“As a new Shivanaut I would love to know: did you have an intention when you started practicing? I’m struggling with finding mine.”

A couple things to think about:

Let me tell you what happened the other day.

The day before yesterday I was having a seriously hard time with a challenge in my business.

No matter how many different scenarios I ran in my head, I couldn’t seem to come up with something that solved the thing that wasn’t working.

I thought it over from what seemed like every possible angle. Nothing.

Then I read Eric’s post about how he was doing some Level 4 while waiting for the water to boil for his tea.

And it occurred to me that I haven’t done full Level 4 in ages. So I put on some sea chanteys and rocked out to Level 4. Really sloppily. Just having fun.

Then I did it while counting the numbers. And then I took a nap.

Yesterday morning I woke up and there it was.

A perfect, simple solution. I knew exactly what needed to be done. The business challenge was not only resolved, this particular solution also solved problems I hadn’t even thought of yet.

It was such a completely typical Shiva Nata moment that I laughed for about ten minutes straight.

Classic Shivanautical epiphany.

What’s my point?

When I gave up ten minutes of my day to doing some Dance of Shiva, I didn’t stop to set an intention.

But since I’d spent the past several hours messing around with this problem, I’d subconsciously set an intention.

I didn’t specifically say hey, I need a solution for this thing. But that was the gist of it.

It still worked.

That happens kind of a lot

When I first started doing Dance of Shiva, I had absolutely no idea the kind of crazy stuff it could bring about.

I was just doing it because I had to learn it for Andrey’s teacher training.

So when I figured out what needed to happen to stop smoking, and how German grammar worked, and why I get hungry when I feel pain …

Well, these were all answers to things I’d been spending a lot of time thinking about.

I hadn’t consciously set an intention. But essentially I had.

So you can set an intention pretty much anywhere on the continuum.

For example …

• You can be thinking about a thing and then do some Shiva Nata.
• You can be thinking about a thing and then actively think to yourself, hey I’m going to do some Shiva Nata on it.
• You can be thinking about a thing and then take a few minutes to decide what you would like to receive from your Shiva Nata practice.
• You can be thinking about a thing and then stop to write down a wish for your practice.

Like this:

“I really need some clarity on this thing that is unresolved. I am ready to take apart any patterns that are keeping me from figuring this out, and I’m ready for whatever needs to be created for this to move and change.”

Of course, it’s useful to have a practice of setting an intention.

That’s because it helps you track what you’re working on.

And it puts you in more of a state of conscious awareness in relation to the patterns you’re working on.

But if you don’t have one, or can’t think of one, I wouldn’t worry about it.

Some intentions that can be good to play with:

• “I’m ready to learn what I need to learn for this pattern to be taken apart and for the new pattern to be born.”
• “May whatever I need to know be revealed to me.”
• “I’m ready for a perfect, simple solution for this thing I’m working on.”
• “Even though I don’t know what I need right now, I can trust that I’m on my way to finding out.”
• “Whatever I’m done with can now leave to make room for the new thing that’s on its way in.”

Or you can just practice. And see what happens.

The only thing to remember is that you still have to challenge yourself.

That means make it hard. That means make it even harder. That means not just doing what you know or what you expect.

Because it isn’t (always) just the intention that brings clarity. It’s the combination of asking a question and then challenging your brain to rewrite what it already knows.

So that what you don’t know yet can emerge from the chaos.

That’s the starting point.

Where you go from here is up to you.

If any of you guys have stories about things that have happened in your practice, with or without actively setting an intention, that would be awesome.

And if you have more questions about this, leave them here.

The Twitter version:

Intentions are awesome. Having one will set all sorts of amazing things in motion. But don’t sweat it. Not having one still works.

xox
havi

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Truth elixir, nude dreams, realizations, just being.
• An amazing Shiva Nata story.
• Needles in haystacks. More patterns.

From someone who knows that it helps to say kazoo to get my attention. Though I almost missed this one!

Random question time! What is the most unexpected side-effect of the Shiva Nata dance you’ve experienced so far? (Also, kazoo :D )

So. Let’s have at it.

Odd and unexpected side effects.

Oh, there are so many.

Though if I had to choose one?

I would probably have to go with the miraculous series of understandings that allowed me to stop smoking.

Because that was really the very first big Shivanautical thing that happened to me, and it was completely unexpected and it just blew me away.

At this point, I tend to just expect all sorts of weird things, so I don’t get surprised as often. :)

What else?

The speed at which I was able to learn German was another one.

