Aikido as Transformative and Embodied Pedagogy
Aikido as Transformative and Embodied Pedagogy

Author: Michael A. Gordon

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-07-16

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 3030239535

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Drawing on the author’s lifelong practice in the non-competitive and defensive Japanese art of Aikido, this book examines education as self-cultivation, from a Japanese philosophy (e.g. Buddhist) perspective. Contemplative practices, such as secular mindfulness meditation, are being increasingly integrated into pedagogical settings to enhance social and emotional learning and well-being and to address stress-induced overwhelm due to increased pressures on the education system and its constituents. The chapters in this book explore the various ways, through the lens of this non-violent relational art of Aikido, that pedagogy is always something being practiced (on the level of psychological, somatic and emotional registers) and thus holding potential for transformation into being more relational, ecological-minded, and reflecting more ‘embodied attunement.’ Positioning education as a practice, one of self-discovery, the author argues that one can approach personal development as engaging in a spiritual process of integrating mind and body towards full presence of being and existence.

Contemplative Pedagogies for Transformative Teaching, Learning, and Being
Contemplative Pedagogies for Transformative Teaching, Learning, and Being

Author: Jing Lin

Publisher: IAP

Published: 2019-11-01

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 1641137827

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In our current systems of education, there is a trend toward compartmentalizing knowledge, standardizing assessments of learning, and focusing primarily on quantifiable and positivist forms of inquiry. Contemplative inquiry, on the other hand, takes us on a transformative pathway toward wisdom, morality, integrity, equanimity, and joy (Zajonc, 2009). These holistic learning practices are needed as a counterbalance to the over-emphasis on positivism that we see today. In addition to learning quantifiable information, we also need to learn to be calmer, wiser, kinder, and happier. This book aims to find and share various pathways leading to these ends. This book will describe educational endeavors in various settings that use contemplative pedagogies to enable students to achieve deep learning, peace, tranquility, equanimity, and wisdom to gain new understanding about self and life, and to grow holistically. Embodiment is a central concept in this book. We hope to highlight strategies for exploring internal wisdoms through engaging ourselves beyond simply the rational mind. Contemplative pedagogies such as meditation, yoga, tai chi, dance, arts, poetry, reflective writing and movements, can help students embody what they learn by integrating their body, heart, mind, and spirit.

Eastern Practices and Nordic Bodies
Eastern Practices and Nordic Bodies

Author: Daniel Enstedt

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-11-14

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 3031381181

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This volume explores the reception, development and construction of Eastern practices in the Nordic countries. The focus is on spirituality, medicine and healing from a lived religion perspective. Besides a geographical focus on the Nordic countries and their characteristics, this collection examines the embodied practices aligned with different expressions of religiosity, alternative medicine, spirituality and healing practices. By addressing questions about how so-called Eastern practices are embodied, spread and materialized, the contributors shed light on a cultural change in Nordic societies regarding religious, spiritual and alternative health practices, that are sometimes at odds with the dominant medical discourse about life-threatening diseases and other types of conditions.

Leadership Wholeness, Volume 1
Leadership Wholeness, Volume 1

Author: Thomas Thakadipuram

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-01-01

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 303108053X

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This book investigates the lived experience of CEOs in their quest for wholeness and presents a model of spiritual intelligence for contemporary leadership. The experience of ethical and spiritual crisis in the post-modern society especially in organizational leadership, calls for deeper quest and spiritual intelligence. Four essential themes emerged from the analysis of the in-depth interviews with top leaders of different organizations across the globe: (1) Sensing Crisis, (2) Embracing Crisis (3) Awakening Hidden Wholeness, (4) and Serving Greater Good. From the analysis of the themes, a model of spiritual intelligence and leadership wholeness is constructed. This Spiritual Intelligence Model portrays the intra-dynamics of leaders’ ongoing quest for wholeness penetrating through their existential, learning, spiritual, and moral dimensions of being and the five ethical dimensions of wholeness permeating through the personal, organizational, social, global, and environmental spheres of life. This book gives a fresh perspective on spiritual intelligence and leadership practice today.

Common Ground in First Language and Intercultural Interaction
Common Ground in First Language and Intercultural Interaction

Author: Istvan Kecskes

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2023-03-06

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 3110766779

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In recent years the traditional approach to common ground as a body of information shared between participants of a communicative process has been challenged. Taking into account not only L1 but also intercultural interactions and attempting to bring together the traditional view with the egocentrism-based view of cognitive psychologists, it has been argued that construction of common ground is a dynamic, emergent process. It is the convergence of the mental representation of shared knowledge that we activate, assumed mutual knowledge that we seek, and rapport as well as knowledge that we co-construct in the communicative process. This dynamic understanding of common ground has been applied in many research projects addressing both L1 and intercultural interactions in recent years. As a result several new elements, aspects and interpretations of common ground have been identified. Some researchers came to view common ground as one component in a complex contextual information structure. Others, analyzing intercultural interactions, pointed out the dynamism of the interplay of core common ground and emergent common ground. The book brings together researchers from different angles of pragmatics and communication to examine (i) what adjustments to the notion of common ground based on L1 communication should be made in the light of research in intercultural communication; (ii) what the relationship is between context, situation and common ground, and (iii) how relevant knowledge and content get selected for inclusion into core and emergent common ground.

