What is it Like to Teach the Way I Do?

An improvisation on touching the room in class

Someone recently said that they would pay a lot of money to hear me talk about the creative process of how I teach. So I thought I’d try to write about it. I love teaching. It is a rich creative medium. I hope this inspires a few people out there, maybe gives wings to a few people.

In classes, workshops, retreats, generally there is some form we follow. Warm up, Zhan Zhuang, Non Directed Body Movement, Qigong. There is structure to the classes. And yet as I enter a class, I feel like I enter this open field or playground. It is a sandbox, and within the sandbox I go into a place of freedom. I drop into a deeper state of mind and allow it to take over. That said, the practices are very real and rubber hits the road. That practical aspect is good, as it prevents people from just going into their spiritual fantasies.

I am so curious about people. I am fascinated by them. I could not do this work if I were not so in love with people.

I teach a lot on zoom. Five classes a week. I am in my office here in the Pacific Northwest, and people join from around the globe. I go to my office early, around 7am, and get ready for the class. I begin to feel into the class in my own way for that hour before the 8am class. I do some of my own standing or sitting, I let my body and the process I am so used to take over. I let the energy come together. I become curious about what is happening, what is trying to happen. What people need. I don’t look for answers. It’s more like I begin to catch feelings out of the air. I’m so curious. I am interacting physically with the room, receiving what comes through. But when the class begins and the people begin popping up on the screen, I am generally well prepared. I have coned in on what is happening, and my focus is sharp. I have a lot happening already, I catch them as they enter the class. I feel like I can already hold them in this field immediately. This is usually how it goes. Sometimes I come to class for a cold start but this is rare.

People come to class with various angles. Various struggles, hopes, etc. I feel into that, catch it in the room. I allow it in and interact with the feeling of the room we as a group have created.

With this type of class, the movements and postures are pretty simple in one way. So through that simple structure, I can create freely within the space.

When class starts,

We enter a

liminal space

a space beyond time

A place of alchemy

I don’t know what is happening

I am feeling

I don't know what will show up

The class has a basic structure, we have the standing, the movement, people are working and dialoguing with the physical aspect, and within that I can find people and meet them

When I was a kid, I could feel situations and know what would happen, could feel people, but I did not have any reference point for this feeling. And I did not have anyone to talk to about it. So it was this hidden gear I did not know what to do with. When I was in Japan in my twenties, I began to see that feeling people, feeling situations, was a whole field of communication I could develop and use. I found an avenue to use this. I got to plug in who I was into life. This was in the context of a student teacher relationship. I got to know the Roshi’s mind, where he was going, read him, and this skill was really just a normal part of the process. Finally I had someone who got it. What a relief.

I am sharing this ability to feel another's mind in class. I am offering it, but people must be curious and fascinated enough to pick it up.

Later I learned that not everyone did this. We all have our own style, our own way in. But I’m certain we all have this ability. I am sharing it in the classes.

In class, I am feeling them and feeling everything without expectation

I become permeated by what is happening

Things show up for me in this transparent realm

I touch what is happening, become that, and catch traces of the participants, absorbing the flavor

There is no need for me to know how the process works. Thinking about it gets in the way

I just let go and allow the room to naturally arise

We are in this creative soup

I am communicating something ineffable

It has texture, momentum, I am bombarded by it, melt into it

There is structure (the postures and movement) and freedom, and in that something dynamic and natural arises

Something that cannot be reached rationally

Something of deep intimacy

We are just a vessel for this

Just feeling

just not knowing

allowing this buoyant present event to overcome us, mold us

I feel where people are

I feel their resistance

Feel their intention

Know where it is going

I give them a hint here, a nudge there

I call out when they are leaving the scene or going into Mozo (extraneous thinking)

Information comes. Beckons me

ushers me into more intimacy, more feeling

Classes can have a fierce tone at times

To truly touch it requires a wild receptiveness. It can’t be half hearted!

But really classes are warm and benevolent

I like to tell jokes, it is a very heartfelt group

But people have to decide to do it. It takes a commitment to discover it no matter what.

In my twenties I Japan, I had to see the teacher twice a day. And so twice a day I had to wake up this process, touch it. It was like waking up this dragon inside. I had to touch it, even though it was impossible. And we begin to be able to do it, learn to touch this impossible, and we do develop that skill. Of knowing, faith that we can do it. This is how I hope people approach class. A venue to learn how to wake that dragon every day. And that process will begin to drive us further into feeling it all of the time and allowing it to take over.

