Riggers · Noord, Amsterdam
Not a teacher, and the difference matters more than people think
Pinned as not_here_to_teach
- Wants
- two adults each responsible for themselves, over years
- Rope so far
- Nineteen years, and one partnership that taught me why I say no.
- Around
- Noord, Amsterdam
About once a fortnight somebody asks me to teach them, and the answer has been no for eleven years. It is not modesty and it is not that I dislike beginners. It is that I have seen what happens when a partnership starts with one person as the authority. I have been that person, and I did not care for who I became inside it.
Forty four, Noord, nineteen years of rope. The dynamic sets in fast. One of you asks, the other explains, and within a few months every conversation has that shape, including the ones that have nothing to do with rope. Who picks the evening. Who decides when something is finished. Whose bad week counts.
I would much rather begin as two adults each responsible for themselves. If you are new to this, that is genuinely fine, and it changes nothing about how I would want the rest of it to work. It does mean I will be no use as a source of answers, and you would need to be fine with finding them elsewhere.
What I want is a partnership over years, one person, a standing evening or two, and an ordinary relationship built around it.
Not looking for a student. Not looking to be called anything that implies rank, which I find embarrassing rather than flattering. And not looking for somebody who is here to acquire something from me and will move along once they have it, which I have done once and would rather not repeat.