Mindfulness-based Strategic Awareness Training Comprehensive Workbook
Mindfulness-based Strategic Awareness Training Comprehensive Workbook

Author: Juan Humberto Young

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2023-04-14

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 1119767377

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A comprehensive training program to navigate skillfully in this disruptive, uncertain time This comprehensive workbook provides a mind training based on new findings in neuroscience that will enhance your decision-making skills. Skillful, strategically aware decisions in professional and private life are key for sustainable well-being and flourishing in life. Part 1 provides a conceptual introduction into understanding the brain as a predicting organ, actively inferring, and constantly trying to optimize energy. Part 2 leads you through a systematic training program of 8 sessions to enhance strategic awareness and improve decision-making skills by increasing the precision of our perception and mental processing. The practices are designed to fit in a busy schedule with a focus on the challenges we all grapple with in daily life. While thorough and well-grounded in scientific research this workbook is also pleasant and inspiring to read. It is filled with practical examples and the author’s own life experience. Numerous hand-drawn illustrations inspire also visually. The MBSAT methodology has been tested by practitioners for over 10 years and is widely acclaimed. The government of Singapore, known for its outstanding commitment to education and investment in the human resources of its population, has included MBSAT in its official skill-building program and heavily subsidizes participation in MBSAT training. It is one of the testimonials to the efficacy of MBSAT.

Cultures of Ageing and Ageism in India
Cultures of Ageing and Ageism in India

Author: Kaustav Bakshi

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-01-30

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1003852238

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This book examines the discourses on ageing and ageism in Indian culture, politics, art and society. It explores its representations and the anxieties, fears and vulnerabilities associated with ageing. The volume looks at ageing within the contexts of the larger discourses of gender, sexuality, nation, health and the performance and politics of ageing. The chapters grapple with diverse issues around ageing and elder care in contemporary India, shifts in socio-economic conditions and the breakdown of the heteropatriarchal family. The book includes personal accounts and narratives that detail the daily experiences of ageing and living with disease, anxiety, loneliness and loss for both elders and their friends and families. The book also explores the models of alternative networks of kinship and care that queer elders in India create in India as well as examining narratives—in society, art, sports and popular culture that both critique and challenge stereotypical ideas about the desires, aspirations, and mental and physical capabilities of elders. Topical and comprehensive, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of gerontology, literature, cultural studies, popular culture, sociology, social psychology, queer studies, gender studies, social anthropology, and South Asian studies.

Integrating Mindfulness into Anti-Oppression Pedagogy
Integrating Mindfulness into Anti-Oppression Pedagogy

Author: Beth Berila

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-12-01

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 1003814409

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Drawing from mindfulness education and social justice teaching, this book explores an effective Anti-Oppression pedagogy for university and college classrooms. Authentic classroom discussions about oppression and diversity can be difficult; a mindful approach allows students to explore their experiences with compassion and to engage in critical inquiry to confront their deeply held beliefs and value systems. This engaging book is full of practical tips for deepening learning, addressing challenging situations, and providing mindfulness practices in anti-oppression classrooms. In this fully revised edition, Dr. Berila positions discussion in the current context and expands exploration of power and implicit bias, transformative learning, and trauma. Integrating Mindfulness into Anti-Oppression Pedagogy is for all higher education professionals interested in and teaching Social Justice pedagogy that empowers and engages students in the complex unlearning of oppression.

Making & Being
Making & Being

Author: Susan Jahoda

Publisher:

Published: 2020-01-23

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781945711077

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"Making and Being draws on the lived experience of Susan Jahoda and Caroline Woolard, visual arts educators who have developed a framework for teaching art with the collective BFAMFAPhD that emphasizes contemplation, collaboration, and political economy. The authors share ideas and pedagogical strategies that they have adapted to spaces of learning which range widely, from self-organized workshops for professional artists to Foundations BFA and MFA thesis classes. This hands-on guide includes activities, worksheets, and assignments and is a critical resource for artists and art educators today"--Page 4 of cover.

The Art of Somatic Coaching
The Art of Somatic Coaching

Author: Richard Strozzi-Heckler

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Published: 2014-02-11

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 158394673X

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The Art of Somatic Coaching introduces the concepts and principles of coaching with practices that include body awareness, bodywork, and mindfulness for both the coach and the client. Author and expert coach, Richard Strozzi-Heckler, PhD, explains that in order to achieve truly sustainable changes in individuals, teams, and organizations, it is necessary to implement body-oriented somatic practices in order to dissolve habits, behaviors, and interpretations of the world that are no longer relevant. He explains that these ways of being are integrated in the body--at the level of the musculature, organs, and nervous system. By implementing a somatic approach, these patterns can be shifted in order for transformation to occur. Opening with a discussion of the roots of Somatic Coaching, the book describes the emotional and physical cost of being distanced from our bodies. Originating from the rationalistic idea that the mind and body are separate, this sense of disconnection spurred the emergence of the field of somatics that views the body as not just a physiological entity, but as the center of our lived experience in the world. Out of this philosophy, Somatic Coaching was developed as a way to cultivate the self through the body. Methods in this book include: • Somatic awareness--becoming aware of sensations • Somatic opening--includes bodywork to release held patterns in the body • Somatic practices--meditation, movement, and being present in everyday life The social context in which one is raised, the supportive, healing force of the outdoors and nature as well as acknowledgment of the spirit are also woven into the practice. Through these practices, a rhythm of unfolding occurs in what Strozzi-Heckler describes as an Arc of Transformation--moving in stages from conditioned tendencies to a new satisfying and fulfilling way of being that is fully embodied. Contents: Introduction; Chapter One: A Short Distance but a Big Cost; Chapter Two: Coaching; Chapter Three: Somatics and Somatic Coaching; Chapter Four: The Methodology; Chapter Five: The Rhythm of Action; Chapter Six: The Somatic Arc of Transformation