things and having a personal agenda in our free time.  High on the list is figuring out taxes after having lived abroad for several years.  Taxes, taxes, taxes.  Playing with Blahblah was way more fun.

St.John's Napping

There is a brief morning window, between about 9am and 11am to do an activity.  And around 11am we were in St. John's the Divine and so it was nap time.  Mom sat down to calm her and then she was asleep and so we stayed in the huge church, resting and taking in the enormity of the space.  I read more thoroughly the displays on food ethics (wasting less, urban farming, feeding the hungry, etc.) that were displayed, and I read the brochure and did a short self-guided tour.  In theory and in display this cathedral's mission was to welcome all.  From the many immigrants that have come to New York over the years of its existence, to the homeless, to those with AIDS, this seems to be a place that aims to welcome all.

And no one bothered a nursing mother, or we loitering lot, who paid a minimal donation to be there.  There were political displays throughout the nave, new artwork wedged within the pillars, a mix of old austerity with modern relevancy.  I was happy for the nap time which quietly demanded a longer frame of reflection and an appreciation of the space and the goals of the institution.

And we were able to watch the many workers place many flowers in anticipation of Easter around the alter.  Tomorrow Jesus will be reborn.  The only difference now from when it first happened is that we know it is coming.  How strange to calmly place these plants of expectation in this space of welcome.  A commonplace miracle is coming.

After the nap we got lunch, and went down to the Staten Island ferry.  We went across the water in the throngs of Saturday tourists with selfie poles, came back on the waves and under the sleepy afternoon sun, and headed home.  It was time to wind down the day, but walking takes more practice than we realize and for those less experienced it can mean a fall at any second and a big goose egg on the head.  I called my brother, who has just finished his rotation in pediatrics, and more importantly, who I trust, and we all determined that it would probably be fine.

Tomorrow will be another day.

Bright Lights Big City

A day full of activity.  Friends are in town with their 13-month-old.  We walked to the park, to Grant's tomb, played on the swings, had a nap (or down time), took the train to the Museum of Natural History which was filled with people, and galaxies, and dinosaurs, walked through Central Park which was filled with people, and dogs, and horses, and birds, walked in search of dinner, rode the train home, made the day for two of the other passengers, had delivery Mexican, danced to cello tunes, and plucked the guitar.  It was also the first taste of hummus today (a win), and anise (rejected).  All the bustle of the city is writ large on the big blue eyes of a baby.  The wonder is contagious.

Spring

At some point it will likely cease to be so remarkable to see the progress that occurs in students.  I will come to have faith in it, just as I have come to learn that the body heals itself and that illness is not forever.  But for now I am still a young teacher, maybe, and it is still amazing to me.

A young student that I'm working with seems to be blossoming.  I can see his body differentiating, learning to come into more efficient and centered contact with the instrument.  His focus is generally becoming more sustained, too.  Maybe some things just comes with aging, but I can see the inputs that I and his mother and his primary teacher having been giving.  It is extremely satisfying and encouraging.

Why is it difficult for me to believe in change?  Do most people have a hard time believing that it is possible to change?  Maybe it takes a lot of work to change oneself and much easier to believe that it simply isn't possible.  But my work as a musician, as a martial artist, and most definitely my work as a teacher have led me to believe that this simply isn't true.  Maybe some things are fundamental, maybe something cannot be changed.  But maybe this, too, is not true.

What is fundamental about oneself?  What is unchangeable?  Might there be a way to nudge it, even the slightest bit?  I never thought I'd be able to play the Dvorak cello concerto.  But somehow, now, I can.

Digging In

Monday, after returning to the school, I found myself in a cycle of divesting tropes, pulling away from a situation that didn't seem right, thinking of other places to commit myself.  It so happened that also on that evening, after teaching, Andrew and I went to the home of a colleague--an amazing apartment with a huge window view of the Empire State building--to play chamber music, a really fun music-making experience.  It confirmed that it was time to redirect, to look for other options, to use some of these other skills that I have to enjoy a more perfect union of ability and vocation.

