Yoga Nidra

WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
This past weekend I was at a 3-hour workshop hosted by the Yoga Teachers Association (YTA) of the Hudson Valley. The workshop, Yoga Nidra & Restorative Yoga, was led by Mona Anand, someone with whom I was already familiar having been introduced to her by a yoga colleague who extolled Mona’s training and online Yoga Nidras. I was eager to learn more and purchased Yoga Nidra to Lift Your Spirits on iTunes; it did not disappoint!

As with her iTunes album, the in-person experience did not disappoint either. During the  first 15 or 20 minutes Mona shared a bit about her background and provided an overview of what the remainder of the workshop would entail. From there she guided us through Restorative yoga followed by a 35-45 minute Yoga Nidra. The final 30 minutes consisted of elaboration and discussion based on a summary handout she provided. For more about Yoga Nidra in her own words, read Mona’s Introduction to Yoga Nidra. Be sure to scroll the page because the section about the Benefits of Yoga Nidra comes after the email slot for subscribing.

WHAT IS YOGA NIDRA?
The quick answer is that it is an experience somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, and you are led into that place by someone who continually speaks as they guide your attention (not your movement) to various parts of the body. This is different from Savasana, which is the final resting pose after any yoga practice and is a quiet practice. At the end of the practice Mona added that Yoga Nidra is designed to release thoughts and feelings, but not to analyze those thoughts or feelings.

THE HANDOUT
Mona’s approach to Yoga Nidra consists of nine steps and was developed by her and Alan Finger. The Yoga Nidra that I have experienced in the past has usually consisted only of what is Step 4 in this approach. The steps below, with some commentary by me, are from the handout shared at the conclusion of the workshop, copyrighted by Mona Anand and Alan Finger, 2008-2018.

1. Ekagrata – planting an image on the screen of the mind
Begin lying on the back with any support necessary to provide warmth and comfort. In this step you are guided to check in with your inner state as you draw your senses inward. Mona used the imagery of visualizing a flame at the third eye, that space between the brows.

2. Asana with nyasa – pre-yoga nidra asanas
The physical practice of yoga consists of poses (also called asanas). In looking up the meaning of “nyasa” I learned it is a series of touches on specific locations on the body. In the case of Yoga Nidra, these are not physical touches but visualized touches (more on this in Step 4.) As Mona guided us through asana she moved the flame down the body through the chakras. Typically chakras move from the bottom to the top, but she intentionally guided top-down to help draw us inward. She especially wanted us to focus on places where the body holds tension at the back of the neck and in the hips.

3. Pratyahara (antar mouna) – letting the mind move from sound to sound
Pratyahara refers to the withdrawal of the senses. During this phase Mona first guided us to listen to sounds around the room as we become aware of “antar mouna,” the practice of becoming aware of external sensory perceptions. From there she led us to draw our senses inward, pratyahara.

4. Rotation of Awareness – moving the mind through the body
This is the portion of Yoga Nidra with which I was familiar, having been led through it multiple times over the years. The guided travel through the body is intentional in its sequencing. The rotation is designed to clear the conscious mind, relax the physical body and increase body awareness, neurologically creating a circuit of energy in the brain, thus letting you go to the hypnogogic state. This is the state immediately before falling asleep. I have usually experienced this as a slow flow through the body where my attention was guided first fully to one side of the body, starting with a pinky finger and wending its way to the same side little toe, and then traveling the same route on the other side, leading to deep relaxation. When Mona guided this she “pinged” the body parts, thus pinging the brain, and had us travel from the feet upwards.

5. Nirodha – counting the breath backward
Starting with the number 11, count each breath going backwards. Since self-counting can tend to put people to sleep, Mona’s voice was intentional here in order to help people remain awake. Nirodha deprograms the mind and brings it to the present moment.

