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| Training to teach |
| Sometimes I get an email from someone who's done a workshop and loved it, and wants to know how to go about training to be a teacher. I understand the longing to be a teacher. Sometimes it's a calling and you just know. That's how it was with me. Often it's just a longing to go deeper into the work. And usually at the beginning it's too soon to know. Dance. Pay attention to where you are, without paying too much attention to where you think you're heading. Trust your feet to take you where you need to go. Here's my perspective in more detail if you're considering the teaching path: This work is very powerful. To teach it is FAR more difficult than it seems!! At least, to really teach it I mean. Sure, you could explain the form to anyone with what you know already, and they would have a meaningful experience because the form is simple, accurate and catalytic. But you would be misleading them as to the real nature of the work, and betraying any love of the rhythms that you have already, because the form is only the form, and this is a spiritual practice not a formal one. To really teach this work you have to be a teaching. Then being a teacher can come. That takes time. Do the work until it’s in your bones, blood and breath. There are 5 main stages to the path (workshops called Waves, Heartbeat, Cycles, Mirrors, and Silver Desert), and you need to have done the first 4 (the first 2 in considerable depth) before you can apply for the training. The good news is that doing the work will change you every step of the way, so it doesn’t have to be all about the destination (which you can't be sure of anyway). Doing the work will take you in the direction of your own truth, and integrate your body, heart and mind so that everything you do has soul. It will lead you, if you listen, towards the creative activities that most deeply fulfill you in this world. That may be teaching the rhythms, or it could be something else that you haven’t thought of. It could be what you’re doing now, but transformed. If the rhythms are your 'path with heart' then whatever you do will be a teaching. That doesn't necessarily mean the form of that teaching will be giving 5 Rhythms classes. Be willing not to know where you’re going for a while. Fall in love with the beat, do the work, and see where it takes you. Get to do some of the other workshops. Start with doing lots of Waves and Heartbeat. Invite a teacher to do a workshop in your area, and produce it for them. Also, get your own music collection in gear and create some different waves for yourself to practice with. Make a techno wave, a classical wave, a rock and roll wave, a mixture wave. Practice with no music sometimes. Just do body parts some days. Just work with one of the rhythms some days. Take the feeling of how frustrated or inspired you feel that it’s a long path and turn it into a brilliant dance. At some stage you'll know whether or not the teaching thing is for you. Then you can apply for the training and go through the process. For now, don't miss being a beginner. It won't happen again. Check this out - click here – and keep clicking through. It will give you an idea of the scope of the ocean you’ve dipped you toes in. bon voyage! |
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