It has been a long time.........................
I have been totally absorbed wit my mother's illness, my job teaching at a school and earning to keep my household running with many other commitments too.

It has been quite challenging these past few months but i know that i will get through all this as i believe and i want to complete my education and my commitment is fiery and clear.

I have been reflecting on my titles for my areas of learning and after having a discussion with my dear friend and discussing the areas it was so interesting to come to realize it all stems from my needs which is a need base learning and then along desires meaning a desire based learning.
This helped me to identify larger areas like personal, professional, political, communal and learning through teaching as my main areas and present learning which is how to institutionalize.
I have started to get connected again look forward to my skype tomorrow....

   

Our skype on the 2nd october at 11am london time for me in Pakistan was 3pm.

The skype session was really helpful all the questions as students of the MAPP module1, we all had and confusions in our heads were given a voice, i also felt that really helped us all to recognize we were not in isolation and many of us were going through the same feelings too.

My area of discussion teaching one on one and collective learning and environments that generate these kinds of ways of teaching and learning.

In my experience i as a student of dance initially in my childhood started with ballet and creative dance at school in London with a group of other students where dance class was compulsory.
My training like that continued till i started learning classical kathak dance twice a week in a center in london called the Bhartiya vidya bhavan in west kensington again in a group of other students in the south asian community.
I developed a seriousness for Kathak dance and started spending more and more time with my teacher out of class in private time where she would explain to me the importance of having an understanding of the cultural root i had been born into and that living in the west i would never be able to develop eastern mannerisms till i had a hands on experience of living in India or Pakistan.

I was introduced to the tradition of one on one training into the system well known in Pakistan as the  Ustad Shahgird relationship.....Ustad the guru, the king and shahgird the student.
This word broken down shah the king and gird meaning always around,  around who? the shah the guru, the king.
The student who surrendered his time and his life totally to the Guru.
A concept that i easily fitted into with out too much reflection or thought.
Looking back to the tradition of the one on one learning, a student was learning a way of life of a dancer, a commitment to daily practice and learning consistently and pushing oneself to reach levels of brilliance and excellence.
Cooking and assisting the teacher in chores of the household and other activities the Guru would be teaching techniques and knowledge that had been passed down to them from their guru's and this knowledge was protected and hidden and only taught unless they were deserving students.
To my experience this environment worked easily with in the country of it's birth, but when this system is implemented on foreign soil complications occur, the student with no awareness steps into the system and falter along the way ending in  the teachers becoming disillusioned about teaching and instead of finding new ways to adapt their teaching methods of this specialized dance knowledge it goes with them to their graves.
In todays time and age where students even in countries like india and pakistan are more comfortable with collective learning, as this kind of environment  requires less commitment giving the student more control over his life and choices, i have seen has  impacted  levels of excellence and that the dance standard has deteriorated.
More students are learning but less are becoming professional and that classical south asian dance now has acquired a status as a past-time or hobby.
I have also experienced this in my own teaching as well where when i teach in a larger group of students they tend to show less commitment and learn less, as compared to my students who are either learning one on one privately or a small group of three students in a class.

MAPP Reviewing module 1

Overwhelmed with all the handbooks, a lot of reading to do.....
fear overtook me..... phew this is a lot how would all this fit into a full time career of teaching, performing, and running an institute ?
I took a deep breath and downloaded all the handbooks made a folder on my desktop to access them easily,
I started reading the first one MA professional practice dance technique pedagogy handbook 2016-17,
the information was so detailed from paying fees to resource material, submission schedules, help and support that all started becoming clear, the guidance and information made me relax and enjoy the process, i kept hearing a voice come from within me it's ok!!! flow with the procedure.....

I read through the whole handbook and ventured on to read the next which was module 1 introduction handbook 2016-17, i was so relieved reading it as it gave full detailed breakdown of the module and all the tasks required to do with support guidance and examples and questions to get started on.....

Finally i read MAPP DTP Module one from top to bottom and a great sign of relief as all was clear the structure, even though i feel it is a lot of studying and researching, and challenging my heart was totally in it.
I reflected and thought to myself this in itself is such a learning, to put my whole hands on dance experience into reflective thought, analysis and documentation.
my mind started racing into so many areas of work as i realized i have learnt so much along my journey of dance and how i can identifying my area's of learning as it has been vast and in many area's.
Pakistan is a country where many artists are put in positions where they end up playing multiple roles in presenting their work from management to lighting to writing to designing the costume plus being their own managers in negotiating financial remuneration.
So here it starts i look forward to all this studying and rescheduling to fit into my time-table allocated study time on a daily basis.

finally i am back to studying

Finally that day has come where i have returned to studying, something i always wanted to do.
My childhood instability threw my mind into survival mode and the only thing i knew was to dance and to save myself, it was the only mode i knew, that i felt passionate about and would get lost in time be transported to another world, a different dimension..
it feels great to hold a pen and paper in my hands and take dictates of my tasks from the advisers of my online M.A professional practice degree that i have been accepted for.
first i was adamant to do The BAPP but after talking to Adesola one of the advisers, everything just flipped and the whole energy was pumped up as well as my confidence.
I am super super excited, my little girl that was lost inside always wanted to study, to learn to grow and improve with every breath......has been accepted into  MA Professional Practice in Dance Technique Pedagogy Programme.