6. Pairing of Opposites – creating opposite sensations and emotions
The purpose of this step is to clear the subconscious mind and release emotional tension. The opposites are meant to induce a feeling of heaviness as muscles relax. Mona noted that the pairing of opposites is useful for people with PTSD to help them experience the range of what they miss when blocking out sensations. As she explained, you “cannot feel one side of the coin unless you can feel the other.” Examples of opposites include:

• hot-cold
• heavy-light
• pleasure-pain

7. Rapid Visualization – fast moving images
In this step the unconscious mind is cleared, relaxing it so it can purge itself of painful memories. It is meant to be quick and consists of reference points to release what is in the subconscious so that it can “take out the garbage.” I enjoyed listening to the items but did not retain them and in the discussion that followed was tickled to hear one person list almost all of the items:

• best childhood friend
• Tinkerbell
• hot cocoa
• rainbow
• warm sand
• roses
• white petals
• smell of lavender
• mother’s eyes
• bonfire

8. Long Visualization – guided imagery
I have been guided through visualizations before and every time, including this one, I get lost somewhere along the line. It’s not that I do not know where I am, rather I simply tune out any speaking and eventually come back “online” usually towards the latter part of the visualization. This portion of Yoga Nidra frees one from being trapped by the boundaries of time and form, which is known as “maya.” It is a safe bubble.

9. Sankalpa – order from the conscious mind to the subconscious 
This is done seated and invites each person to set an intention before leaving. It is more productive to give instructions to the subconscious mind. Mona notes that in more advanced Yoga Nidra a seated meditation may be added between Steps 8 and 9.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Mona shared a way to think about how our brains deal with negatives and positives. She said negative emotions stick like velcro, whereas positive emotions slide off like teflon because we are wired to remember the one negative event (or comment) rather than the twenty positives. This comes from very early human history, when remembering the location of the one hungry lion (who might want to eat you) was more important than thinking about the twenty smaller animals you killed that day for food.

If you ponder those thoughts, you may perhaps see a similar pattern in yourself, noticing how the single slight can overtake the many positive interactions in a given day. This is likely why practices such as keeping a gratitude journal or doing the “Three Good Things” practice can be so beneficial.

That’s Mona in the left photo, leading the discussion after the experience. The workshop was packed and the room was quite chilly. We had been forewarned about the temperature so I dressed in layers (yellow arrows in second photo are pointing to me). Nothing like a mirrored wall to make the room seem larger and some of us seem to be in two places at once. 😉 I had the delight of sitting next to Paula, one of my three 200-hour Yoga Teacher Trainers (she is in the red top to my left.) Photos are from Mona’s Instagram feed.

 

Book Review – The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

From my GoodReads Review

I probably read this book too quickly, eagerly gobbling up Twyla Tharp’s anecdotes, sharing of her experiences, and passing along of her words of wisdom. The Collaborative Habit, her second book published six years after this one, is on my side table waiting to be read, and her most recent book, Keep It Moving: Lessons for the Rest of Your Life, is on reserve at our local library. Obviously, I am hooked.

I discovered Tharp’s writings late in my career, as this is my final year in the realm of independent school teaching. On the other hand, I have seen my interests and passions morph over the years from technology to movement. I put together sequences for sharing as yoga practices, I think about music to accompany those practices. Sometimes I have more energy to put in to the process, sometimes I go with my gut, but always being on my yoga mat is a form of creativity, be it for my personal practice or to guide others in their practice.

While I may be phasing out of the independent school world, I am continuing to teach, only instead of teaching children in a classroom, computer lab or MakerSpace, I am teaching adults in an open space. Either way, my preference is always to introduce the learner (or practitioner) to the world of possibilities, to pave the way for safe exploration of their interests and ideas, or in the case of yoga, their breath and body movement.

Each chapter in this book resonated, and if it didn’t happen on the first reading, a second reading might lead me to an experience in my own trajectory. (In retrospect, I did not always stop to sufficiently ponder and reflect.) Regardless of what field someone is in, including parenting, there is wisdom to take from Tharp’s ideas.

Tharp concludes each chapter with a set of exercises – not necessarily physical, though some are physical, but activities that may assist in forming, understanding and nurturing one’s own creative habit. The chapter titles might speak for themselves, or perhaps you will have no idea what they are about and that will inspire you to read this book! For me, I hope they will remind me of the meat of the chapter, and if not then I will borrow the book from the library to help me refuel my understanding,

1 – I Walk into a White Room
2 – Rituals of Preparation
3 – Your Creative DNA
4 – Harness Your Memory
5 – Before You Can Think out of the Box, You Have to Start with a Box
6 – Scratching
7 – Accidents Will Happen
8 – Spine
9 – Skill
10 – Ruts and Groves
11 – An “A” in Failure
12 – The Long Run

Since April 2007…

This year has me doing a bit of writing at various blogs (Goodreads book list/reviews, Yoga ~ Dance ~ Music ~ Movement and here). Occasionally something I write refers back to a prior post, and in reading the prior post I discover a typo or a link that is no longer active. So, I’ve made it my goal that periodically, for as long as it takes, I will check one month of Neurons Firing posts at a time, starting at the beginning, and fix typos and links that no longer work.

