Shiva Nata: the Dance of Shiva
The question I never know how to answer
Okay, so admittedly this site doesn’t get anywhere near as much love from me as my main home at The Fluent Self (and I apologize for that), so really I have no right to get annoyed by questions I don’t know how to answer.
Because I could just put up a FAQ or something. And yeah, I will.
Anyway, here’s the question that always baffles me:
“I want to learn Dance of Shiva — what do I do?”
Huh. Okay. Where do I even start?
Oh, how about giving them appreciation and encouragment?
Hey, that’s so great that you want to learn Dance of Shiva! Good for you.
It’s such an amazing thing to learn, and man, it will open up things for you in all sorts of areas of your life…
Or I could go with acknowledging my own feelings?
That is generally best done of course in private with oneself … and not on one’s very public blog, but I’ll share my process with you anyway. Because I have no boundaries and because maybe you’ll find it useful.
Feeling #1
The first thing I’m feeling — the very first layer of emotional sensation — is frustration and confusion: What does the person need from me? I’m always wanting to give to people, and now I don’t know what they want. If I don’t know, I can’t give it to them. I feel kind of befuddled and weird.
Feeling #2
The second thing I’m feeling is annoyance. My internal dialogue rant goes something like this:
Ohmygod, do you even know how I learned Dance of Shiva? I memorized the stupid numbers. I wrote down the sequence from notes I scribbled in an Andrey Lappa class, and then taped the sequence to my mirror.
I didn’t have a DVD. I didn’t have this lovely freebie basic positions worksheet pdf thing-ey made by an expensive designer. I didn’t have any help. AND I was totally doing it wrong. AND I didn’t know it was supposed to be hard. AND it made me cry.
So then I took two whole months off work last year — literally didn’t make any money at all for two months — just to put together the Starter Kit so that people could learn Dance of Shiva without having to suffer through it the way I did.
And so that people would actually use the dvd instead of having it just sit there and make them feel guilty.
After all that, you want to know how to learn Dance of Shiva? Jesus. You can do it the hard way or you can buy the stupid Starter Kit. I made it for you, not for me. I make like $5 on it after shipping, fulfillment, partner sales and all that stuff. It was supposed to be a gift to the world, okay?
And then I go and burst into tears and have the world’s smallest pity party. Of course.
Then on to working with the feelings
So I don’t email any of that or anything, obviously.
Note to self: not only should you not send email when you’re premenstrual, probably writing a post isn’t a good idea either.
But what I do do is use the information from that internal dialogue as a way to help me acknowledge the feelings that are needing attention from me.
In this case what’s going on is this:
- I dearly want to be acknowledged and appreciated for what seems to me to be a huge, huge sacrifice that I made in order to help people. That’s the need that was hidden in the feeling.
- But since no one actually knows about this sacrifice since I’ve never mentioned it, it’s uh … probably not really fair for me to expect them to guess. That’s logic and perspective, baby.
- For me it’s so obvious that the best way in the entire world to learn Dance of Shiva — aside from flying to Berlin and taking one of my workshops there this summer — is to buy the Starter Kit. That’s my perspective again.
- And I already have the feeling that I have over-plastered this site with “here’s how to get the Starter Kit” infos, so I feel insecure, and start to wonder if what this person is really asking is if there is a way to learn the Dance without having to pay for it. That might not be “the answer” but at least I have an alternate version of reality aside from the “no one appreciates me” one.
Then on to answering the question.
Yes, it was a lot of processing, but now at least I’m no longer annoyed or confused. Once I get to this point, I can actually respond and say something like this.
The hard way (the way I did it) is to memorize the numbers and teach yourself slowly with a mirror.
It’s kind of a pain, yes, but if you are incredibly patient, you’ll be able to learn all of level 1 arm horizontal and vertical arm sequences. You can use the worksheet (pdf). That’s a good place start.
The easier way is to use the Starter Kit which you can get a LearnDanceOfShiva.com.
And you can always study with someone, if you’re lucky enough to be near a teacher.
If you let me know where you are located, I can ask around and see if anyone knows someone teaching near there. Pretty soon we should be putting up a forum on the site to help people find teachers and fellow students.
Good luck and let me know if you have any more questions.
Warmly,
Havi
And now I have a question for you.
Now I’m the one who needs some support from you, dear reader.
Obviously since someone asks me this once a month, I must be doing something wrong here on the site.
I mean, yes, I’m probably doing a thousand things wrong here, and since this isn’t the main thing I do in life and I have a very full full-time job, I probably won’t get around to a bunch of those things, but I still want to know.
What is it? What is not clear? Do I need a FAQ? Do I need to say on the home page that the smartest way to learn Dance of Shiva is with the Starter Kit? What do you think? And is there a better way of answering the question than the one I come up with after my lovely, complicated process of agonizing over it and working on my stuff?
