run a regular zoom group for those interested in dowsing and I asked them to watch the video above to see what lessons we could learn from her teaching style. This evening Tuesday we had a meeting to discuss this. I first of all started the  ball rolling by giving my own impressions:

What does Madame Boulanger offer that other teachers do not

She did not become famous overnight but through reputation over the years and decades. People do not give their respect immediately because in this crazy world the default is not too trust someone or their words or their contribution.

First I see a complete identification with music. It’s not that music is her life is that she is music, she embodies it. To therefore speaks with authority as you could say that Christ spoke with authority because he had identified completely with his client group i.e human beings. You cannot be a distant teacher. The two are contradictory

She shows a very great respect for those in the audience although she does not know them and she has the humility to go at their speed not the speed that her own mind would dictate. She did not seek publicity. She did not need to. The authority of her work sent out the right signal to those who needed to hear what she had to say.

When people play the piano for her she did not hesitate to stop the performer but her gestures showed a very sensitive interjection and not an interruption.  Her sole wish was for the trainee pianist to fully understand the nuances of the work and not just play the notes. I ask at this point if we put our clients or customers above ourselves in matters of importance.

If the pianist stumbles and makes technical mistakes, so long as their motivation is to learn then Mme Boulanger is on their side. There is a certain kinship among those who are ‘on the wavelength’ and this is true not only of music not of other subjects that are political and sometimes controversial.

She also involves the audience as well as the learning pianist to make sure they are involved in other words that the group consciousness is adequate to the occasion and helps everyone become  more proficient. She opines ” what you are singing is beautiful but I can hear nothing” and I can echo that sentiment with politicians who are just reading to a script as opposed to someone who walks their talk and perhaps with faltering technique exposes themselves as a learning flawed human being who wants to achieve something and make the world a better place.

When I listen to someone giving a talk I decide in the first five seconds whether I am going to listen to them in other words whether they are saying anything worthwhile. If the carrier wave does not  fit with the verbal message I dismiss it. I find the same thing to a lesser extent with written articles. If someone speaks from the heart, then I know it and I  focus on the experience until the end.

Below are excerpts from the meeting discussing the playing of Nadia but also discussing the principles of teaching in general.

An analogy used by one participant in this evening’s meeting was that you need to express the work and not yourself. In other words you keep yourself out of the way which is a rule that many therapists could learn from. We are a messenger and not the message. A pupil must find their way through the subject and find out what works for them which may not be necessarily a method that works for the teacher, so it is the starting point that is the catalyst.

Brian: I went to a teaching day about how to use a local community Radio station and the teacher spent 10 minutes going through the whole thing at high speed. It was obvious to him but not to me and so my morale completely went through the floor and I dissociated myself from it. Can we do short bursts of knowledge rather than a continuous stream.

Practice makes perfect so in repetition we embody the new knowledge.

Another question was how we get the younger people involved in intuitive methods of diagnosis. The first problem would appear to be to get them off their devices. Is this a form of interaction that people see as not being cool. Maybe they are just not aware of the topic and it might be the type of topic people become aware of only in their 40s.

>Surely people can dowse from any age. Perhaps it’s about being introduced to the subject by an enthusiast.

Some are better off in a one to one situation. Some prefer not to ask questions in front of a big group in case they think they are stupid.  Some in a group may not ask questions because they are plain and simple shy. Some teachers are not approachable. Some may not ask questions out of pride.

There can be seen to be three stages of learning.

3.  they have a go and I am there in case they need to ask something.

However, the whole depends on the two parties being compatible. With special needs children there are various types of learning modalities,

Generally speaking, it is the doing that is the most important as you have the motor memory and it stays with you.

Nadia was talking and listening and she was encouraging people to experience what was going on and to feel the emotions. Another said, what I like about her teaching is that she was talking but also asking them a lot of questions so they had to find the answer before she give them an example.  A lot of teachers give you the facts but if you have an example of being asked a question on the subject and try to find the answer I think it’s probably a way of remembering the right answer.

I liked Nadia’s energy as well she was very firm but very kind in her teaching that’s why so many of the pupils became very good in their art. ‘Facilitator’ is a much better word I find because you’re helping to facilitate something and they want you to show them an example and then let them do it, whether you put them in pairs or whatever so they haven’t got everybody watching them.

Nobody wants to stand up in front of a room of people and try something new. They actually want you to show them and then let them do it when nobody spying on them other than their friends or whoever you paired them with. Sometimes I put them into two or three but never more than that because that works one watches what they all do but they all laugh and they make mistake it’s not a problem.

If you stand  there and give someone a lecture that’s not teaching. One method is that if you make a bit of an idiot of yourself it’s actually quite good fun. You can say ‘well there’s three ways to do this, this is one way then you can show them another way and then you can show them the way you prefer but you make sure that the first way that I do it is the daftest or the stupidest and it will go wrong and that makes them relax.

You’ve got to get people that you’re teaching to relax you know so you make a mistake and things like that it causes laughter and they all relax and that’s the best thing is to get any student if it’s one on one or two to one and actually relax and not be self conscious.I’ve been dowsing since I was five by just picking up a conker on a bit string and instead of having a conker fight I realized it could it react to energy.

With Nadia it was like the music was running through her veins and the way she did bring everybody together and everyone was included and you could see even on the screen the energy moving and it when it expanded into the whole room you could see the connection between all the people.

Nadia was concerned and possibly disenchanted but even so she brought them into the conversation without them quite realizing that she did  that,  and as that was one an inner knowing to her and she’d opened her heart center to bring the whole room in to an understanding that it isn’t about playing notes it’s about feeling the vibration of the music.

It’s like you can listen to Tchaikovsky, not that I think she mentioned Tchaikovsky moat or whatever that’s a great feat to feel him with you when you play,  so when you actually get it in your heart center it was fabulous.

I watched it twice because I wanted to make make sure that that’s what she’s done.

Something that came into my head when a member was talking just now is about the different way that people learn because I am quite dyslexic so I really struggle when people say ‘oh can you just go and read this before you come on the course so make sure you read it’ because I can read words but they don’t mean anything if that makes sense I can actually read a book but I can tell you what it was about because I just go through the process of reading the words.

What I remember when I’m I’ve been in a class or something is the person telling me something so then if I am asked to  repeat it or go do an exam or a test on the information that I’ve been told in my head I’m seeing the person telling me the information and if I read books now but I tend to read books that are by people that I’ve met or I’ve seen on TV or who I know.

When I read I hear the person reading it to me and then I can remember it because I’m not reading the words I’m hearing the person reading it to me it’s kind of weird and so I really struggle to read something if I’ve never seen the person who wrote it.  I’m just hearing the person telling me what it is they’re reading to me.<

Brian: the people I’ll tell you now people who annoy me are those who have not put their heart into what they’re doing,  they just mouthing the words and  transmitting the information and the people that I really love to death are those who surround me with love and caring of which the words are just a part so in other words it’s a it’s an envelope enveloping of the inclusion of everyone.

When I’m in a threesome or foursome the conversation someone looks at someone else and they don’t look at me occasionally I get really offended because I think they that I’m not in their consciousness so I think I think this inclusivity – not in the PC sense – but in the human aspect is hugely important and makes a situation significant.