And then on Tuesday, after fleshing out some possibilities for other paths, I came back to the school and stopped into a classroom to observe, since my prep space was being used for other things.  Maybe it was this, or having a slightly different approach to the lesson plan, or to the use of time and voice in the class, but I felt that we actually achieved a flow in the lesson, where everyone was invested and interested and having a good time, and I was congratulating rather than nagging.  There were lots of points but also corrections as I really tried to make my judgment of their behavior clear and fair.  It was a really rewarding and fun day of teaching.

I am still pursuing other options.  I am still aware that this was one day and maybe the last like this in awhile.  But there is something about divesting that suggests a belief that change is not possible, and there is something in investing that suggests the opposite.  And in education, one must believe in the latter.  I don't think I had ever realized that as an educator, I am the catalyst for this.  I have to believe in investing, even against my gut.  And maybe my gut will change and see what more can be possible.  And that can be a lesson for myself, from my students.

A lot of vines twisting one another, competing for space, for liberty, for artistic license.

J.A.

We met with a friend of a friend this morning at her penthouse on Morningside Drive with an incredible view of the New York skyline.  It was a beautiful space and a lovely morning of bagels, fruit salad, jams, desserts, and tea.  The walls that were not the floor-to-ceiling window cityscape were covered in art, particularly Japanese art.  She had grown up in Japan, and unlike many foreigners growing up in Japan, she had actually attended Japanese schools until she returned to America to go to college.  She had worked as an interpreter, and her passion was art.  And now, after having recently divorced, she is living as much as possible in a beautiful space, in an incredible city, volunteering at several art museums and getting more and more invested in a city that will have her as long as she can afford it.  As she said, she shook the piggy bank and decided to make it work.

I think only the sleeping person isn't displaced.  And even in dreams we can be missing.  What must it be to look out onto the city lights, a childhood thousands of miles away, self-expression in another language, a love had and reconsidered, a grown child unlike you but still you, their own person growing on their own, staring out from walls vibrant but solemn?

This is a beautiful and complicated city.  I think there is a lot of loneliness here that takes comfort in the communal mayhem.  For centuries people have come to this city for opportunity, and no less, for a sense of belonging.

Shortnin' Bread (Birthday Lesson)

About a month ago I got a message from a woman with a special cello lesson request.  Her father would be having his birthday and she was hoping to give him a cello lesson.  Apparently he used to play the cello a long time ago and talked to his family about it all the time.  I had an extra cello that he could use in my apartment and so I gladly agreed to help out with the birthday surprise.

So as he walked into my apartment with his entire family, he had thought he would be having a photo shoot.  And then he saw the cello.  As it turned out, the last time he had played was in the 3rd grade and that was the only year of his life that he had played.  It was a program in his school and when he went on to 4th grade, the school didn't have the program or the instruments.  "I was good, always sitting at the front of the section.  If I could have continued, I'd be in the philharmonic or something."

And I wonder if that might not have been true.  I asked him what he had remembered, what songs they had played, and he remembered that they had done Shortnin' Bread.  He kind of hummed it and tried to figure it out and I managed to pluck out a version that we then spent awhile learning.  And then we plucked a little Beethoven, and he bowed a little.  His hands seemed to remember so much of what he had been taught as an 8-year-old, even (50?) years later, after having grown into adult hands, large and coarse.

And the whole time his family laughed with him and took pictures and cheered him on.  Even though the event somewhat depended on me, I felt like an outsider to this beautiful African-American family, reliving this memory that their father had had years before they were even a thought in his life.  It was such a thoughtful gift and such a pleasure to be a part of it.

And this morning at 8am, a semi-student came over to use my cello to record an audition.   I've been coaching her on the music for this particular opportunity, but don't usually see her otherwise.  And I sat with her mother and chatted for a long time before and after she did the recording.  Again, the house was warm with the people in it.

