The Teaching

The teaching is a living entity and like all living entities it requires and thrives on interaction, nourishment and challenge (stress). In a sense it resides within the teacher but it is also constantly at work beyond the teacher's realm, drawing in students, raw material (inspiration) so to speak ("the end of the world / is the borders of my being"). The difficulty for the teacher is to distinguish between his own energy and that of the teaching. Eventually it is all the teaching for which he is just the paltry conduit. This is why in a teaching situation the teacher learns as much as the students, if not more. He is more surprised than any at what comes out of his own mouth, his own movements and the comments and interactions from the class, all of which are expressions of the teaching. The charged teaching situation is an ideal arena for generating new material to keep the work fresh and exciting. So many times have I heard my teacher say, "This stuff would never have happened if I'd been working on my own". This is why the partner work is so important, even for relative beginners who only possess a little teaching, it allows that teaching to exercise itself in a larger and more healthy environment. The teaching is all about connexion, communication and interaction so it seems reasonable that it should be happiest when these are happening.

The teacher is at his purest and most impressive when he allows the teaching to express itself, rather than when he tries to express the teaching. There is nothing quite so off-putting and repugnant as pontificating and sermonizing. They are a sure sign of a lack of true teaching.

(This post was stimulated by an exchange below.)