Teaching by Hand, Learning by Heart: Delving Into the Work of F. M. Alexander by Bruce Fertman

Author:Bruce Fertman [Fertman, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B08S6RW6YZ
Publisher: Mouritz
Published: 2021-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

2. A Little Lightness

Mr. Yamamoto has had a long day.

Finally finished, he gets on his bicycle and winds his way through narrow streets lined with old, dusty shops and wood weathered houses. It’s winter, 6:30 pm and already dark. Heavy, white snowflakes fall in slow motion through an indigo sky, the way they have in Kyoto for 1,400 years.

Mr. Yamamoto emerges from the back streets of Old Kyoto and into what looks like another world, wide avenues full of vertical neon signs, large LED advertising screens, high-rise financial institutions, and upscale department stores. He pulls in front of a Seven Eleven, grabs a bento and a box of butter cookies to share during the break, gets back on his bike and realizes he’s late.

Mr. Yamamoto is a 50-year-old high school math teacher who dreams of retiring. Inside his beat up leather briefcase, which now rests, seemingly exhausted, in his bicycle basket, are his students’ math exams, which he will be grading late into the night, because this evening he will take a class he wants to take, a class for himself.

Mr. Yamamoto is hoping to learn more about his body. He wants to have more energy. He wants to have some fun, do something good for himself. At the suggestion of a friend, against his better judgement, he signs up for a series of classes in the Alexander Technique.

About twelve students have gathered, men and women, old and young, people for the most part who just want to feel more alive, a bit lighter, a little happier.

Tonight I’ve been working with the students doing things they have to do at work, things they don’t like doing. I worked with a man who receives phone calls from disgruntled customers complaining about what they just bought and wish to return. I worked with a woman scrubbing a wooden floor on her hands and knees. I worked with a man who has to listen to his boss yelling at him first thing in the morning.

It’s Mr. Yamamoto’s turn. He unsnaps his briefcase and slides out his stack of ungraded exams. He walks over to a desk in the corner of the room, sits down behind the desk, drops the pile of papers onto the desk, pulls out a pencil from his shirt pocket, lets out a big sigh, and begins.

I just watch, feeling how he feels, sensing what’s happening throughout my entire body as I see his entire body. Under the table I can see that his feet and legs are turned in, especially his left leg. His pelvis is rolling back. His stomach is tight. His chest is sunken. His head is dropped and tilted to the left. His body looks like it’s crying, but Mr. Yamamoto is not crying. Then I see it and feel it: silent, desperate resignation.

Mr. Yamamoto scribbles something onto the first exam. ‘How did your student do,’ I ask?’ ‘D. Not good.’ Mr. Yamamoto continues. C. D. C+. F. He’s shaking his head. He’s aging right before my eyes.

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