Ballet dancers' brains 'adapt to spins' article

Hello Everyone,

Just posting this article thats been in the news today incase anyone missed it and had any thoughts on it?

I personally feel that it is amazing how dancing can make the brain adapt to make the intense training of ballet and pirouettes achievable.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24283709


Started to read reader 1 today, think its going to take me a few reads to fully understand it!

Heather x

Let the blogging begin!

                                                           Day 1: 'Let the Blogging begin!' 

'Reflection' is the word that keeps coming back to me when I think about the induction day yesterday. Alan talked a lot about reflection and how it is one of the key factors in this course to help us grow and improve as a profession and i am excited to get started and believe that it is really going to help me realise what i am capable of and where i will want to head in my future career. 

I think it is clear to say that everyone who came to the Induction has come away with a clearer understanding of what will be expected of us during this degree course. As everyone had read about it and had a rough understanding but thanks to Paula and Alan we can now visualise where we will be heading. 

Was lovely to meet everyone yesterday and hope to see you all again at the Course Day and any others who couldn't make it yesterday. 

For those who couldn't make the induction one of the exercises that we had to do was to look through a newspaper and pick out an article, picture or piece of information that stood out to us and then explain why we feel this happened and what we thought about it and what we would do if we wanted to go further, the question was, 'where would you go next'.

The article that stood out for me was one by Kiran Randhawa, the headline being; 'British tourist killed by charging elephant as he took pictures' there was also a small picture of two Indian elephants. The reason that this stood out for me was because i saw the words, 'British tourist' and this immediately made me relate to the article as i have been lucky enough to have done a lot of travelling and my parents are often away exploring different parts of the world, so i had an emotional connection straight away. I then went on to read about how the tourist was taken out at night to see the elephants by two guards, against the forest department rules, therefore endangering the tourist. The two guards are in police custody and there are reports that the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Masinagudi and neighbouring villages lure tourists in with the promise of seeing animals. This made me think that we trust these people to keep us safe when we go on these 'once in a lifetime' holidays and if this is happening here it makes me think where else is it happening. ' Were the trips i've been on safe and legal?' this article makes me question this, it also makes me think are my family and others in safe hands when we go on these adventures? It also makes me question how far people are willing to go in order to make profit and increase tourism. Why was this allowed to happen, surely someone knew this was going on? Did someone want to stand up and say something but was scared too? Why were the tourists so close to the Elephants, where the guards not trained or prepared to act in these situations? It also makes me think did the guards try to help the tourist or did they just run away, seeing as they are alive and the tourist suffered a horrible death? 

Where would i go next? I would use internet resources to see if there have been any other cases like this and what, if anything, is being done to stop this. I would also research into this particular Reserve and see what has been done in result to this terrible instant and see what happens with the two guards who are in police custody. I would also look up this same story and see what other papers and reporters are saying and see if the story is the same in each case. 

After we all said goodbye yesterday i went into London and met with a friend, we then managed to get good price tickets to go and see 'Once' the Musical. It was really good, such amazing vocalists and musicians, all the members of the cast played an instrument so there was no separate band or orchestra. The harmonies where perfect and i would recommend this show to all of you and think i will download the soundtrack! 

Looking forward to reading everyones blogs as we all get started with the Tasks and work our way through the Modules! 

Good luck everyone :-) 

Heather x