lnvisible Touch • 01.20.08
I assisted my first class this past weekend. I was so nervous my palms were in the family of balmy-badness. I thought I wouldn’t have a problem assisting, I had been assisted myself many times, plus countless massages, dance classes in my youth, touching – strange as that may sound, wasn’t a problem for me. So I thought.
Maybe it had been too many sober years since I touched a total stranger. Maybe I DID have a problem with touching people, I just hadn’t realized it until this oh-so-perfect moment. Possibly all of the above.
The class started off easy enough, I was seated in a cross legged position at the front, and with premature pride, mimicking my guru’s moves and instruction, just as I had done in class countless other times. I felt at ease in the front of the class, it reminded me of my dance classes as a child, and when you did a movement particularly well, you were put in the front to demonstrate, we all secretly lived for that moment. This, would be just-like-that. Great.
At some point too soon, my guru stopped making movements in the front of the class, she started pacing around the room, expertly looking at her students, and weaving between their bodies. I stood frozen. My mind assaulted with thoughts, where should I move, is there enough space, how to move between these people without, stepping, tripping, or somehow kicking them? And if I couldn’t even move between them, dear god, HOW was I going to touch them?
With something more like a prayer than an inhale, I gathered my scattered thoughts and fumbled towards a willing participant in my training. I tried to breathe calmness into my mind as my balmy hands made contact. Internally kicking myself, I KNEW she felt my nervousness. I spiraled into an out-of-body experience, recalling all those times when I had been assisted by student trainees, always wondering why THEY were afraid to touch me and apply pressure. And as my wimpy balmy hands shuffled about her back, I knew she was thinking the same thing. Mercifully the posture (asana) ended, I had an excuse to move on.
The remainder of the class moved along similar lines. Mostly me being nervous, students politely acquiescing. At some point I got a little better. And maybe one or two students got something more than a vague sense of comforting confusion. I paced up and down my self selected corridor of bodies, picking the same students to touch, disregarding all the “touch one, touch everyone” lesson we learned in class, I wasn’t about to touch the BOYS!
By the end, I expected their disappointment but instead found smiles, “thank yous”, and an invisible touch that let me know it was OK, and I could come again.
