June Workshops Highlight

"Your Child's Creative Spirit" was a free talk for adults addressing not only their children's, but also their own creative birthright. It was held at Jacob Ballas Children's Garden on Saturday, 19th June as well as at NUSS Alumni Graduate Club at Kent Ridge on Thursday, 24th June.

In partnership with Jacob Ballas Children's Garden, The Owl Company ran an extended 4-hour "A Walk In The Forest" workshop for children on Friday 18th and 25th June. This workshop explores themes such as understanding our feelings, recognising our inner beauty and our connection with nature and each other - and also incorporates an adventure walk through the beautiful garden.

On Saturday 19th June, a "Creative Play" workshop for children was held at Hortpark in conjunction with the Family Festival Event. This short workshop asked participants to explore play through characterisation and mask-making.

Over the weekend of the 26th and 27th June, "The Creative Spirit of Yoga" was held at The Yoga Shala and  was attended by a variety of people from different social and cultural backgrounds and levels of experience. The 2-day workshop explored physical elements of yoga, the asanas, correct breathing and alignment (and letting all these elements blend into a holistic whole body experience) as well as looking to the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali as a source of inspiration towards acceptance, healing and realisation of our true power and potential, our true and whole self. It also incorporated a variety of creative expression exercises to deeply explore and process the experience at a personal level. See below for what some participants had to say about it.

"From her sensitive and insightful pointers in breathing, postures and bodywork, to her original and powerful use of art, writing, song and dance to bring out the hidden and unresolved in you, to the joyous and spontaneous mood she put us in through out the course, Gerry has been teacher,guide and best friend, showing the way and lighting the path in ways that go beyond mere understanding. The course has been a mind blowing experience that has dramatically and irrevocably changed my life and the quality of my relationships! Thank you Gerry, Siew Yong and Jarrah!" ~ Nithya Priyan, Singapore

"My sister died in front of me 3 years ago from ovarian cancer and when I started to believe in this inner being after so long grieving, I was suddenly able to finally let all the pain go, to understand what I had felt and now to be happy again. After I did this and started to look for the positive things around me in life and people, small things started changing in my life. Since your workshop I feel calmer, quieter. My husband commented to me last night that there has been a shift in my relationship with my 3 year old son in the past several weeks where he tells me more often he loves me. He believes my son senses the change in me and that I am allowing him closer to me. My husband also senses the happiness in me now. The workshop to me was a justification of what I have and am still learning about myself. At the end when we were singing and walking in a circle holding hands, when Gerry looked into my eyes, I felt her love and it was the strange yet beautiful feeling to see love coming from someone you barely know." ~ Regina Sayer, Singapore

The June workshop series concluded with "Something I Know About Myself" for a group of students at the Global Indian International School (GIIS) in the Balestier campus on Monday, 28th June. This workshop employed storytelling, play, movement and dramatisation as well as making puppets for the participants to explore stillness and self-awareness, inter-personal conflict and self nurture.

Here's a testimonial from GIIS.

The trainers Gerry, Jarrah and Siew Yong effectively guided the students as they went on their journey of self awareness and discovery through creative expression. The activities were well thought off, self guided and interesting. The trainers were effective because they really believed in what they were doing. Our students loved every minute of it and at the end of the day, came out of it with a greater understanding and learning about who they are and what they would like to be. This workshop has touched our souls and we are very grategul for that." ~Vandana Aggarwal, Asst. Headmistress, GIIS (Balestier campus)

For Siew Yong, Gerry and Jarrah, this latest series of workshop has been a very enriching experience. It was always a pleasure to work with people in this capacity and to be generously received. It was an excellent opportunity to further explore our options in how to engage participants and realise new opportunities to offer our services - we look forward to rolling out new programmes soon. Special thanks to Linda Yong, Jacob Ballas Children's Garden staff and the Global Indian International School for their support during the progarmme.

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Tuesday, 31 August 2010 04:48