10.28.2009

Time Management for Creative People


As I begin to type my thesis, I would like to share this Time Management for Creative People ebook.

I've found it extremely helpful!

“Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
Gustave Flaubert

10.25.2009

New R-DMT Paperwork and Anti-Aging Yoga


If you are a dance/movement therapy alternate route student, or plan to become one in the future, you should definitely check out the ADTA's new website to become familiar with the R-DMT packet. There is a bunch of downloadable paperwork as well, which is newly added since the website makeover. Make sure you're organized!

Also, I came across the Gaiam blog this weekend, and thought I'd share the "anti-aging" yoga slideshow with you. Although I'm not a fan of gimmicky incentives as the only motivation for movement and health, this one is at least interesting enough to pass along. Let me know what you think.


Anti-Aging Yoga: How-to Slideshow
by Sadie Nardini

What yogis have known for centuries, science now backs up: When it comes to looking and feeling young, skin creams and injections ain’t got nothing on the practice of yoga. Yoga changes the body’s system as a whole, so the glow on your more youthful face actually comes from an inner transformation and slowing down of the aging process. This means fewer wrinkles, less stress, more immunity, increased brain power and yes, a body that stays healthy and beautiful for a lifetime. So forget botox. Try yoga!

I’m not talking about face yoga here — though that’s fine to do, too.

More and more research is finding that people who practice a vigorous form of yoga just three hours a week are investing in maintaining a youthful glow by switching on the anti-aging hormones that slow down the process from the inside out. In fact, some studies show that on average, these three hourly sessions make practitioners biologically nine years younger than their non-yogi counterparts. Now that’s change we can believe in! Yoga does this by stimulating the endocrine system to produce balanced amounts of hormones, and helps switch on and off genes that we need (or don’t!) to keep us running smoothly. It’s been shown, among other things, to reduce stress hormones like cortisol, a major factor in disease and aging.

Make this practice part of your regular routine, and reap the benefits of invigorated health and beauty that will have people asking you what your secret is. You’ll just smile slyly (with fewer wrinkles) and say, “It’s the yoga.”

THE PRACTICE

The following 6 power poses work specifically to trigger the main endocrine glands: reproductive, adrenals, thymus, thyroid, hypothalamus, pituitary and pineal, and the major organs, which all work together to regulate stress, metabolism, aging, sleep and immunity.


1. Seated Cat/Cow

Regulates: reproductive and stress hormones

Come into an Easy Seat. Place your hands on knees, and with each inhale, arch your back, drawing shoulder blades closer. Exhale, and round in, shoulder blades move apart, chin towards chest.

Repeat for one minute or more.

2. Metabolic Spark

Regulates: metabolism and weight management, immunity

Return to Easy Seat. Inhale into the chest and ribs, and reach your arms out parallel to the floor, palms facing forward. Exhale more quickly from the navel, and swing your arms to reach out in front of you, palms face each other.

Repeat for one minute.

3. Twisted Lunge


Regulates: organ health, overall system function.

Come into a Lunge Position, back heel up, hips squared. Bring your palms together at the chest and plant your right elbow onto the left knee. Keep the hips level as you exhale and spin your heart and top shoulder to the sky. Place your back knee down onto the floor if needed.

Take 5-10 breaths here, then switch sides.

Read the full article here.

10.22.2009

Skeleton in the Closet


Skeleton in the Closet is a series of intimate portraits, by artist Fritz Liedtke, of people struggling with anorexia and bulimia.

Combining photographs and text, it creates a powerful narrative of what it's like to live with-–and leave behind-–an eating disorder.

www.skeletoninthecloset.net

10.20.2009

Dance Therapy Coursework at Kinections in NY

Right around the corner in 2010!