That’s when I realized it’s been 14 years since my first Neurons Firing post! I have learned a tremendous amount about the brain, seen my interests spread to other areas, taken time off, returned with interest, taken time off again, returned with a bit more zest, till finally it is April 2018.

I have seen how my interest in the brain and my love of practicing (and now teaching) yoga are intricately entwined. During my years of volunteering with people living in both skilled nursing and assisted living I have seen how music, song, and movement temporarily stimulated movement, memories, and liberated their brains.

I have seen how my blogs provide a creative outlet, and are a wonderful resource for when I want to look up something for clarification or as a reminder of an idea or information that is not currently on the tip of my tongue.

Happy 14th birthday Neurons Firing! And, since it is by far my oldest blog, happy blogging birthday to me!

Revisiting the 2002 National Educator Workshop

In the Summer of 2002 I participated in The Lincoln Center institute for the arts National Educator Workshop: Introduction to Aesthetic Education. Several years later, in March 2008, I blogged twice about the workshop – Imagination: Maxine Greene and Lincoln Center institute for the arts in education.

Everything we have done in the past helps to craft who we are in the present. My yoga teacher Deb often reminds us that everything we have done in the past makes us who we are at this moment on the mat. With that in mind, this morning I reread my Response Essay to the workshop, written in July 2002.

What brought me to reread the essay was a desire to refunctionalize my myriad book shelves at 8:30 last night. For years I have kept my favorite fiction, poetry and reference books in the same room as my desk, on two shelves built into the wall. A portion of my desk was allocated to books about the brain. And my yoga books were relegated to a laundry bin stored under a bench in our bedroom.

My life is changing, by choice, and it is time to purge those books I no longer cherish, and bring my yoga books to the fore. And in the process of looking through folders I smiled to revisit this essay. Not wanting to lose portions of it, and not wanting to keep the papers, I am copying part of it here for my reference. For anyone who happens to read it, if you have comments, please feel free to post them. I’d be delighted to have a conversation.

Oh, and I still do not have room for all the books I’d like to have at my fingertips. Hmm…

—-

Response Essay – National Educator Workshop – Summer Session 2002/July 8-12

An article in the October 3, 2001 Metro section of The New York Times piqued my interest in Maxine Greene. I had never heard of her beforehand yet the ideas she espoused about education gave direction to thoughts about which I had been ruminating. This prompted me to read her book Releasing the Imagination which in turn led me to John Dewey’s Experience & Education. And all of that pointed me to the National Educator Workshop. [Ed Note: part of the Lincoln Center institute] My expectation for the workshop was to give my imagination some much needed prodding and help me look at what I do through a different perspective. With that in mind, the most significant ideas embraced during the workshop include:

• The aesthetic approach is one of self-discovery which can be guided through a series of carefully crafted questions and activities.
• This self-discovery is a process, and that process should tap into what people can do and help them expand their thought repertoire.
• Collaboration, questioning, and experiential learning (all part of the process) help to make learning intrinsic and give it meaning within the context of the student’s life.

To borrow from others (Maxine Greene and Apple Computer): With aesthetic education we are “releasing the imagination” and enhancing our perspective to “think different”. Imagination is an entry point into something that might otherwise be ordinary.

My perception of the work of art seen/heard twice changed substantially over the course of the workshop. In both cases, viewing and listening to the art without any prior knowledge of the artist or piece was very satisfying. This let me form my own response to the art, modified a little by the comments of my workshop mates. In the case of Poulenc’s music, I listened “hard” the first time as I concentrated on what was being played; this was not listening for pleasure! The Chuck Close portrait interested me for it size and colors. The subject of the portrait intrigued me and I wanted to know more about him.

The early hands-on activities were enjoyable to do but I did not yet make connections between those activities and how I felt about the art of Poulenc and Close. The collaborative brainstorming (of questions we would like to ask about the artists/works of art) was highly satisfying. Indeed, it almost did not matter to me if the questions were ever answered. The very act of collaborative discussion and questioning was exhilarating, cementing ideas and possibilities for me to ponder. It was the satisfaction of thinking and the interaction with others concerned with the same topic.

