Being a student for the past 25 years or more graduating from college, studying dance, yoga, Artist's Way, attending various workshops plus teaching various yoga classes and workshops for 20 years my journey has been mostly in a classroom of some kind. Now I am in the humongous classroom called LIFE 101 and it is soooo much harder. No teacher, no assignments, no combinations to learn, no set exercises or papers to write or reports to give or presentations to design and implement I feel LOST.
"Pain is the greatest teacher" she said. She asked us to sit down against the wall after class and announced she had breast cancer. I heard she had been a dancer since the age of three. She came to Marylhurst to teach dance after being in a severe car accident where she was told she would never walk again. In the hospital she asked for a radio and began moving her little finger to the music....the only thing she could move at the time. Three years later she was teaching my class. She had a double mastectomy yet died a year later. She was in her forties. She is the one who was my role model, inspired me to dance and to become a yoga teacher.
I've heard if you have even one great teacher in your life you are fortunate and I have had many. I had no idea I even wanted to take a dance class for my degree until my adviser suggested it. I hated the class so much because I felt so self-conscious and like the worst one in the class. Going across the floor one at a time freaked me out. But I got an A, did not have to read a book or make a report and adored Joan so I signed up again. That was the beginning of non stop dance classes of all kinds to today moving what I can move.
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Joan Harmony, my mentor, my teacher, my inspiration, my catalyst to be more than I could dream.
"Pain is the greatest teacher" she said. She asked us to sit down against the wall after class and announced she had breast cancer. I heard she had been a dancer since the age of three. She came to Marylhurst to teach dance after being in a severe car accident where she was told she would never walk again. In the hospital she asked for a radio and began moving her little finger to the music....the only thing she could move at the time. Three years later she was teaching my class. She had a double mastectomy yet died a year later. She was in her forties. She is the one who was my role model, inspired me to dance and to become a yoga teacher.
I've heard if you have even one great teacher in your life you are fortunate and I have had many. I had no idea I even wanted to take a dance class for my degree until my adviser suggested it. I hated the class so much because I felt so self-conscious and like the worst one in the class. Going across the floor one at a time freaked me out. But I got an A, did not have to read a book or make a report and adored Joan so I signed up again. That was the beginning of non stop dance classes of all kinds to today moving what I can move.
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I too have had some special teachers in my life and not all of them were in a classroom. So many that we interact with along life's journey influence us and leave their mark upon us. So sad, the story about Joan. She must have been a very special person to you.
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