But there are others:

• I can’t lie.
• My weird ability to talk to monsters.
• The way I can read the energy of a website the way acupuncturists read the qi in your body.
• The way a pen cannot be dropped anywhere near Andrey without him catching it before it falls to the floor.
• And pretty much every idea I have for a blog post for The Fluent Self.

What about you?

Odd and unexpected side effects?

I’m going to open this one up to the Shivanauts at large! What have you got?

It doesn’t have to be bizarre, as long as it was unexpected for you …

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• The Levy Flight. Patterns. Again.
• Needles in haystacks. More patterns.
• Punk Rock Shivanauttery: answering a bunch of questions!

And my goodness, there were a ton of people on there. Hi guys!

And since we had thirty-seven questions sent in ahead of time …
And since most of those were actually three or four questions instead of one…
And since all of them were really interesting …

I’m turning some of the questions we couldn’t get to into a series of blog posts.

Today we’re starting with two questions that are, delightfully, about things I’m totally not qualified to answer but still have opinions on.

And, as always, assume the usual caveat that I’m not a doctor or a therapist, so (for the record) I’ll be all disclaimer-ey about that.

And before I say anything else, because Shiva Nata is complicated and pattern-centric and weird, you always want to focus on staying grounded, so you can be really present with both yourself and your stuff if it comes up.

And you want to notice what’s going on with you during the practice, so that you can stop or make adjustments if something doesn’t feel good.

“How might Shiva Nata help with Attention Deficit Disorder?”

Here’s how I see it.

Dance of Shiva engages multiple senses simultaneously, so it obliges you to make use of different channels of perception.

Watching the movements requires intense visual focus. You use your hearing to process the numbers and movements. You’re also using touch, in the sense that you are moving your feet against the floor in different patterns and your limbs through the air in different patterns.

Add to that the brain work of following the number sequences (or word sequences). And the simultaneous moving of your arms in different directions following different patterns, building neural connections all over your brain. Wow.

So in a way, it actually encourages you to focus.

And if you’re challenging yourself by making it hard, it should really be pretty impossible to think about anything other than what you’re doing.

Not to mention the heightened awareness of patterns thing, which can help you learn more about what tugs you out of yourself, and when — and it gives you information about what you can do to make your life work for you, given the circumstances you’re working on.

Seems to me that all or any of those things could be useful.

I would LOVE to see some serious research done on Dance of Shiva with ADD. And if people want to jump in with their experiences, or with their students’ experiences, that would be awesome.

“What about Dance of Shiva and bi-polar disorder? Is it okay?”

“I am not sure if this is a question you can answer: the 14 year old daughter of friends is visiting for a week so that I can revise her French classes with her because her grades have gone downhill.

I have thought of doing Shiva Nata in between with her to make revision a bit more fun. But: She was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder last year and is under medication. I am pretty sure that Shiva Nata won’t do her any harm but I still feel a bit reluctant. Do you know anything about conditions in which it is maybe advisable not to do it? Thanks!”

You’re right. I have no idea how to answer this.

In general, doing Dance of Shiva is really balancing, because it’s so systematic and it’s all about connections. Good for the body and good for the brain.

At the same time, it’s a really powerful practice, with powerful sensations.

And there is the emotional component too: whenever you do Shiva Nata with people, you want to make sure that they understand that the point is to do it wrong, so they don’t get overcome with frustration.

Some (most?) people get frustrated anyway. And when there is a lot of emotional stuff going on, sometimes the experience is of not fun. And other times, it’s really liberating to have permission to not have to get it right.

If you’re feeling anxious for any reason and want to play it safe, you might stick to just do something that breaks up the schoolwork, and maybe makes the memorization bits easier.

I might try doing just connections.

Like Horizontal-Vertical connections with numbers and/or words. And then giving her a break and seeing how it feels.

These answers are just starting points. For more questions, probably.

There are so many things to ask. So many things to notice. So many things to need.

The essential thing about using Dance of Shiva, in my experience, is turning everything into information that helps us have a more conscious, intentional relationship with ourselves.

We make sure that our main focus is safety. Grounding. Whatever we need to stay centered and in the process.

And then ..

• We notice things.
• We experiment.
• We take notes.
• We ask questions.
• We make a point of doing things differently next time.

If people in the call only took away one thing from the themes we played with — sovereignty and “Check your patterns!” — I hope it’s this:

“It’s your practice.

Which means that you get to experiment, mindfully.

And to test things. As long as your intention is to learn stuff about your patterns so that you can take better care of yourself, that’s going to help you figure out what needs to happen next.”

And for now, let’s leave it at that.

More guest posts coming up. More answering of questions-that-didn’t get answered.