Thanks! I appreciate it. Really and truly.
First off – THANK YOU! The starter kit was a SUPER GREAT way for me to ease myself into the practice. Very helpful in practice, but also in overcoming resistance to a new scary thing that I’d be trying all alone at home.
I’m not sure why others aren’t buying it, but I know why I bought it: because it appeals to my brain (movement+patterns) and because of the phrase “Bring on the Epiphanies!” And boy were you right about that! :)
Thinking I must blog and trackback on this one…
Twitter: havi
Oh, thanks James!
I didn’t mean to imply that I was upset about sales. People actually buy all the time (three just yesterday!).
It’s just when someone says “How do I learn it?” I immediately assume that they know about the Starter Kit, since I mention it all over the place … and then I don’t really know what they want or how I can help them. And I start to wonder …
Is it …
To move into my living room and learn it from me? For me to give them a magic formula?
You know? It just throws me for a loop and I feel silly saying you learn it with the Starter Kit, since if they found my contact form, how did they miss the giant “get the starter kit” stuff?
But then it’s back to my own internal dialogue, and then I realize that maybe they don’t know. Or maybe they just want reassurance from me that this is, in fact, the best option.
Anyway, yay, glad you love it. And keep enjoying the epiphanies!
I have no idea why anyobody is asking how to go about learning it, unless they’ve somehow managed to miss the links…. I suppose a FAQ page would take care of that, with that question right at the top. *shrug*
I found a link on James’ site, and I had no trouble figuring out that I needed the starter kit, but now I don’t remember if the link was to shivanata, or to learndanceofshiva….
Maybe a link on every page: “Ready to learn the dance of Shiva?” or something of the sort…?
Oh, and by the way: thanks for going through all that so the rest of us don’t have to. I might be stubborn enough to do it, but my family would NOT be happy with me while I was doing it. (I tend to be a bit one-track-minded and can be grumpy when interrupted….)
Here is my thought:
My question that I come to Fluent Self with: How can I be wise and successful and unstuck like Havi? The tapping thing is good but I am still crazy and get stuck on stuff.
Answer: Oh, it turns out Havi’s Shiva thing can help with that! It’s not actually just for people who are insanely into yoga. I know you don’t have time to do yoga–you barely have time to shower every day–but Havi has a way to do baby steps and make it easy to get started.
In other words, it’s all about that basic stuff like benefits & objections & calls to action. I always think I am immune to this because I am a big marketing dork, but turns out I am not.
And I am not so good about focusing on the benefits & objections myself because I think “well that is obvious and I don’t want to be a creepy salespern,” but it’s not creepy, it’s just helping people.
In other words, I just ordered this because I have been reading you with mad love for weeks or months or whatever, but I finally connected the dots on the Shiva Dance thing. So go ahead & connect the dots for people. The world is very cluttered & confusing, so it’s a kindness to spell it out with painful clarity.
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First Havi, I truly appreciate the effort you put into the starter kit. When I was reading the ebook, I was aware that this was something you really wanted people to understand. You very clearly explain how hard it is and how that’s the point.
In some ways however, this is very scary. Personally, I’m really afraid to start something that I am not supposed to be good at. It’s completely different than everything else we are taught our whole lives. You know, “practice makes perfect”.
So, there is some huge resistance to get into something that in and of itself requires a huge leap of faith.
We want some sort of guarantee because it makes us feel better. Of course, life doesn’t work that way but we are sold on many things that way aren’t we?
Perhaps, the question about learning the Dance are really about how do I even begin this process with all this unknown. And frankly, this has to come from taking the leap and cannot be given by someone – even you who knows it so well. Anything worth doing, is not easy and we all need to be okay with that.
As you know, a few of us on Twitter have decided to be accountable to each other on starting to learn the Dance. I think that might be the best way to go about it. Have support and share stories as they come.
Hope this is helpful because I would love to be the one to help you for once – HUGS :)
It sounds like there’s a lot of different questions hiding behind “How do I learn Shiva Nata?”:
+ What is Shiva Nata?
+ What will I immediately get from the learning process? What is the learning process going to teach me?
+ What is a step-by-step guide to getting started?
+ What does Shiva Nata actually involve in detail? As in can I do it in my living room (I find this tricky – too little space). Do I do it in the street (lots of wacky looks)? In the garden (my personal favourite so far)?
Still getting thoughts on this issue…
I used to teach public school. My students would frequent my ears with this question: how can I make an “A” in your class?
Now, I knew they knew what their homework was. I made sure they could repeat back to me what I expected them to do. These kids weren’t goofy in the head. (Well, not extraordinarily so…)
So what were they asking? They wanted to know how to make an “A” without doing the work. They wanted to be able to do something simpler than what was assigned, get “extra credit” for it, and have the “extra credit” make up what they chose not to do of the “harder” work I’d assigned.