The research was icing on the cake.

[Ed Note: There is more about my research along with a response to a talk, but I am editing out much of it to keep this post from being even longer!]

Conversation with Catherine (colleague from my school who also participated in the workshop) after the first music workshop yielded these observations:

• Everyone did something and was able to do something.
• There was no “wrong” or “right” approach or answer.
• Using our imagination it is possible to create something out of nothing, in this case just using our voices and bodies to make music.

…

Five days into the workshop I heard Tenesh [workshop co-leader] say that we are developing skills to focus, and that we try to go to the core of what the thing is all about. Being able to unleash our imaginations to focus in a multitude of ways and thereby get to the core of what we are learning…wow, very powerful ideas which this workshop modeled and helped me experience.

…

On the last day of the workshop I wrote these notes in my journal. I don’t recall whose words they were but they sum up my feelings about this workshop experience, and the goal I have for my students:

There is excitement in experiencing something intrinsically. This experience makes you the expert – it empowers you and draws out your imagination. The result is self-confidence and a depth of knowledge.

[Ed Note: The works of art were Chuck Close‘s portrait of Lucas, and a musical piece by Poulenc, title of which I did not note. I chose to research Close, which included: Chuck Close, Up Close by Greenberg and Jordan (Dorling Kindersley, 1998) and the May 13, 2002 Fortune article “Overcoming Dyslexia“.]

Maker Faire 2012 or how I spent Saturday

Saturday my husband and I tooled over to Queens, near CitiField, and spent the day walking around Maker Faire 2012. We’ve known about Maker Faires, but this was our first time seeing one up close, and we had a blast! There were all sorts of home made inventions and contraptions, and almost everywhere you looked there were 3D printers or objects that had been made via a 3D printer. The Faire was family friendly, indeed it was designed to inspire kids to create.

We also attended two talks, one by Seth Godin and the other a conversation with Chris Anderson, editor of Wired Magazine, and Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot.

Seth Godin lives in Westchester, a New Yorker born and bred (so I’ve been told). He’s a marketer and author, a summarizer and explainer of and guide to new media and trends, and a highly entertaining and spot-on speaker who does not mince his words. 

Chris Anderson is an author, and editor of Wired Magazine and you can read his article about how The New MakerBot Replicator Might Just Change Your World. And Bre Pettis is the face behind the MakerBot company. Here he is introducing the Replicator 2. 

The themes of their talks were similar and made an impression on me, especially in my new role as LS STEAM Integrator.

Godin talked about how kids doing science labs in school are not really doing science. Rather, they are kids following instructions that someone else crafted years ago. To truly be a lab, students should be making and innovating. Bre Pettis said that the “criteria for a good project” is “you don’t know what’s going to happen in the end but you try anyway.”

As Godin said: IF it might not work, THEN you are doing something important BECAUSE it is risky and someone can say you are wrong or they don’t like it. From there, you iterate, you try again, you take another risk, you start a conversation.

Of course, this all got me thinking about my Environmental Ed classes, which begin tomorrow. I don’t separate out Environmental Ed from STEAM, but my job is described with these two specific responsibilities. In any case, my take home from Seth, Chris and Bre is a reminder that rather than hand my 3rd graders step-by-step directions, my job is to provide a place for them to explore, experiment, ask questions and figure things out by doing, talking, thinking, sharing, crafting…

For instance, I could tell the kids how water winds up in our homes, I could show them pictures, or I could ask them to ask their parents. But how much better if I provide each class with some crafts items and a large reservoir of water, and ask them to figure out how to get the water from the reservoir to the buildings.

If anyone has thoughts about Seth’s, Chris’s and Bre’s comments or my take-away, please feel free to leave a comment below!

Just a beautiful short film: Love Language

Dance for PD – where I was last weekend

This is where I was last weekend – attending the Dance for PD (Parkinson’s Disease) workshop in Waltham, Massachusetts. I had the wonderful opportunity to take this workshop with two of the founding teachers, David Leventhal and Misty Owens. Immersed in the workshop, I felt as much a student of dance as a student of learning how to teach dance to a specific population of people, those folks with Parkinson’s Disease.