And big love to all the Shivanauts, and people-who-might-eventually-be-Shivanauts and all the Lurker Mice.

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• The Levy Flight. Patterns. Again.
• Shiva Nata: odd and unexpected side effects
• Announcement! The teleclass! (NEW DATE)

Excellent.

Oh, why don’t we just start this off with a bunch of disclaimers?

Okay, the usual stuff:

I’m trained as a yoga teacher, not as a doctor. So you should see my extremely boring official disclaimer-ey thing and always consult your physician, etc.

And then I will also have to add what Marissa (my First Mate on the pirate ship and a fellow Shivanaut) said, because it was so funny and sweet and her-ish:

“I couldn’t think of any reason that it wouldn’t be okay, but I figured I should check with you, just in case it does anything to the energy channels in the body such that questionable things might occur, or something.

(And now that I think about it, ‘Questionable things might occur!’ is now the warning label I think I will attach to… everything. I rather like it.)”

Good. Now that we’re all disclaimerized, let’s talk about contraindications and General Stuff To Consider if you’re pregnant.

Or if you’re thinking about maybe eventually getting around to that at some point).

General stuff to take into consideration with Shiva Nata and pregnancy.

• You might want to avoid doing the leg movements as they place pressure on the belly.
• Of course, very gentle leg movements can be used to strengthen core muscles, so they might even be good for you over the first few months, but after that you might want to ease up.
• Short sessions. Don’t tax yourself. Five minutes at a time is great.
• Make sure you take time to rest and process after your session. Shavasana: highly recommended. For everyone, not just pregnant chicks.
• You want to take time to ground yourself (spread your toes, anchor your feet, bend knees slightly) so that you’re steady and comfortable.
• If at any point the spiral movements of the arms are putting undue pressure on your back, stop. It’s probably a sign that you’re not standing correctly, but, you know, erring on the side of caution isn’t the worst idea in the world.

Those are pretty much the only things that are coming up for me at this point.

Reasons why Shiva Nata would be an awesome thing to do during pregnancy.

• It gives you information about your patterns.
• Since becoming a mother is a big, crazy, wonderful, scary, intense thing, your stuff is probably coming up all over the place. Having useful information about what that’s all about and why seems like a good idea.
• It brings you into a state of calm and peacefulness (okay, not always while you’re doing it, but once you’ve stopped flailing and are transitioning into stillness).
• It’s amazing exercise for the brain. Keeps you quick.
• It’s fun, it’s quick and it doesn’t require props, space or stuff.
• It doesn’t involve any of the yoga things that are generally not recommended during later stages of pregnancy (inversions, forward bends, back bends, pressure on the abdomen).
• Epiphanies and moments of bing are always useful. But while you’re going through a big transitional identify shift, this might be especially useful.
• It’s a great way to practice breathing exercises.
• You’ll have gorgeous triceps.
• Mental agility and physical coordination will come in handy after you’ve given birth. And really also during the next few years while you’re running after your schweet little rugrats.

So … opinions?

In general, I’m for it. Yay, Shiva Nata! I think it could be a wonderful experience.

But, as always, it’s your body and you know best.

So exercising caution is definitely not a bad thing. This is all about you developing a healthy relationship with yourself, which is basically the most yoga thing you could be doing.

Hope that helps! Thank you for the question — it’s a good one. :)

Anyone else? Thoughts on this? Experience with this? Ideas one way or the other? I’m off to start a doo-wop quartet called Questionable Things May Occur.

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Needles in haystacks. More patterns.
• The Levy Flight. Patterns. Again.
• Shiva Nata: odd and unexpected side effects

And even though a lot of you have no connection or concern with this specifically, I know there are also many people who need reassurance that this isn’t going to be some wacky religious practice.

I mean, it is wacky. It’s just not religious-wacky.

So I am going to bring a couple of these questions in here and do what I can to answer them.

I would like to know if the Shiva Nata — is it in anyway to be considered Avodah Zarah? I am interested in ordering, and learning, but I want to be sure that I would be getting involved with something that is coming from a pure source.

Or:

My husband is concerned that it is avodah zara and that the goddess Shiva was a goddess of destruction to get to creativity, and if it’s a dance to her or her dance it would be avodah zara.

Okay. I’m more than happy to help out with this.

I don’t know that I have a single brilliant answer, but I definitely do have some thoughts.

So: a few thoughts!

Thought #1. The Dance of Shiva … doesn’t really have anything to do with Shiva.

Actually, not only is it not about Shiva, it’s also not really a dance. :)

But that’s another subject entirely, and probably deserves its own post.

What I can say in a very definite way is that this practice is not about worshipping Shiva.

