In education circles, there is a concept called Bloom’s Taxonomy. In 1956, a committee led by Benjamin Bloom, identified three domains of educational activities:

* Cognitive: mental skills (Thinking)
* Affective: growth in feelings or emotional areas (Feeling)
* Psychomotor: manual or physical skills (Doing)

Each domain, or category, of learning can then be described by the types of objectives for learning, and these objectives need to be progressive. That is, within each category there are levels that must be mastered before progressing to the next. For example, in the cognitive domain, one must be able to “recall” knowledge before being able to understand it, then you can apply it, and then synthesize or finally evaluate the knowledge.

One would assume that yoga classes teach primarily in the pyschomotor domain, so let’s take a closer look at that. Unfortunately, Bloom and the gang spent so much time and energy on the cognitive and affective domains, they never got around to further delineating the progressive objectives in the pyschomotor domain. Nevertheless, later scholars did the work and there are several competing lists. I prefer the Dave (1967) list that goes as follows:

1. Imitation – copy the actions of another
2. Manipulation – reproduce activity from instruction
3. Precision – Execute skill reliably, independent of help
4. Articulation – Adapt and integrate expertise
5. Naturalization – Unconscious mastery of activity and related skills at strategic level

Most yoga classes include types 1, 2, and 3. Few include 4 & 5. Think about it: if you have never done Balasana (child’s pose) you need to first see it, then try it, and practice it. Pretty easy. Now, let’s say you do have a firm understanding of the pose and can “execute reliably, independent of help.” Great! Now what? Well, how about some variations? That would be “Articulation – Adapt and integrate expertise.” How about knowing that it is a good pose to do after backbends? You might seem to gravitate to that pose naturally… sometimes it just seems like time for child’s pose. That would be “Naturalization – Unconscious mastery of activity and related skills at strategic level.” But it has to start with levels 1, 2, 3, and 4… in that order.

Now, take a more difficult pose like Uttita Trikonasa (triangle pose). A beginner can see someone do the pose and try to imitate it, but it takes some time and practice to develop some precision – learning to position the feet correctly, extend the side body, balance the weight on both legs, keep the pelvis forward, and so forth. It’s easy enough remember the 101 independent movements, but then get them to all line up is an advanced topic…. so then what? Where is the Articulation and Naturalization? Check it out: next time you are in the pose, flex your feet a little. Or, change the tilt of your hip.

The best example I have ever seen of teaching levels 4 & 5 are from Charles MacInerney. If you’ve ever been to his class, you know how he asks you to do Cat-Cow sequence, and then says, “Now, make something up.” The entire class starts moving in their own directions, twisting, arching, squatting, all with a general “cat-cow” shape. What do we learn from this? We learn that our bodies and our asanas interact with each other. This is how the student learns to internalize their yoga practice, rather than simply imitating. It becomes a learning experience, rather than being rote exercises.

Resources used as source for this blog post:

http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html

http://www.businessballs.com/bloomstaxonomyoflearningdomains.htm

http://farr-integratingit.net/Theory/CriticalThinking/psychomotor.htm

A nice “Bloom’s Rose” image:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blooms_rose.svg