Over the summer of 2021, after teaching at the Ithaca Institute, I created something for myself called cave week. The idea was that I would restrict all external noise, enter an internal cave for the week, and use my time to create what I was calling my album. I’m writing this on March 6, 2022 and the album still isn’t finished, however it is in progress. I want to provide an excerpt of my journals that week just so you can see how hard the act of thinking really is.

It is possible to get by as a teacher by simply regurgitating a haphazard, half digested collection of what other teachers have discovered. I am convinced that in order to be a teaching master you must actually start from scratch. You must build a coherent, self-referential system that will completely support your students. Don’t think of yourself as a collector of others’ good ideas, but as an architect of your own.

But what does it feel like to architect? It feels like this…

I’ve started this journal because my thoughts are screaming at me. The need for distraction is intense, like an addiction. I feel there is pressure in my brain. Pushing out. Foggy.

I’m not sure I’ve been spurred on to new insights. I don’t know how much I’ve discovered about myself.

I’m going to watch some fitness videos, and allow tomorrow be the day the long term thinking starts. I’m going to use loose index cards to sort my thoughts. I’m going to sit on the floor and move them around. I’m going to go for walks and think about them.

I have to push against this initial resistance. So far I have little to show for my efforts. So far, I haven’t downloaded an album, a book, a masterpiece. All I’ve done is write down four already constructed blog posts and gotten some shallow work ideas down on paper. Seriously? And you want to be an elite violin teacher? And you can’t even bring yourself to think about violin teaching in two full days of empty space?

You aren’t resisting the work. You are resisting the resistance to the work. Grow up.

What is the most important question? What needs to be sorted out?

Thinking is effort. This is the effort of being a violin teacher.

The work ahead…

1. Pre-twinkle teacher (parent) training. What to say, bags, activities. Streamlined.
2. Create my own teacher training materials Book 1-8. Study the books themselves.
3. Guide to learning principles.
4. Personal code of conduct.
5. Jot down ideas for deliberate practice in Violin Teaching. Course in fall?

The most important thing to remember is that this is a snapshot in time. Go deep. Get to the frontier. Don’t let yourself off the hook.
This is love.