And it’s not about being with Shiva.

So yes, he (it’s a he) is one of the principal deities of the Hindu religion, and that is where the name of this practice came from, but it is not a religious practice and it is not a dance to Shiva or from Shiva.

It’s about the principle embodied in the practice (and in the mythology that gave birth to it).

Thought #2. It’s not Shiva — it’s the principle.

The principle is transformation.

The principle is that any pattern can be taken apart into its components and be rebuilt as something else … something better.

The principle is swords into plowshares.

The principle is that any habit is a pattern and any pattern can be changed.

The principle is that change is the natural way of the world (of nature, of seasons, of growing older), and that we can use the informational patterns of change to improve our relationship with ourselves.

The principle is that deconstructing our old patterns can give us the information we need to move through the fog and see just how beautiful we are. How beautiful it is to be alive.

Thought #3. So, as metaphors go, it’s a pretty great one.

Shiva is a metaphor.

This concept, taken from Indian mythology, is this:

Destruction (or deconstruction) is powerful and useful, because it allows us to rebuild …

This is a concept that is super-useful for making Big Crazy Life Changes in a gentle, non-scary way.

It’s also a concept that has so much universal truth inside of it that it can be found in many religions and many practices.

So it’s not a dance to Shiva or to his qualities. It’s a practice that embodies a universal concept.

Thought #4. The name? Yeah, perhaps an unfortunate choice…

Well, at least from a marketing standpoint.

Because … Dance of Shiva? It’s hard to say, it’s hard to explain, and we’re never going to get the domain.

And it’s practically impossible to rank for “dance of shiva” as a search term on Google … very frustrating!

I mean, who can compete with Fritjof Capra?

So had it been up to me I probably would have called it something else. But it wasn’t my choice. And that’s probably a good thing.

Andrey Lappa (my teacher) is the one who brought the practice back to life. He is a brilliant thinker and a wonderful chooser-of-metaphors.

And the original name is a powerful transformational metaphor.

So that’s what it’s called. And if you feel that uncomfortable with the name, you could always call it something else.

Thought #5. It isn’t a religious practice — it’s a self-work practice.

Yes, some of the movements resemble some of the things you see in Indian dance and statues.

And the principle of Shiva (deconstruction or dissolution) is reflected in the way the practice helps you take apart patterns to make room for new ones.

But it isn’t a religious practice in any way — it’s a self-work practice.

In Hebrew I would say: avodah atzmit (self-work), not avodah zara.

Thought #6. You can make the practice your own.

It’s about expanding the power of your brain.

But it’s also about your relationship to yourself and your heart … and it’s about (or can be) your own spiritual relationship.

You could bring into it any spiritual elements that suit you, as with any other practice. 

In my own practice, I generally take a few minutes beforehand to focus on my intention, and then use Shiva Nata as a warm up for my quiet meditation time.

Andrey himself is a Buddhist, and he is really very open to everyone having his/her own personal relationship with the divine or whatever they choose to believe in — or not believe in.

I personally view Shiva Nata as brain training that has meditative effects, but not as a religious practice in and of itself.

And again, If it were up to me, I might not have opted to use the Shiva terminology, given the negative or potentially uncomfortable associations for many different people.

It’s your practice. You get to choose how to think about it.

Thought #7. I don’t have to look farther than my own practice.

Because if I thought now for a second that practicing Dance of Shiva could be a form of avodah zara, I wouldn’t do it.

I just wouldn’t.

I live a very conscious, intentional, spiritual life — a Jewish spiritual life — and that’s something I wouldn’t feel comfortable with and I wouldn’t do.

It was something I was also a little concerned about before I started, because of the name — I didn’t want to have anything to do with something that might be a Hindu practice. 

But I very quickly saw that this is a transformational practice of healing, and not a religious one.

Thought #8. The principle of not making false gods holds for many things.

This is how I look at it:

You can make false gods from anything … including from the principle that one may never make false gods.

Which is why the principle of bringing conscious awareness into your life is so useful. Because it helps you know in your heart that you are not worshipping other beings, ideas or traditions.

It helps you feel more secure in your faith and your path. It helps you trust yourself.

And I don’t know of a better practice to develop conscious awareness than Shiva Nata.

It brings me deeper into my relationship with myself, it brings me deeper into my relationship with the divine. It gives each person who practices it the thing that he or she needs most to connect with their own hearts.

Thought #9. You don’t have to do it.

If the thought of doing a practice that shares a name with another tradition is too weird or uncomfortable for you … you don’t have to practice it.

I have no desire or intention to dictate your experience of the practice or to imply that it’s something you “should” do.

