Right Exercise, Wrong Time

Right exercise, wrong time?

Over the years of teaching, I’ve noticed a frequent problem for amateurs: teachers who are good or even excellent at what they do, who are unsure of how or unable to break down the basics to someone who doesn’t have a solid grasp.

I knew this all along, but it wasn’t until I took up attempting to learn guitar that it hit me- those teaching me were very gifted. I didn’t know how to even hold the guitar let alone play a lick, and the teachers I had were trying to show me how to play songs right away. What I needed was to learn all the very basic basics of music and making chords and all that sort of thing. But I realized too that I know so many people who can play songs on the guitar, but don’t understand music theory or really how the instrument actually works.

It’s a teachers responsibility to break things down for the student. All their skill and ability means very little to a student if it can’t be passed on - of course the student has to take the initiative to learn, but the teachers responsibility is to fill in the gaps- to teach to the needs and level of the student, and make no assumptions.

I made my courses in this very attempt: to fill in essential skill sets to allow people to progress better and more solidly. Lateral work is fantastic, but if you can’t hold your whip tactfully, if you can’t walk with some fluidity; if you can’t use your aids logically and rhythmically, then it’s all “playing licks” without music theory- in other words, the songs are a bunch of individual pieces in isolation without any connection, you’re making sounds but not really playing music.

As a teacher, I am dedicated to teaching the skill sets needed by the student, not the ones that make me look cool or make the student feel good- I’m committed to showing realistic photos of horses in work so that people learn to get used to seeing basics building- and will continue to set the tone for what education looks like : messy, continual and not always butterflies, rainbows and piaffe - sometimes (and most often ) it’s practicing scales , managing your tools better and learning how to breathe while moving.