May
Dance/Movement Therapy Theory & Practice I
Foundations and Principles of Dance/Movement Therapy
May 24, 2010 - May 28, 2010
Danielle L. Fraenkel, Ph.D., BC-DMT, NCC, LCAT, LMHC

June
Group Processes in Dance/Movement Therapy
The Marian Chace Approach
June 2, 2010 - June 5, 2010
Elissa White, BC-DMT, CMA, LCAT

A Bill Evans Approach to Laban Movement Analysis
June 7, 2010 - June 10, 2010
Bill Evans, MFA, CLMA, CMA

An Experiential and Theoretical Introduction to the Kestenberg Movement Profile
Janet Lemon Williams, R-DMT, KMP Analyst Level I
June 12 - June 15, 2009

The CenterPost Trauma & Resiliency Framework
Dance Movement Therapy for Survivors of War, Torture and Violence in Cross-Cultural Settings
June 16, 2010 - June 19, 2010
Amber Elizabeth Gray, MPH, MA, BC-DMT, LPCC

Group Processes in LivingDance~LivingMusic
June 23, 2010 - June 27, 2010
Danielle L. Fraenkel, Ph.D., BC-DMT, NCC, LCAT, LMHC

Articles Relevant to the Creative Arts Therapies

New research on music, movement, and the brain.

Yale researchers hopeful for new treatment options for the mentally ill by studying the evolution of the human brain.

Finally, a great essay by Malcolm Gladwell on dogs and body language.

10.19.2009

10.18.2009

Why is Imagery Important?


Donna Luder, who certified me in the Pilates method, on mental imagery. As a dancer and researcher, Luder uses visualizations and images when teaching Pilates to clients and is inspired by the Franklin Method.

As Luder's student, I feel more of a connection with my body using cues of imagery, like imagining my spine is a "strand of pearls" for example. But a whole lot more goes into using one's brain for these cues.

About Mental Imagery
by Donna Luder © 2007-08 All rights reserved.
For two and a half millennia, philosophers have discussed and debated the role-assignments of the body and mind. Is the mind superior and the body inferior, or is the body just a way to access the mind, or is there no separation? The debate over the relative superiority of mind or body may not be a useful construct for physical educators. Instead, it may be more useful for teachers to recognize athletic goals can be enhanced through physical or cognitive skill development. Students of movement would be well-served to be accomplished in both skills.
Athletic coaches and physical education teachers are familiar with skill drills and other physical techniques for improving athletic ability. Somewhat less familiar is the cognitive technique of mental imagery. This paper seeks to review the research behind mental imagery, discuss the philosophy of mental imagery, and provide a concrete prescription for the front line of movement educators to improve motor learning and performance through mental imagery. It is advantageous to use this cognitive skill because it is potentially quick, powerful, and applicable to all people in all walks of life, from ballerinas to football players to stroke survivors.
Ernst Weber (1795-1878) founded the field of psychophysics by studying the relationship between sensory information and cognitive evaluation of that information between 1829 and 1834, according to Mook (2004). In 1860, Gustav Fechner contributed a method to correlate physical variables to mental variables over the entire range of possible variables (Mook). Fechner was sufficiently mesmerized to later pen the metaphysical text “On Life After Death”. Early 20th century research branched into the field of mental imagery and theorized the body would respond to mental practice alone (Washburn, 1916) but EMG did not confirm this theory until 1932 (Jacobson). Simultaneously, the lay literature began to explore how concepts from modern science could enhance desired outcomes. The year 1927 brought pianist Heinrich Kosnick’s Lebenssteigerung (Life-Enhancement) in which he described how his “psycho-physiological” method could increase the skills of his piano students. In 1933, Freeman showed concomitant muscle activity could be measured during mental imagery of an activity, as cited in Green (1994). By 1934, Sackett concluded that physical practice was superior to mental imagery but mental imagery did improve performance. Mabel Todd, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College, published The Thinking Body in 1937 in which she outlined her philosophy of “Structural Hygiene” that taught students mental processes to influence ease of movement and posture. In the mid- to late-20th century, multiple reviews of previous research (Richardson, 1967; Corbin 1972; Weinberg 1982; and Feltz and Landers, 1983) concluded mental practice is indeed an effective method for improving performance.
Although research supports mental practice as a viable method of physical skill development, the question remains: how does it work? Evidence points to the theory that mental imagery is consciousness itself (Marks, 1999 and Ginsburg, 1999). Wittgenstein declared mental images are the means by which we interact with the world, they are how we know (1949/1978). For example, when a chef following a recipe reads the ingredient “artichoke”, the chef may visualize the artichoke, smell its aroma, taste it, spatially locate it in the kitchen, kinesthetically feel its spiky roughness, or relate to it emotionally. All of these responses are represented by mental imagery. Even the word “artichoke” on the recipe card is an image, a representation of the real thing. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) expresses this concept with the phrase, “the map is not the territory” (Bavister and Vickers, 2004). In the same way that a map is a representation of the territory but is not the territory itself, the image of the artichoke is not the artichoke any more than the word “artichoke” is an artichoke. Although the mental image of the artichoke as a smell, taste, visual picture, location, or sensation is not the artichoke, it is a valid and useful representation of an artichoke, and the method by which the chef is made conscious of the ingredient for the recipe.
That which one is conscious of is one’s reality; it is a truism from which one operates. Plato’s allegory of the cave described prisoners who have spent their entire lives in a cave, chained so that they can only see flickering shadows on the cave wall. The prisoners think the shadows are real, substantive beings, because it is all they have ever experienced. It is obvious to the outsider that shadows have no substance; they are not real in the sense that people are real. However, whether something is experienced as real has very little to do with its status in the physical world. Only the subject’s perception of the object, dictates its realness (Heidegger, 1932/2002).
In order for an athlete to be considered conscious, some type of mental imagery is in use. The batter anticipates the feel of the bat connecting to the ball, the diver mentally hears the quiet splash of a perfect dive, the dancer visualizes the flight of a swan, and the soccer player daydreams about a friend and subsequently gets thumped by an incoming ball! A constant river of mental information flows through the mind of every conscious human and it can be influenced by consciously chosen imagery.
Purposeful manipulation of mental imagery is familiar to elite level athletes who report using imagery more often than less experienced athletes (Hall, Rodgers and Barr, 1990). This content is largely at the athlete’s discretion and therefore a potential ally in performance success. The athlete who images crossing the finish-line and seeing the desired time on the clock is “using imagery” to succeed; Walter Mitty daydreaming of his secret life as a fighter-pilot thus escapes his normal life. Both streams of thought are purposeful and, by design, both are “real” to the thinker. Negative imagery is just as “real” to the athlete and also powerful. For this reason, negative imagery has been shown to produce significant performance deterioration (Hall, Schmidt, Durand, and Buckolz, 1994).
Vividness refers to how clearly an athlete sees the image. Control is the ability to direct an image and manipulate its contents. Both are important characteristics of successful imagery. Start and Richardson as cited in Green (1994), found that athletes who had high degrees of both vividness and control performed best. They found the next best combination was low vividness and high control, then low vividness and low control, and lastly high vividness and low control. This surprising finding caused the authors to conclude that if an athlete can vividly image performing, but cannot control the image to direct what is wanted, the athlete might actually be practicing detrimental movement patterns.

