Body Harmony Teacher Certification Requirements
This document sets out the criteria for applicants seeking certification as Body Harmony® Teachers by the Body Harmony Association (BHA).
Teacher certification is divided into two sections: ‘Training and Experience’ which covers items that require completion (and that we ask you to write about) and ‘Skills and Qualities’ which the BHA expects to see in a certified teacher.
Five teachers, some from different regions and including at least three BHA committee members, are required to certify a new teacher.
TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE
Please submit a written summary of 500 – 1000 words about your training and experience.
A minimum of 1000 hours is required in total and includes:
A) 500 hours of formal Body Harmony class time
B) 250 hours in Body Harmony practice (see more below)
C) 250 hours in relevant fields of work/ life experience (see more below)
Certification may take place at:
BHA International events
The 1-month Body Harmony event
Any other BHA training event with the correct number and configuration of teachers present.
(B) More Information On: ‘250 hours in Body Harmony practice’
Please summarise your experience in managing a Body Harmony practice and seeing clients on a regular basis. Considerations include:
Summarise how you have functioned as a practitioner, managed your practice and/or client base and been actively involved in application of the work at regular intervals. How have you supported the progression of a client’s process through multiple sessions?
If so then what are your observations, learning and discoveries?
What are your approximate accumulated practice hours?
(B) This 250-hour requirement is for Body Harmony practice hours only. If you also have practitioner experience in a related field please note this in section (C) below.
(C) More Information On: ‘250 hours in related fields of work’
The BHA recognises the value of other fields of study, practice, and life experience when these fields complement Body Harmony and your skills. We look for diversity in your background.
Please highlight details of hours (skills and experience) you consider relevant to being a teacher and why you feel these hours are relevant to your teaching of Body Harmony. Note that consideration of these hours is at the discretion and guidance of certifying teachers.
Activities where you have accumulated experience indirectly, or in other fields may include:
practitioner hours
training hours (attending or delivering)
coaching or mentoring
education in relevant fields.
instructing, teaching, demonstrations, giving talks, presentations.
organised and attended a seminar(s) for Body Harmony teachers.
co-taught a complete workshop (Body Harmony or otherwise).
Any other relevant life experience. e.g. experience in supervising classes that support others to learn, discover, grow, explore or find something new about themselves. This may include movement or meditation classes or practice groups, yoga or similar.
SKILLS AND QUALITIES
When you seek certification, teachers will consider these:-
1)Feedback: An ability and willingness to both welcome and provide effective feedback.
As Body Harmony teachers we all rely on feedback to maintain our professional and personal integrity. Relevant considerations include:
recognising the value of hearing others’ observations and experiences of you.
a willingness to receive feedback and take time to explore the potential value of that feedback.
demonstration of integration and embodiment of feedback in your behaviour, practice and touch.
ability to receive potentially sensitive feedback and maintain a first order experience.
provide supportive and invitational feedback to others from your own experience of the situation (first order) and own it as such. This includes verbal and non-verbal messages e.g. body language.
3) Professionalism
A teacher is expected to look and behave in a professional manner when representing Body Harmony.
This also includes holding your own space in the face of adversity, disagreement or strong personalities. Are you aware of your emotions and thinking, and are able to self-regulate in order to maintain a clear and effective environment when facilitating a workshop?
Hold clear, professional boundaries.
4) Response-Ability
We encourage you to:-
follow your own instincts to explore new ideas and disciplines that might be integrated back into our open evolving system.
recognise the need for support and reach out for it.
seek a teacher’s help or feedback when you’re uncertain or unclear about a client or class situation.
communicate in good time.
undertake ongoing education (see no.8 below).
5) Consistency of quality
Your work, approach and behaviour demonstrate quality consistently.
6) Inspiring, generous and supportive
Demonstrate these qualities in relation to your teaching and practice.
7) Working with ‘first order experience’
Teacher candidates need to demonstrate a willingness to separate their first order sensory experiences from potential layers of interpretation, judgment, projection or abstraction. These ‘layers’ can overlay a first order experience and distort a session, or teaching session, and compress the possibilities available. We suggest if you are not clear about this quality please take a teaching session with a teacher who understands it.
8) Body Harmony Association core values
The BHA’s core values when we first went over them as a committee were seen to be Respect, Authenticity, Collaboration, Compassion, Honesty, Creativity, Communication, Curiosity, Intelligence and Appreciation. Do you resonate with these values?
Then recently after a strategy day with Dee Roach in Canberra, Australia, we discovered that there are really three core values that drive our community and work.
Harmony – Collaboration and Transformation. These values are the heart of our organisation and touch every encounter be it a session a course and our daily lives.
9) Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
Once certified, there is a requirement for regular participation in BHA training environments to ensure a teacher’s skills are polished through interaction and feedback with other Body Harmony® teachers and practitioners. This also helps teachers keep up to date with developments in the continuing evolution of Body Harmony®
A) The current requirement for maintaining teacher certification is 16 hours of Body Harmony® class time facilitated by other teachers every 12 Months.
B) a minimum of 12 hours teaching every 12 months.
The BHA recognises that an individual may have unique circumstances worth taking into account when considering certification. If an individual does not meet all of the above criteria but still has five BHA teachers willing to support their certification as a teacher, an application explaining the circumstances can be submitted to the BHA Committee for consideration. The BHA Committee can then, if it chooses, approve certification of the teacher.