I think a lot of us are that way. I know I am. I’m always looking for the easiest, laziest way to do things.
Anything worthwhile, though, is not easy. And therein lies part of the virtue.
I’m totally saving up to get the starter kit. I can tell in your blog that you have a peace and an unstuckness that I want. I look forward to learning.
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Twitter: shannonmw
Hey Havi, just noticed that on your homepage the text at the bottom isn’t hyperlinked to anything. I kind of got a little confused about where to go next, when there wasn’t anything to click on at the bottom of the page.
And also, could just be me, but “Starter Kit” implies there’s something bigger, cooler, badder assed available. (Should that be bad asser? More bad ass?) Anyway, sometimes when I want to start something, I want to jump in full-on. I don’t want to start in pre-school, I want to go straight to University. I don’t want the “Starter” kit, I want the complete kick ass program.
Despite that paragraph, I’m really about more than the ass.
Havi,
I’m not one of the folks cluttering up your email inbox, but I was about to be. Timing, timing! It seems that here is a better fit now.
I’ve been obsessively poking around here for about two weeks now, considering picking up the starter kit for a whole host of reasons. Increased coordination? Great! Better reaction time? Also very nice. Waking myself out of a couple of life ruts? BOY HOWDY, sign me up!
So why haven’t I just gone for it? A lack of knowledge about Shiva Nata (and, actually, yoga in general) combined with my experience in martial arts.
Here’s the thing: within the martial arts (mainly Kung Fu in my case), virtually everything is cumulative — build a good foundation in a stance, learn individual hand formations and movements and integrate, integrate, integrate. This makes having someone right there that understands what’s “right” incredibly important, so you can catch mistakes early on before they become ingrained habit.
Which makes learning from a DVD kinda scary.
I know not everyone’s got crossed wires between combat-based martial arts and Shiva Nata. I know you yourself got started with little more than a single class and notes and a mirror. And, really, I know most of my unease would be overcome by a somewhat backhanded reassurance: that if I’m doing something utterly, utterly wrong, I’m going to know, it’s going to be totally my fault, and I’ll be able to work at on my own.
Wow, there’s a ramble. The short version: I want the limiting factor to be me, not that I’d be learning a DVD.
So, there’s that. I think I actually just convinced myself to place an order by writing my concerns and realizing that I could guess most of your answers, but maybe there’s something you can distill out for your eventual FAQ.
And if you know of any teachers down here in the Dallas metro area, I’d love to know.
To address your post, you said the (general) question is:
“I want to learn Dance of Shiva — what do I do?”
They might mean ‘HOW do I do WHAT?’ but you want to 1) approve; 2) instruct; 3) incite.
The quizzer wants approval for wanting to learn; you’re GREAT at that.
The quizzer needs instructions on “what do I do?” — lay it out short and direct:
“Buy my kit, that’s what you do, duh.”
Or, the more informative:
“it’s possible to learn alone from a book, or with a teacher, but I’ve put my decades of experience into a kit that will get your started having epiphanies in as little as 10 minutes a day — just buy my easy Starter Kit by clicking here.”
The quizzer needs to get excited enough to act now. Some info they may need for this emotional call-to-action:
The extensive value of the many pieces (facts),
the sensory experience they can expect from the first time they use the kit (emotion),
the discounted-because-it’s-a-gift-for-now price that must go up in [deadline] (offers fact, value and urgency) — all three gems of marketing will help excite/incite your quizzer to action to “click-and-own.”
Tell them that there’s a few downloads to review while the kit ships — instant gratification, yay!
Tell them that your labor-of-love gift-to-the-world pricing is getting brought up to normal value (I personally didn’t realize it was a product of your own making; I thought it was a collection of other, existing products that you just bundled), and that you’ll both feel better about it if they take your personal gift to them (the discount) now.
And for goodness-sake, put the “learn the dance” stuff and epiphanies graphic up right under your face in the right sidebar. It’s more important than SEARCH or CATEGORIES.
Apologies for the long post or bossy tone.
I didn’t have any idea of your feelings in all this, and I’ve been wanting the kit for months. I DID know what it was and where to get it and how to buy it, etc. Your FluentSelf site is real clear on all that. (I bet if you had a Non-icky-self-promo client who had an obscure lesson kit for sale you could tell her all this yourself!)
Good post, glad you got it out.
Hey Havi,
As far as I can see, you’ve done a superlative job. I’m a technophobe and had no problem figuring out how to order the Starter Kit to start practicing the Dance of Shiva, which I am finding fascinating. I’ve tried some spirals while I’m walking with my dogs. Luckily we live in the woods and no one can see me.