Learning to Focus

In my spare time today, I got to watch a lot of lessons at the Suzuki school.  There is something special in each lesson, but it was in the lesson of a 4-year-old that I saw something particularly valuable emerge.  Young children have a difficult time focusing sometimes.  They want to tell stories about random things, they stare off into space, or bring up anything that happens to float through their mind.  But today I saw the head teacher of the cello department insist upon the focus of a 4-year-old child for the duration of the 30-minute lesson.  Other teachers might allow focus to go other places and then bring it back, but she just waited and insisted (gently) that he get back on topic.  At one point, while she was asking him to focus on his bow hold and he was in an entirely different world, she said to him, "Well, maybe we just have to end the lesson early today because I can't get you to focus."  And the threat woke him up.  The threat was not dire but it was sincere.  He didn't react with fear, but pulled it together and got on topic.  He was still a 4-year-old for the remainder of the lesson, but a cooperative one, and one that listened to what his teacher was asking.  After doing a particular thing that required some attention, she asked him a question she often asks her students in lessons, "Now was that hard, easy, or you don't know?"  "Hard."  "Well sometimes that just what taking a lesson is."

It was a lesson in realizing that he does have the power to focus.  That he does have the ability to turn on his attention and apply himself.  And she won't let him get away with it otherwise.  She spoke with him very sincerely at the end of the lesson, congratulating him on his effort and hard work and saying how well he is doing.  But she is demanding of her students.  And it is good to realize that this can be possible of young students, perhaps not perfect, but remembering that with tact, a teacher can be in nearly full control of the lesson.  And teach an additional valuable lesson as well.

Test Crushing Other World

This is a week off from teaching at the school.  As of yet, I'm not missing it.  A peer asked me to substitute teach for some of her private students, a group class and a chamber ensemble, and I gladly took the opportunity, also because they are cutting our hours of teaching in the coming weeks and I need the additional income.  It is freeing to have control of my own teaching voice again.  It is freeing to be able to focus on one person, to give them all my attention.  I wonder what it will be like to return to the classroom.  It is testing season and so I will see the scholars less frequently as they prepare to crush the state tests.  What is of value?  How do you teach it?

Following....

And then this morning I met with one of my Tae Kwon Do peers.  She is a younger practitioner, a green belt, and so I led.

The student becomes the teacher.  As I begin the path of leaving my teachers, I can find guides in those that I lead.  They become the ones that tell me who I am, who reflect what I am giving.  This is why it is so important to be reflective about what one teaches and about how that can be perceived in one's students.  It becomes the only guide we have.

I spent a large portion of the afternoon meeting a colleague's students, subbing for her.  One after another, a child and their parent, a different set of energies, of beautiful people working to learn and grow.  What is of value?  How do you teach it so it will last?

It is very exciting to be in this challenging profession.  To be immersed in it from many angles.  There is still a part of me that wishes to be the student, the child, the beginner. There is still a part of me that doesn't want to say goodbye.  It is a very similar feeling to the loss that I felt in Japan, of being far away from those I loved and relied upon, of being at a loss as to who I should follow, learning to trust my own voice.

I remember being a white belt and being praised for getting through sit-ups.  It is a very different place that I'm in now and funny to reflect on such a fast development.  Of course we didn't realize the value of childhood during that time, but some part of me wishes I could have recognized the preciousness of being a white belt just 6 years ago.  At that time, I thought about how quickly I could get to the goal of black belt.  How rarely we value taking things slowly.

I appreciate that this club has such a long process for testing for the black belt.  Six months to think through this transition, to become more fully prepared for this next step forward.

Black Belt Pre-Evaluation

I passed a pre-evaluation to test for black belt this weekend.  The official test will be in September.  This was gateway to that.

