Annual Lectures

2023 – Shintaido and Trauma: An Exploration

Susan Lacroix, counsellor and somatic experiencing practitioner, introduced this discussion about Shintaido and trauma.

She says: “The word trauma means wound, and we hear it used everywhere these days. Most of us probably have personal experience of traumatic events and for some, such happenings can be lived through and integrated. For others they leave lifelong scars, affecting us on every level of our being. They may impact our experience of being in a body, our relationships, our ability to focus, and much more.

In Shintaido too we engage with the body and movement to make connection with ourselves, others and the world or even universe in which we find ourselves. We learn to overcome difficulties of every type: physical, relational, and so forth.

So my question is whether some understanding of the nature of trauma could inform our keiko and whether it would support the transformation which over time Shintaido can gently produce – if we can allow it!”

2022

The 2022 Lecture, by Margaret Guay, is on the subject of “The Body is the Message of the Universe: Are We Ready to Receive the Message”. She looks at the forms and practices of Shintaido in the dual contexts of animal evolution, and infant development.

2021

For the 2021 lecture, Peter Furtado spoke on the subject of the Mission of the Rakutenkai, 1960s-2020s. He considered what the group of practitioners who worked with Aoki Sensei to develop Shintaido in the 1960s were trying to achieve, in the context of politics and culture of 1960s Japan. He then asked how that original mission has matured and changed over the years, and its importance – and potential relevance to us today as we offer Shintaido to a new generation.