to touch or not

Oberdan Otto

Message 17645 · 12 Jun 1999 20:17:19 · Fixed-width font · Whole thread

>[Sylvia:] It seems that the word according to Miss Milligan depends on
>where and when the word was spoken.

That has been my impression as well.

I tend to pay a lot more attention to the written word than to the spoken word.

There are many problems with relying on the spoken word: (1) it is usually
extemporanious--the speaker does not spend a lot of time carefully
selecting the words that exactly convey his/her meaning; (2) when the
spoken word is remembered, it is not remembered exactly and the context is
often missing or remembered poorly.

I take the quotation of Miss Milligan from "Won't You Join the Dance" (WJD)
as permission to politely ignore anyone who claims that giving hands in a
particular situation is incorrect. I consider that that person's dictum is
incorrect itself. Whether I give hands or not has more to do with the
feeling of the dance: whether the giving of hands helps or hinders the flow
of the dance and whether or not it improves the interactions between
dancers.

When I presented that quotation to you, it is because I believed it
contained an important piece of wisdom. Miss Milligan has written and
spoken a lot about SCD. Some of the things she has written and spoken are
like this gem I have shared with you. But not every word she has recorded
or uttered is a gem of wisdom.

This may seem odd to you, but when I read something from WJD or The Manual,
or when I listen to a teacher in an SCD lesson, I actually engage my brain.
I ask, does this make sense? When somebody tells me that something is
correct or incorrect a little red flag goes up. I do not accept it without
question. I evaluate that statement in the light of everything else I know
about SCD. Nobody is exempt from this process, not even examiners, not even
our beloved Jean Milligan. If I do recognize it as wisdom, I file it in my
repository of useful things to know about doing or teaching SCD.

Cheers, Oberdan.

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