awareness

Practice

As noted in the course description we will be integrating somatic (body-based) learning practices into our study.  All equipment will be provided and no experience is necessary.  Although mats are available for checkout with your student ID from the CRC, you might want to supply and use your own mat.  Bring a small notebook or journal, as well as the body map we will create early in the quarter, to all practices. Inquiries regarding body sensing will be a required component of our work and must be documented.

You may not arrive late for yoga sessions.

See yoga handout and yoga reading list (also listed on week-by-week schedule)

Somatic awareness assignment

Students must include in their portfolios their yoga journals and a public version of their body maps* together with a brief 200-600 word reflection on what they learned from creating their maps.  This reflection should reference Don Johnson’s pioneering work on somatic education (see below) by demonstrating at least one way in which the body map of your experience illustrates 1) a challenge of what Johnson identifies as scholar-shaping techniques and 2) at least one way in which it illustrates the yearning to know before the knower is shaped.

Don Johnson, "Sitting, Writing, Listening, Speaking, Yearning: Reflections on Scholar-Shaping Techniques," from Body Movements: Pedagogy, Politics, and Social Change, Shapiro and Shapiro, eds., Hampton Press, 2002. Available at

http://donhanlonjohnson.com/newsite/pages/articles_sitting.html

*The Public Version of the Body Map:  Because of the difficulties students have noted in working with a body map, you are required to create a smaller, 8½ by 11-inch version of the body map for inclusion in your portfolio.  The body map you bring to yoga and use for reflections is large and difficult to view and fold.  They may contain personal or sensitive material that might appropriately remain private.  They should contain a quarter’s worth of rich and complex sensations, insights, experiences, even though your reflection might be brief and summative.  The smaller version should be designed for public viewing to illustrate in explicit ways the  specific somatic work discussed in the reflective writing.

Annie Barrett will facilitate an optional session on Mondays, 9:30-11 AM. An extra fee will be assessed for each quarter. Fees are paid quarterly, not per session.