If you are getting this irksome question about once a month, then here’s my take on it in freeform: For a certain percentage of the public, it is easier to ask a question than to look around for 5 seconds and find the answer in front of their eyes. Or maybe they are attempting to make contact with someone they want in their lives. Or they “push” when the door says “pull”; they drive and talk on their cell phones.
Who knows, but if I were in your position, I’d use this as a trigger. Go do something totally fun every time this question pops up (before or after you send them something that points to the site for buying the Starter Kit, like, “perhaps you didn’t see this …)
Have fun with your brother. I’m lucky enough to have my family close by to see them regularly and know that’s lucky.
Chow baby, (yeah, I know that’s not the Italian spelling, because that’s not what I mean)
ct
Oh Havi – I have been doing the Dance of Shiva thing for about a month. Of course, I’m still on level 1 – section 1: Horizonal hands (with a peek at Vertical hands). I can’t even think about combining the two. Yes, there have been 10’s of tiny and medium ephiphanies; things are changing here at a rapid pace. But you know what I really like about this stuff – it is a place in my life where I don’t have to get it right. Where I shouldn’t even try to get it right. A place when I try and fail and try and screw up and try and try and get better and move forward and screw up again. It is so awesome to be able to (no, encouraged) to keep screwing up again and again. And somehow, getting better at things that shouldn’t be connected (but that astonishingly are connected). It is so much like real life.
The other day I was trying something new – listening to the numbers. But I couldn’t remember both numbers, only the one for the left hand. So I got the idea to focus only on my left hand movements and let the right one do whatever it thought was right. (Yes, the right hand ended up in some creative places.) But you have given me such freedom to play with my brain and my learning process. Thank you. Thank you.
That guy that complained – don’t let him get to you. You’ve done a great job. Thank you (have I said that yet).
Love, Meredith
Thanks to Meredith for reminding me that one of the greatest things Havi has done here is give me (us) permission to not have to be perfect at something. Thanks Havi.
I wstched the demo with interest having landed on your page somehow totally out of context and never having heard of this dance thing. Then I click to get to this page, hoping to find out how to get the info and I read this: “Anyway, here’s the question that always baffles me: “I want to learn Dance of Shiva — what do I do?” and think “yes I want to know that – why is it baffling her?!”
Frankly, by the time I’d realied “oh there’s a kit I can buy” I was wondering if it was all a big advertising lead up to some hugely expensive deal… you know, the kind where they keep you waiting ages and ages before you get to click on “buy” and you don’t know the price until you click and then you have a heart attack? Thankfully it didn’t turn out like that, and yes I ordered it, but, hey, give the newbies a break, eh?
I would have liked an FAQ with the straightforward info first, and maybe all the feelings stuff (which I quite understand) afterwards?
Anyway, I’m glad there’s a kit, and I’m sorry this is all so frustrating, but not all of us have read other pages of yours (yet).
PS you said you did no marketing at all – but maybe you should?!
Best,
D
x
Oh and I agree it sounds like there’s a non-starter kit too.
Ai-yi. THANK YOU for Starter Kits, and blogging, and being open, and honest, and all of that.
Amazingly enough, I get the impression that even if you put in huge neon letters all over the site in the middle of the page “BUY THE STARTER KIT HERE” at least one person would email you to say “How do I start?”
Because for some people, there’s a kind of cut off between clicking the button and finding out for themselves and emailing you. I see it as similar to the people who ask you about things you’ve mentioned rather than clicking on the link you helpfully inserted into the blog post. Or people who say “what’s….” on Twitter to me when the obvious thing to do is GOOGLE IT.
This is a private frustration for me too, mostly because, given the fact that “Amnar” pops up in conversation along with the words “writer” and “I am” and “my books are called” you wouldn’t believe the number of people who say “Oh… what’s you book called?”
I therefore suggest we tattoo the instructions upon our foreheads. At which point people will say “What’s that tattooed to your forehead?”
There is, in short, no way to win.
Love,
J xx
P.S. This also reminded me of the students I used to teach at university who, having been given all of the information they needed to pass their degree, said they couldn’t find the library. “It’s the whopping great building at the very centre of the square with LIBRARY written on it.”
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I think you are beating yourself up over other people’s stuff.
What it is, is: they want to _know_ how, not learn how. A certain kind of person hopes for benefits without effort. I suspect this is a person who has never received any real benefit from work, from putting out effort, so they don’t see effort as worthwhile.
You are doing nearly everything right, here, as far as I can see. The only addition I would make is to feature this blog more prominently on your main blog.
For myself, all I can say is that I knew I needed something from you the moment I heard about you from Molly Gordon. And once I found your store, I knew the Shiva Nata was what I needed. I’m sorry only that your profit is merely $5. I’ll send you a flower, soon.