Healthy Pathways
Effect of Dance Movement Therapy: An Experimental Study about Stress Levels
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Obdulia María Bustos Rodríguez, Marta María Sáez Casas, Sheila Gonzalez Salvatierra, Norberto Marrero Gordillo
With this work we intend to demonstrate the benefits and improvements in the bio-psycho-social state of people who practice Dance Movement Therapy compared to people who do conventional physical exercise, and people who do not directly carry out any type of regular physical activity; For this purpose, these three work groups will be used (made up of 10 people each group), establishing the age range of these participants between 25 and 55 years. Our aim is to separate the playful and creative factor that dance provides from the purely physical one. We carried out several intragroup assessments, one at the beginning, another half of the established period and another at the end of the study (with each group), using objectives and quantifiable parameters, such as: Satisfaction with Life Scale “SWLS”, Borg Scale of Perceived Effort, salivary cortisol levels (pre and post study assessment), serum lactate levels capillary (pre, intra and post study assessment), heart rate (assessment before and after each practical session), blood pressure (assessment before and after each practical session). Our results were encouraging in relation to cortisol, blood pressure levels and heart rate being favorable to Dance Therapy, as well as the results of the SWLS scale and the mood questionnaire; The participants defined our practice as a light effort aerobic exercise according to the Borg scale.
Adding Faces and Voices to the Teaching Population
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Aubrey H. Shaw, Sharon Kay Stoll
Sixteen percent of the world's population are people with physical disabilities. However, teachers in physical education are mostly abled-bodied. This presents a unique problem for teachers to understand the lived bodily experience of a person with a physical disability. Every person has a different body and their experiences and perspectives about the world come through their body. An able-bodied person, though well meaning, cannot know the lived bodily experience of disability. In physical education settings, students with physical disabilities are excluded from physical education experiences because of the teacher's lack of education and experience (Martin, 2018). People with physical disabilities have different perspectives and experiences and thus need to be included in the physical education profession. As teachers, people with physical disabilities could support the mission of a physically literate society no matter their ability. Charlton (2000) discusses the limitations of society when seeing a person with a physical disability. Unfortunately, as Buber (1970) would say, people with physical disabilities are often seen as objects. The student with a physical disability should be seen as a subject who has something to share with the world instead of an object; this is where a teacher with a physical disability could help immeasurably. Thus, the purpose of this paper is threefold: 1) to discuss the lived bodily experience of disability in physical education, 2) to examine the power of bringing these different voices and faces to physical education, and 3) to offer strategies to include this population in physical education.
“I Wouldn’t Be Who I Am Today Without Martial Arts”: A Phenomenological Case Study of Transformative Learning Experiences in a Sanshinkai Karate Dojo
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tracey Cole
Using in-depth interviews and reflexive thematic analysis, this study explores how the pedagogy of highly skilled martial arts instructors is shaped by their own transformative learning experiences in the martial arts.Participants share their experiences overcoming challenges, forging new identities, and applying the life lessons of martial arts beyond the dojo walls, and how those experiences have informed their work as martial arts instructors. The findings highlight how a martial arts community can nurture individual growth and also operate as a microcosm of broader societal values, promoting connection, inclusivity, empowerment, and lifelong learning. Situated within the broader literature on transformative, experiential, and embodied learning, this study reveals how a martial arts community functions as a powerful tool for personal and pedagogical transformation. It invites the reader to view martial arts as not simply physical discipline, but a way of life capable of shaping minds, bodies, and spirits.