I meet you where we see there is no ending between us

I am yielding and gently engaging with this texture of relating

Miraculous insights bubble up within that, transfer of feeling, inner guidance

You have to invent practice continually, but people want something to hold onto...

I am holding the room with my awareness, touching it, feeling its pressure, continually meeting it

The class is a laboratory for people to run up against their avoidance patterns

To discover how their process, how they interact with life, is not working

To meet up and face what they are running from

Who are you? What are you here for? What is happening, I hold very gently. I do not insist. I do not ask these in a direct way

There is group energy. A group momentum. It is very helpful for beginners. This is a very talented group. Being in the class, the field, is powerful and informative, hits you in the viscera. At first people do not have the focus to be able to feel into what is happening, or their focus gets exhausted quickly

Feelings and thoughts don’t come linearly but emerge from the event arising

I trust the feeling, like walking through a forest at night, I begin to find my way without guidance, without my normal faculties being in control

Somehow I have gotten very familiar, very comfortable, being in this unknown and watching it reveal.

I guess it’s my rebellious nature. I don’t like to do anything from an idea

We’ve got to have that maverick in us to creatively rediscover how we are interacting

I will speak different phrases in the classes, and I am not sure where they come from, other than the meeting of this energy. I trust this with all of my being

I am so lucky to be able to share all of this with others. I waited 20 years to have people take notice. I did not know how to share it for so long

I guess one could say that I have learned to interact with each situation, to be guided by them and to bring them into the fold and process them. Each class is different as each situation is different, and different people show up to each class. Whoever shows up creates the particular energy of the situation and therefore the class.

It is in this field of relating that we see that we can relate to everything in a new way. Our bodies are great teachers for this, but it is much bigger than this. We see that we can find liberation within our experience right here, right now. It is our birthright.

This is all revealed within this huge ever changing present moment

People profoundly change when they can study the relating of their experience and find divine principles naturally connecting. What they thought was abstract can be felt and traced back to the source.

I am so lucky to have found a teacher to help nurture my own process. But it was not him who gave me the ability. He in fact had a mind big enough for me to explore, he could hold my process and nurture it to reveal. Before him, I felt alone. His mind, his essence, held me as I hold people in my classes. But it was my own style, my own angle, my own sensitivity which made it blossom.

I find this with many of my students. They are very talented. I give them a chance to feel what they are feeling, give them confidence, and they naturally find their way. Their own insights emerge for their own style. They gain confidence in feeling into their own genius. Everyone does this differently. Everyone has a different way in. A different entry point. But it can be recognized by those who have walked it.

I am offering this type of communication. I am putting it out there, under the table. Some can feel it, and it is like finally being able to drink up something long lost, or meeting a true friend.

Others take a while to be able to tune into it. That’s okay. They need to bring themselves together to begin to feel the momentum of it.

This type of relating saved my life long ago, and so I keep it up for those who are ready to receive it. I plant seeds for those who will find it in time.

I find it so exciting. Fascinating. Venturing into the dark and finding inexhaustible light, sharing the impossible.

I’ve been known to be clairvoyant at times, and this is really nothing special as we get deeper into this stuff, just reading and recognizing what shows up, being receptive. I even saw a vision of my wife years before I met her. But I always knew I’d be doing something like this. Teaching in some way. I did not know it would end up like this. In this form. And the form may change as it feels right. But the form and structure really are only a vehicle for this deeper level of communicating.

People profoundly change in these classes, workshops, immersions, retreats. Some have truly seen their true nature.

I feel so lucky to have this community. Compassion is not a concept but naturally arises out of deep essence and realization. They are the same.

I talk about planting seeds with this work, and that implies that it is all gradual. In fact, confronting our experience is intense and immediate, as are insights. It is gradual and sudden.

I hope some of you reading this are overjoyed at the possibility this presents. Someone finally articulating something you’ve been touching upon or you’ve known is possible but have no reference for. I hope you see that traction can be found for all of that trying to birth out of you. You are not alone.

Just to be clear, I was the worst student. I had so much struggle. If I could finally touch it, you definitely can.

Your intensity can find a venue for expressing.

Thanks for reading. Lots of love!

Photos from our Recent Big Bear, California Retreat. We need more women next time!