MA Dance Pedagogy

I did a bit of research today looking at body image, meditation and self-compassion interventions. It was eye-opening to see the number of different scales looking at different elements of self compassion and body image, which I think will be really useful in my project. The conclusion of the paper I read "Brief self-compassion meditation training for body image distress in young adult women" by Aubrey M. Toole and Linda W. Craighead stated that whilst some people noted significant positive changes in their self-compassion, some were resistant to the idea of self-compassion - one participant even stating ... "I know I must work to achieve the level of fitness I want. . .I must not ease my perception of my body, and must continue to be hard on myself to actually achieve good results."  This statement really shocked me whilst reading it, but mulling over the statement I realised that this is how a lot of myself and my friends think about their bodies. For exam...

Hi all, hope you had good Christmases and New Years and some well deserved time off thinking. I've had a rather bizarre start of not really feeling I want to continue with the MA. I'm not entirely sure where it came from, I had a difficult time at a college I taught at up until Christmas and I think its really made me question what I want in my future. After lots of talking it through with various people I decided I wasn't going to do it. At the moment my work is mainly related to health, exercise and well being so it just wasn't sitting right with me to talk entirely about teaching. I spoke to Helen about it and she recommended I move across to the Dance specialism MA, where I could focus in on those things and interlink them with dance. I've made the move and I'm much more excited about the research prospects than I was previously. However I still don't think I'm entirely out the water here. Reading through the module 2 handbook has made me rea...

A colleague mentioned to me about looking into the theory of arousal in sports psychology. The main premise of the theory in a greater sense in that to keep someone happy they must maintain a balance of the right levels of arousal meant for them as an individual. Some individuals may have low levels of arousement and these may be satisfied by something like reading or sewing. Others may have a much higher level of arousement and need to seek out certain activities which are extremely exciting to them, something like roller coasters, skydiving, etc. People all have different levels that need to be satisfied. I'd like to look at the premise of this in sports and exercise classes. The premise of arousement in exercise and performance in general is that we need to have a high level of arousement to perform at our best  - however when we are over aroused we will begin to lose our technique and our performance will suffer for this. If we looked at say for example, music and arous...

I've just finished reading Reader 4 finally and one of the big things that caught my eye was the idea of the many benefits and disadvantages of having a team at work. As a self employed person who runs a business single handed, I wondered how this might affect research and learning; if it would give me a bigger advantage, looking at the idea of how a team at work is employed to get different jobs done in a practical and efficient manner, and may not allow much time for process, research and developing ideas. On the other hand, the disadvantages would be something I looked into during module 1, although SIG's and Communities of Practice can be created and/or are already there, having someone in person with you on a day to day basis perhaps gives more scope to constantly give and receive ideas and knowledge from the other people you work with. Anyway I think ultimately, whether it is a bigger disadvantage or not, that's my situation at the moment so I will just do the best ...

Hello! So it's been a while, I'll be honest I've found it really hard to get back into blogging as I've had so much going on. I did have a chat with Paula about deferring for a term but I'm going to hold off deciding yet. I'm really excited about what's going on right now in my life so I thought I'd share! So far this year... I completed my Level 2 Exercise to Music and Group Exercise Instructor course - it's given me invaluable knowledge about teaching I was offered a full time job at Frame Studios in London as an instructor - I did turn this job down as I just have so much going on and it didn't feel like the right option for me at this time - but I was absolutely thrilled they offered it to me as they do some brilliant work at their studios - would highly recommend! I started my Ante and Post Natal Instructor course - this is so I can teach exercise to pregnant ladies and ladies wanting to get back into exercise after having a baby. I...