Posts made in November, 2010

Before I started my research work and support group at the DV organization in September, I wrote a class proposal. One section included monitoring and evaluation, which is another way of saying “research methodology”. “Nature Yoga at XXX will be consistently and constantly monitored by internal and external groups. The teacher/ researcher (Sowmya Ayyar) will ensure that women’s needs are being met through participant observation, including casual conversation and unstructured interviews, with participants about how the class is proceeding and its usefulness. Sowmya Ayyar will provide the data analysis under the advice of Lester Kurtz (my advisor).” If field work is about the participants’ needs, and yoga plays into that very nicely,...

A lot of peace research is about how to improve local areas, whether it means stopping ethnic strife amongst Bedouin communities in northern Africa, building better public spaces such as roads and transport in Curituba, Brazil, or raising awareness about public schools and education in the United States. One of the most important aspects of working in the field is to build the community support. Often times, the community is divided on any given issue, though. How can you build the community? Kundalini yoga, the traditional yoga of Sikhism, discusses the importance of sangha, or community. Buddhism, too, has strong faith in sangha. In Buddhism, it is a community of noble ones, of awakened beings, or monks and nuns. In the field, we are not looking for monks or...

I’ve been searching for a class that is perfect for me.  I get around to yoga classes at the Y, gyms, and even studios. It’s been a few months and I finally found something that works just right. What clinched the prize was that I knew the teacher, and felt comfortable with her. I realized I need to do the same in my own research class. I needed to personalize the class for each student. This makes it a bit difficult. Yoga in a studio or a gym is specialized: it’s called Gentle Yoga or Active Yoga or Family Yoga. In my research class, each week I could end up with any of the above, or many more! Thus, somehow, I have to create each class to be special for each student who shows up. A few little things I’ve learned that help is to...

This week my class at the DV organization grew. And so did I, albeit in a very different way. While I had more eager new students today, I grew in a valuable way. I learned the art of patience. Patience is a virtue we all need in order to relax and release tension in our bodies and minds. It’s also very useful in peace work. I learned this lesson of patience when all of a sudden I had more students at one time. For the last few weeks, I began to worry whether I would be able to complete my research work and finish my thesis. Yoga requires patience. It takes time to really get to know the poses, understand their effects, and truly focus yourself on the philosophy. Even if you do the pose a million times, there will be one time when suddenly you have...