Playing the piano was an enormous part of my childhood.  I can’t remember not being able to play.  And, frankly, I can’t remember not feeling talented.  As I grew up, I never considered quitting or even moving on to a new instrument.  I loved the expressiveness of the piano – a perfect outlet during those adolescent years where blending in was singularly important.  I loved the challenge as my teachers assigned me more difficult pieces – each lesson a chance to crest another peak.  I loved the fact that my music was a chance for me to quietly shine.  As a child with some physical challenges and limitations, playing the piano offered me opportunities for success that were few and far between for me in sports.

 

Given the formative of nature of music in my own life, it will come as no surprise that I was eager for my children to start piano lessons.  So eager, in fact, that our youngest learned to read music before she learned to read!  The piano has also been an enormous part of my experience of motherhood.  The time I’ve spend at the keyboard with my children has yielded me a deeper understanding of how each is wired.  My son is an intellectual musician – pragmatic, methodical and precise.  My middle child is passionate and expressive.  She plays with a stirring touch that I believe you have to be born with.  My youngest is fearless and driven.  She loves to make music and is the only one of my three who regular wanders into our music room to play “just for fun.”  She has tremendous focus and a will to learn that make her especially fun to work with.

 

After so many years of piano being simply “what we do,” it took my breath away when my middle child pronounced that she would like to quit.  The fact that she has a gift for musicianship made her desire even harder for me to stomach.   After much belabored back-and-forth-ing, she has convinced me that the piano is simply not “her” instrument.  She prefers to play music as part of an orchestra and would like to focus on the cello.  Right in the midst of this decision process, my son asked if he could begin taking lessons at The School of Rock.  It seems he’d like to be a keyboardist in a band rather than playing “old stuff” like Bach and Beethoven.

 

With this one-two punch, my children have taught me another valuable parenting and life lesson.  My children are meant to walk their own paths, not to follow me down mine.  My struggle with their choices stemmed from my perception that they were rejecting something I was passionate about, something that had been crucial to my development into the person I am today.  I wanted to give them this same life-altering gift.  It took time and space and loads of will-power to see that I did give them a gift and that they had accepted it whole-heartedly.  I gave them the gift of music.

 

It was as I breathed and moved on my yoga mat that I began to understand.  It was as I shared yoga with others that I reached clarity.  We give of ourselves and our experiences and our passions all the time.  We offer advice and personal stories to our friends.  We do this not to tell them what to do, but to add a layer or two of dimension to their own experiences and decisions.  We recommend therapists and handymen and teachers to others in need.  While we’re thrilled if they take our recommendation, we don’t take it personally if they find a better fit elsewhere.

 

As a teacher, I have the opportunity to practice this professionally.  I share my personal experience and expression of yoga with my students.  While I obviously hope students will enjoy my classes and want to explore the practice in more depth with me, it would be naïve to think my style will work for everyone.  There are as many approaches to yoga as there are teachers, so it follows that there is a class out there somewhere that will work for each of us.  It can be hard to remember sometimes, but I do know in my heart that my real work is not teaching classes.  If I spark an interest in yoga, then I’ve done my job.  No matter where or how that student ends up  practicing, I can be pleased that they received the gift I gave.

 

And this is the lesson my children taught me.  I needed to be reminded that a gift once given is no longer mine to claim ownership of.  It is the recipient’s and it is up to them to do with as they desire.  Neither of my children is rejecting music.  Quite the contrary, they have embraced it and loved it.  Their desire to follow their own hearts to different styles and different instruments indicates that.  They are making the music “theirs,” which is exactly what I’d hoped would happen – albeit in a slightly different form than I’d imagined.

 

Namaste,

Amy

 

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