Teaching Breakthrough?

I have often felt sort of amazed that I teach the viola. I still feel like I have so much to learn myself that it's hard to imagine I'm the person doling out the advice sometimes!

I just finished teaching a lesson to a student who has studied with me for about 3 and a half years. When she first started studying with me there were many technical things that I just didn't feel qualified to be working on with her. They were mainly issues of intonation and bow usage, and over the years I've tried to incorporate my own ideas with those that other violameisters have passed down to me. Not that I'm an "unqualified" violist, but geez louise - I really need to work on those things as well! I just never felt like things were sinking in - maybe I was explaining things in a weird way, or relying too much on spewing verbatim what I had been told by my superiors.

Tonight I just really felt like I was making sense. Not only to my student, but to myself. I was talking about straight bow and playing close to the bridge - issues I have been working on ever since the womb (or so it feels). There is a point at which you just have to stop relying on looking in the mirror and just feel the correct resistance and angle - and those things are hard to teach! But, after explaining what I personally felt when I played with a straight bow, and sharing the (perhaps unorthodox) ways I thought about it, and being honest with my student about how all of my hard work playing near the bridge breaks down when I'm under pressure and what I do to correct it, it worked.

It...worked? She played through almost the whole section we were working on with a straight bow, and in the optimal contact area to boot.

I have always had this notion that only the perfect or near-perfect executioners of the viola could really be the best teachers. I've dealt with so many technical issues throughout my musical career that I always considered myself sub-par technically (hence my addiction to etude books).

Because of this, I have always felt that I wasn't the best at actually giving advice to more advanced players about the actual physical act of playing the viola - although I trust my musical instincts, and have no qualms about giving fingerings, starting new players, general coaching of pieces, etc.

I just need to listen to my own body, and trust it, and convey my own personal physical experiences that have led me to where I am today. I always thought I was doing weird things that I had to keep silent at the risk of sounding loony, in favor of explaining things in a more "pedagogically sound" way.

If releasing the energy of my bow to an unseen point to keep it straight - much like a ballet dancer spots on turns to keep from getting dizzy - helps one student, then maybe it can help others. If talking about "drawing a smiley face" into the string helps someone draw a deeper tone, then I should describe it that way! I shouldn't be afraid of sounding kooky. In fact, I have always quite liked the idea of being a little off the beaten path in terms of playing the viola.

I just wanted to share with you, my reader(s?), that I am finally starting to feel more confident about my teaching and my ideas about playing.

I hope this confidence seeps into my own performance!