Some 40 of us gathered Saturday and Sunday at the Jewish Family & Children’s Service center, an inviting two story complex that hosts a vibrant Family Support group coordinated by Nancy Mazonson for individuals with Parksinson’s, their families and caretakers. Of the many services provided, one is an ongoing series of dance classes that were begun in 2006.

The details of the workshop are here. For now I want to focus on the benefits of dance for folks with Parkinson’s, and I would add that those same benefits accrue to just about anyone with limited mobility or dementia in its early stages.

Research into the impact of dance on people with Parkinson’s is ongoing, most recently noted in Dr Sara Houston’s work examining “the benefits to quality of life for people with Parkinson’s taking part in dance classes run by English National Ballet.” The Dance for PD listserv provided a link to Study explores benefits of dance for people with Parkinson’s, a summary of Dr Houston’s research.

My father had Alzheimer’s for many years. He also had a never-ending love of music and dance, with a heavy dose of Broadway musicals, music of the 40s and 50s, and folks like the Gershwins, Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, as well as Big Band tunes and songs from both world wars. He attended ballet and Broadway shows for the better part of his life, and danced up a storm (often with me) at family gatherings. Turns out, my Dad also had Parkinson’s Disease, something we did not find out until he died and it showed up on his death certificate. To be sure, I had an inkling, for he had the tremors in his hands, the arms that eventually stopped swinging when he walked, and a walk that turned to a shuffle (also common with Alzheimer’s).  But no matter his physical state, he LOVED the music, he loved singing along to songs, he loved dancing. When the words left him, he sang along with humming or the requisite “heh” in a well-known WWII ditty or Columbia College (his alma mater) song.

Among the many resources provided by Dance for PD is this list of ten points (noted below) extolling the benefits of dance for people with Parkinson’s. Reading them over, and having seen the impact of music and dance on my Dad, it’s difficult to say that only folks with Parkinson’s benefit from dancing! All of the Dance for PD classes have musical accompaniment, and the Brooklyn based home of Dance for PD has the benefit of live piano playing by William Wade.

1. Dance develops flexibility and instills confidence.
2. Dance is first and foremost a stimulating mental activity that connects mind to body.
3. Dance breaks isolation.
4. Dance invokes imagery in the service of graceful movement.
5. Dance focuses attention on eyes, ears and touch as tools to assist in movement and balance.
6. Dance increases awareness of where all parts of the body are in space.
7. Dance tells stories.
8. Dance sparks creativity.
9. The basis of dance is rhythm.
10. The essence of dance is joy.

A former student (who has written a book for other students that, like her, have a learning difference) tweeted a link to Cellist Memory Wiped Out From Virus, Doctors Stunned By Musical Memory. I read the article just after returning from the Dance for PD workshop. Towards the end of the article there are several references to “the link between memory and music”, specifically noting the impact of music on people with Alzheimer’s.

Music! Dance! What a combo this can be for anyone, and especially those whose bodies are no longer as resilient as they once were. For more about Dance for PD, read or listen to this 2008 NPR story, Parkinson’s Patients Find Grace In Dance.

Meshing

Entangled and entwined. The brain and the body. They need and feed upon each other. So it is with the meshing of my interests.

I began this blog as “the graduate course I’d love to take if it existed as a program and was local to where I live.” My plan was to learn as much as possible about the brain, beginning with its physiology, as compiled in Brain 101.

The more I learned about the brain, the more I began to associate ideas and information with the practice of learning and teaching. After all, I had been teaching children and adults for many years (this is the start of my 30th year!) and it seemed about time that I consciously considered the underpinnings of those processes.

From there my interests morphed into professional development and, specifically, adult learning and keeping the aging brain healthy, creative and stimulated. I thoroughly and emphatically enjoy planning and providing learning opportunities for adults. This is quite selfish, actually. I feel good when I can help empower others. I feel good when I have a creative challenge (to plan and provide the PD). I feel good when I can help adults enhance their brain health.

However, the brain does not live in a vacuum, so it was simply a matter of time before my interest in the human body – the receptacle housing the brain and very much involved in a co-dependent relationship – manifested itself. Seven years of practicing yoga (for stress relief, for comfort, for physical and mental well-being) collided gently and smoothly with my interest in the brain and human anatomy. More selfishness. I feel good when I can help kids and adults understand their brains and their bodies, and improve their overall health.