To read the rest of the article, go here.

10.14.2009

Related Articles and Videos

I've been getting back into the swing of things at work this week after a fabulous two weeks off in Maui (friend's wedding) and Portland (ADTA conference). If you haven't yet been to the ADTA conference, GO NEXT YEAR IN BROOKLYN. It's a profound experience to be with hundreds of dance/movement therapists. I felt as though I was with "my people."

While I adjust back to my regular schedule, here are some articles you may find interesting:

*The act of exercise can improve body image.

*How can taking the stairs be more fun?

Interactive Swedish Piano Stairs - Watch more Funny Videos

*"Breath Made Visible" a documentary about Anna Halprin, co-founder of the Tamalpa Institute (my movement based, expressive arts therapy school), and postmodern dancer extraordinaire.

10.05.2009

Changes in Certification Coming Soon

According to the ADTA newsletter, The ADTA voting membership ratified creating
a Dance/Movement Therapy Certification Board! In addition, the majority vote was to create new service marks: R-DMT (dance/movement therapist-registered, instead of DTR) and BC-DMT (dance/movement therapist-board certified, instead of ADTR). In the coming months you can expect to hear how this new certification board and the new service marks will be rolled out.

So I will be changing the name of this blog to "The Dance to R-DMT" shortly.

10.03.2009

American Dance Therapy Association Conference

And the countdown begins!!!

The American Dance Therapy Association conference is next week, October 8-11th in Portland, Oregon.



I will be co-presenting with the fabulous Lora Wilson Mau, DTR, and Ty Tedmon-Jones, ADTR on the topic of BLOGGING! This is where it all began, folks. We are so thrilled to be presenting such a great topic. I've learned so much about blogging, Twitter, and marketing since my first post November of 2008. Hope you all can join us in the dance across the world wide web presentation.

If you are able to come to the conference, it promises to be an educational time filled with fun and a huge dance party on Saturday night.

Hope to see you there!