Pressing the re-set button

Apologies to for all not being able to Skype with you all last Sunday. I had to attend some training that fits around my freelance teaching work, and therefore it was necessary to go. There was some really useful stuff to learn and also things to notice as a tutor which I attribute to where I am placed at this stage of my learning and research project. Its interesting to see how much my noticing called upon the styles and practices especially around engaging young people and their learning practice through the medium of dance. My research in a nutshell is going to look at how a modern dance training and practice that I had experience as a young person and dancer (which became the catalyst for my subsequent career in dance to date) is relevant to the life choices, experiences and aspirations of young people today. Is what I teach young people fit for purpose? It was good to experience and absorb the type of learning on offer as it flagged up some questions about my own practice as a teacher and how I engage with my students when teaching. Whilst in the training session my thoughts turned towards fellow MAPPers pondering and reflecting on their journeys so far and how you all including myself begin to approach and start the next phase of our modules after concluding the previous ones with some much needed time to breath. For me I had to hit the re-start button. My journey stalled during the third module and I had to live with the impact of a decision to pause which, on reflection was a good move to refocus and galvanise, re-assess, re-read and in some cases not read at all to allow the flow of my thoughts to guide me to where I needed to be. It was a choppy and uncomfortable process admittedly and for a long while wondered whether I had the confidence and strength to re-boot and resume from the place where I stalled and overcome the notion of being left behind. I begun to question my learning and revisit some areas of my AOLs back in Module 1 plus vulnerable moments that triggered old fears and patterns . Pausing was in hindsight a great idea. I noticed that my reading had changed too and that what I had planned in my critical review to support my research project no longer had currency and didn't feel right for what it is I want to find out. As is my pattern in most things when the going gets tough I have to walk away and come back to it with a new, different and open perspective. This happened recently with one piece of critical review which looked at my research from an Africanist standpoint especially around the area of philosophy particularly reflecting on the writings of the late Esiaba Irobi (2006)where he talked about the " philosophy of the body as a site of transendant discourses, and used to regulate thought and feeling and ideas of identity within their cultures.." Cultures in this context Irobi reffered to include cultures that traversed from the diaspora of Africa across to Brazil, Latin America, the caribbean, the USA and United Kingdom. Attending and being present at the oral presentations in January of my cohort was a great way for me to re-set my thinking and feeling about my research project. It was a great opportunity for me to get to know and experience my fellow Mappers research and learn how they arrived at and tease out what it is they discovered. It was fascinating as links and references which they highlighted connected with me and gave me the much needed courage to re-set and revive. I finish this post with a quote yet again from Esiaba Irobi which encapsulates my thoughts, feelings about my philosophical stance and much needed pause to refresh my thinking as I embark on Module 3: "...I will highlight how the body itself, in African and African diasporic cultures, functions as a somatogenic instrument as well as a site of multiple discourses which absorbs and replays, like music recorded on vinyl, epistemologies of faith and power grooved into it by history. An Igbo proverb states that when we dance we express who we were, who we are, and who want to be. Time is compressed and telescoped telelogically to contain and express the past, the present and the future in one fluid kinaesthetic moment." Irobi, Esiaba (2006) Philosophy of the Sea