These are always very special weekends.  We are all in a room together, doing kicks, jumps, blocks, sit-ups, free sparring, forms, listening to the words of the Master of the club and his two students who are also Masters, taking in every word, hardly eating or drinking anything of 6 or 7 hours.  People come from clubs from Seattle, Champaign-Urbana, Madison, Philadelphia, Austin, and Boston and represent generations of Tae Kwon Do teaching.  It is an unusual club in that there is no exchange of money, and because of this, there is no obligation for a teacher to pass a student to the next belt, nor is there ever any end to training, even after the body can no longer do the things it once could.  The bonds that are formed in the club can last for the rest of people's lives, and as such, this is a second family to all the people there.

It is such a goal to achieve black belt.  But last night while we were having dinner, the Master from the Madison club, my teacher in addition to my private instructor, told me that he has another belt test for the red belts in the club, for second stripe, in April with the regular color belt test.  It's not a required thing, just something that he likes to do and he described it as a farewell.  I have an audition 2 days later.

I am suddenly not ready.  There were 13 of us that evaluated this weekend, a huge group compared to all other years, and we all were given permission to make the decision of whether or not we wanted to test for black belt in September.  This was also highly unusual, for the responsibility to be ours.  Every other year, people pass and people are asked to wait.  But this year, we decide.

Black belts have often said to the color belts that we should enjoy testing because once you are a black belt, you don't get to do it very often.  Year pass between tests.  And I think most color belts think what a relief that would be.  It feels like choosing to grow up, but I'm not sure I'm ready for that.  I've already been on my own for so long.  I'm not ready to say goodbye, nor do I want to miss the opportunity to formally do so.

The theme for the weekend was:  How do you teach what matters, and how do you do it in a way that it will last beyond your life and the life of your student's?

It can be so comforting to have limitations.  The idea of living beyond them is somewhat terrifying.  I don't think I was built to do that.  And yet these times together, the space, the reflection that is offered, and the presence of the all the generations of students and teachers that have been touched and will continue to touch others, seem to suggest that such a thing is possible.  To say goodbye to a teacher is to carry that torch forward.  And with all the love that one has for one's teachers, the burden and impossibility, the responsibility and necessity of it, grow.

But we will all still be here in this life.  This is the wonderful thing.  In a sense, this is a death, after which we may still find one another physically for a time being.  But I think I would like to go to the test in April, to be with the family again, to try with my fellow red belts and rejoice in being together.

Mecca

The days are growing longer, the sun is setting later, and today I had to speak with a parent about their concern for balancing their child's state-test preparatory tutoring needs with our music program at the school.  I also had to speak with the art teacher for a few moments about strategies for handing out corrections in our classrooms, which made my departure from the school occur at a particular time, I suppose as it does everyday.

But today, I crossed Malcolm X Boulevard with the walk light and took the next walk light to cross 118th to walk down to the bustling 116th vein through Harlem, deciding against the residential path I've been taking the past few days.  The sun must have been setting just then, on this cloudy day, at that pair of crossings, because behind the table of earrings and scarves that is as much a staple of that corner as any Starbucks, I happened to see its vendor prostrated upon the curb.  He had a cloth on the pavement, his back to his wares, his head downward towards the oncoming traffic mere meters away, bowing towards Mecca.

I remember being far away, and I see it, hear it everyday in New York.  I wonder if there is a life here, or anywhere, that is not removed, that is not living at some unfathomable distance.

Further along 116th, a boy in a Harlem martial arts uniform ran along the street, signaling to his friend to hurry to catch the bus that was waiting at the light.  I was struck with another feeling from high school, of seeing a groups of martial artists in Clifton in Cincinnati, Ohio and wanting to ask them where they met, if I could join.  I remember a similar feeling at seeing Buddhist monks in their robes.  I have since then become quite committed to a martial arts path, and often wondered from where this path began, where it arose.  It has always been a curious thing that I would be so interested in these uniformed and robed practitioners about which I knew nothing.

I wonder if the street vendor that I saw this evening has ever been to, ever seen Mecca.  What does he bow to, and why?

There is a place that none of us has been.  Sometimes I can hear its distance.  But this evening this man reminded me: it is possible to find that place of devotion, wherever we are.