Transformative Praxis through SomaYoga

unded by the Lakehead Centre for Place and Sustainability Studies 2014

The purpose of this project is to explore how yoga teacher trainees and their trainers learn and integrate SomaYoga principles in their personal practice and instruction. The research questions are:
  • How does the SomaYoga approach with practices that nurture inner-awareness and self-regulation skills within an intentional learning community influence the unfolding of yoga teacher development?
  • How do embodied learning practices through sustained involvement and intentional community dialogue using the Parallaxic Praxis Model affect teacher trainee experiences?
  • How do transformative "aha" moments shape pedagogical practice?
  • How do we facilitate the discovery and articulation of changes observed (learning transformation) to support student growth?

Team: 
Dr. Pauline Sameshima (PI), Lakehead
Dr. Kim Kies, Somatic Systems Institute
Ann Maxwell, , International SomaYoga Institute
Molly McManus, International SomaYoga Institute
Research Assistants:
Jocelyn Burkhart, Lakehead, 
Muga Miyakawa, Lakehead
Robin Faye, Lakehead

Artwork by Robin Faye

This artwork is an interactive piece about pedagogical learning spaces. Robin created it as part of an arts-integrated research project conducted by Dr. Pauline Sameshima, her thesis supervisor. The artwork invites viewers to gently move inside it and sit on a meditation cushion to contemplate.

Robin explains that Dr. Sameshima worked with yoga teachers in her research, inviting the participants to write about their training process and respond to art she had created. Robin then read what the participants had written, and responded with the creation of her own piece, which deliberately remains untitled.
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"My artwork is my impression of the yoga teachers’ experiences,” she explains. “Viewers will have their own interpretations of it, but some themes include contemplation, personal growth, and internal experiences. It references a snake skin, as one of the participants described her experience of growing as a yoga teacher to be like shedding her skin, like a snake."