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If we've met, than you know that I am anything but slender. My body is soft, malleable, warm and curvy. At long distances, I am an easily identifyable woman and this is something that I have become increasingly proud of. It is a characteristic of myself that I haven't always admired, and a part of myself that I have tried to hide. However, as I continue to discover the joy of having a healthy, well working, world and self-serving body, I circle back to how my curves are an advantage in my work, in my play and in my life. In my work ("work" - because it's really a blessing, and sometimes doesn't feel like working) : The body is how we communicate. It is how we explain the unexplainable, how we translate emotions, how we digest art, how we show our appreciation and distain. Children are very physical beings. They are totally and completely within themselves, and their sensory systems are incredible when they are engaged. I am in a course at the university that explores movement and music. Part of this semester we will talk about a method known as Dalcroze. It is about incorporating movement and dance and physicality into music lessons. This whole concept encouraged me to engage with my students as they engage. To have a posture (figuratively and literally) that is open to anything. This posture calms kids right down, calms parents right down and begins the first lesson or the 48th lesson with a friendly, confident and humble disposition, that I hope only encourages my students to flourish. One of my four year old students gives me a run for my money. Sometimes I literally chase her around my house, but in a way that is productive* I promise. I decided that one day I would try and meet her exactly where she is physically, that this would be a trust excercise as much as it was a music excercise. I play this delicate role in her life. I am not her parent, I am not her relative and I am not her school teacher. In this lesson we were colouring different kinds of ntoes (coconuts as we call them) on different lines of the staff, basic fine motor stuff. I followed her from sitting cross legged to lying on our bellies and I have to say it was AMAZING. Our communication felt very natural, it felt open and honest and she could tell me about friends and school or....FROZEN and I could reengage her without being a demostrative presence, without bossing her around and while actually paying attention to what she needed and wanted out of our lesson. That was a great lesson (for the both of us). *Playing hide and seek is a beautiful thing. I teach in my home, and there are limits and privledges to teaching in my own home. It's more comfortable, warm and there's tea and water at my finger tips. Little kids are curious! They are coming to understand similarilties and differences. I have a house, you have a house but our houses look different. I have a fridge, you have a fridge but what's in the fridge is different. Playing hide and seek - a controlled game of it allows some of my students to open up and discover the space we are playing in... and yes, sometimes includes a light chase. When you go into teaching of any sort you come to understand that YOU are the example by which students will often model or at least closely observe. That's why it's SO COOL, that if I'm confident in my own body, it encourages students to be confident in theirs. I become an example of someone that might not look like who they've been exposed to. Whether it's because of my curves or my crazy dark curly hair, it opens a silent understanding that beauty and art doesn't have to be about our physical appearance but about what is within us . Our hearts, our kindness, our gentleness, our silliness that we can manifest in what we wear, how we play our piano piece, the songs we sing and essentially how beautiful we are from the inside out. That's why taking risks like getting right down to their level and drawing on our bellies is so important. Or why after a student does an amazing job playing a song, we have a Beyonce dance party for 3 min. Communicating as a teacher can't stop at the end of a page, it carries into everything we do and we say. The last thing that I'll speak to is how comforting my curves are. My arms can really swaddle a newborn and my hips can hold a toddler with no hesitation. My hands have wipped tears and my chest has consoled an accident or two. I am always ready to be hugged or to give a high-five and I can demostrate a proper breath with one hand on my ribcage. There are appropriate times to snuggle up, like when we are reading a workbook (that I wrote) on the importance of being gentle. There are appropriate times to swim a front crawl while we sing, to let go of back tension!!!! My comfortablility with myself directly influences the successes of these excercises and I wouldn't have that any other way. This post is for myself, to give me more incentive to own the vessle that God has given me, use it to connect and communicate and continue to have fun in all the work that I do.