Meshed. Meshing.

And wouldn’t you know it…this is my 400th Neurons Firing post. Gotta’ love those round numbers!

Play & Connections

Ideas favor the playful mind.

Tim Brown‘s talk at the 2008 Serious Play conference (and shared as a TED Talk) about creativity and play has influenced me on many levels. His talk provided me with activities I used in two presentations. His talk reminded me of the importance of play in everyone’s life, not just in the lives of children. And his talk further reminded me that at many of our schools, as kids get older, we corral them into seats, tell them to sit still, and expect them to learn. (This year’s Serious Play Conference will take place August 23-25 in Redmond, Washington.)

As summer arrives, and with it vacation from school, here is Tim Brown’s talk to spur some summer play.

Play can be a hearty path into ideas. Being absorbed in play can leave the brain open to percolating ideas in the background. And it is this percolating of ideas that Steven Johnson believes is part of where good ideas come from. In his book Where Good Ideas Come From – The Natural History of Innovation, Johnson talks about “the slow hunch“, which he describes as ideas that “fade into view” after having time for “cognitive incubation“.

Ideas need time to jell. Many of my blog posts reflect on ideas, and it has always been one of my hopes that writing here at Neurons Firing would help my ideas to more fully form for eventual reflecting back out in some fashion.

Drawing on the “adjacent possible“, a term suggested by Stuart Kauffman, Johnson had me thinking about the value of social networks, both face-to-face and digital. The more we are are in places where ideas are bandied about, whether or not they are ideas directly related to our interests, the more our own ideas have the opportunity to jell and perhaps get influenced by any of those bandied ideas. I think of this hanging out with my networks as having my mind poised at its zone of proximal development, unknowingly ready for some relevant or irrelevant nugget to feed any one of the percolating ideas.

As Johnson puts it:

This is how innovation happens.

Chance favors the connected mind.  

Quest for a Community of Practice

Jane McGonigal, in Reality is Broken, notes that among well-designed games there is always some sort of quest.

A quest is a journey to accomplish a task. Completing the quest often provides the participant, in this case the gamer, with a sense of satisfaction. And the more epic the quest, the more satisfying the accomplishment. The game design typically impacts the motivation of the person playing, and most of the better designed games inspire intrinsic motivation on the part of the gamer.

The other day, @alexragone tweeted:

@brainbits @fredbartels Just got to the player investment design lead in #realityisbroken How can we design OPuS courses with this in mind?

OPuS is the Online Progressive unSchool being developed by Fred, and he describes it as:

an education environment in which learners work together to discover and develop what Ken Robinson calls their element, or what many of us call, their passion.

OPuS supports communities of practice in which teachers and students with shared interests collaborate to develop mastery of their chosen element, and as part of that process, work to make the world a better place.

Additional information about OPuS is available in this Prezi. (By the way, Fred replied to Alex that OPuS is Communities of Practice, not courses.)

Alex’s tweet got me thinking about Fred’s description, and how it meshes with much of what Jane McGonigal describes as being the important factors in game design. The “player investment design lead” refers to a job description at the game designer Bungie, of Halo fame. The person in this position

directs a group of designers responsible for founding a robust and rewarding investment path, supported by consistent, rich and secure incentives that drive player behavior toward having fun and investing in their characters and then validates those systems through intense simulation, testing and iteration. (page 244)

McGonigal concludes that, based upon the job description above, the goal is to design a game in such a way that “participants should be able to explore and impact a ‘world’, or shared social space that features both content and interactive opportunities.” She then notes the additional characteristics of such a game:

• participants will be able to create and develop a unique identity
• participants will see the bigger picture
• the only reward is participation in good faith
• the emphasis is on making the content and experience intrinsically rewarding

Hmm, a well designed community of practice has a guide to steer the process. The members of the community are self-selecting participants because they share an interest in a particular passion and know that by participating they will enhance both their own and everyone else’s understanding of the topic. The participation happens individually and collaboratively, in physical spaces and interactive virtual social spaces. And the quest to learn is its own reward.

In another tweet, @alexragone wrote:

More on definition of student engagement:  https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Student_engagement#Indicators#isedchat

Sounds to me like a well-designed game and a community of practice share many of the traits that encourage student engagement.