So I want you to know that you have full permission from me to practice or not, to have whatever experience you have with it, to do what helps you feel safe and comfortable.

It’s your life, and I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to do with it.

I’m out of thoughts about this.

But I hope that some of this was helpful.

Bivracha,
Havi

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Oh, and some more epiphanies.
• Why would you possibly want to do this?
• Needles in haystacks. More patterns.

Interesting to the point that I was actually kind of taken aback.

And then I didn’t know how to respond and just kind of stuttered while making little phthlah phthlah phthlah noises.

Charming, I know. I’m just that way.

Except that — luckily for me — we were on Twitter so no one actually heard me.

Oh, right. The question.

Anyway, this totally counts as an Ask a Shivanaut question, so I’m going to answer it.

Do men ever do Shiva Nata?

I wish I didn’t, but I do worry about things like that.

And the answer.

The short answer is “yes”.

Unless you’d like a slightly longer answer.

The longer answer is this:

There is a weird thing that happens in the yoga world that has an unfortunate (in my opinion, of course) parallel in the Shiva Nata world.

And that’s the fact that — although there are far more female practitioners — most of the well-known yoga teachers and experts tend to be men.

Off the top of my head? I can think of far more men teaching than women.

When you look at who is teaching Shiva Nata*, you’ll probably find the same thing.

There’s the main teacher of the dance, of course — Andrey Lappa — but most of the other teachers are men too.

• Neil is teaching in Taiwan.
• Lars is teaching in Berlin.
• Honey is (or was?) teaching in San Francisco, as is Jamie.
• James from Adventures of a Shivanaut is in the UK … and if he’s not teaching, he should be.

And among my own students who have begun teaching classes of their own, men definitely outnumber the women.

Not by a lot. But it’s still significant.

In my classes and workshops however, there are often more women present than men. The opposite has also been true, but only on very rare occasions.

The workshop in San Francisco last weekend was composed of all women. And I believe that only three or four men are coming to the North Carolina workshop, not including Fred (yes, another Shiva Nata teacher).

*The same seems to also be true for other forms of Dance of Shiva. For example, Daniel Odier’s Tandava. Or Zhander Remete’s Natya Yoga.

An even more interesting question.

Why?

Why is it that more men teach than women? Why is it that more men feel comfortable moving up to the higher levels faster?

Why does the whole culture of the yoga teaching world result in men ending up at the top — when the vast majority of people taking classes are women?

Or … with that being the case, why would there be this perception that yoga is somehow a women’s practice?

There are the usual answers.

That men are (or tend to be) better primed through social conditioning to try things that are hard.

Or to have the testosterone-fueled confidence to push through to the next level — and to not get so caught up in the endless “who do I think I am” type of questioning that women often put themselves through.

There’s got to be other stuff going on too. And I don’t know what it is.

Let’s have some reassurance though, yes?

For our asker-of-the-question:

My dear, you are more than welcome to start Shiva-ing it up with us.

Seriously. We are always happy to have another Shivanaut on board the pirate ship of wackiness.

I promise that you’ll be in good company. Plenty of men around!

And I’m sure that — as a man yourself — you will be fabulously successful, and maybe even go on to teach it.

And I hope that you will also join me then (and now) in encouraging my fellow lady Shivanauts to feel strong and confident so they can get out there and teach teach teach!

Stepping off the soapbox now.

Whose turn is it?

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Ask A Shivanaut: mixing practices
• Dance of Shiva: internal and external space
• Ask a Shivanaut: Dance of Shiva before or after a yoga practice?

Epiphanies. Insights. Understandings. Awareness. Realizations.

But yeah. Still kind of vague.

And the reason for this is that… well, let’s just say that your mileage may vary.

In general, the various types of “possible epiphanies that might be available to you through practicing Dance of Shiva” can fall into five different categories.

Epiphanies on the physical level.

Stuff that happens with your body.

Changing posture. Discovering what it is like to be able to stand up straight. Enjoying breathing more.

Crazy coordination.

It also might be realizations about your body. About how you stand or how you move or how you sleep or why something hurts.

About how your body reacts to certain foods or people or situations. It

You might get better at dancing or swimming or basketball.

Or maybe a specific movement that was previously difficult for you becomes more natural (or at least less difficult).

You have more information about how your body works.

These are all things that my students report regularly and that I’ve experienced myself.

Epiphanies on the energy level.

You become more aware of the space around you.

You become more aware of the unspoken stuff. Subtext. The feel of a room. The intention behind what people say.

You become more aware of your own energy level throughout the day.

You become more aware of what you need and what you don’t need.

Epiphanies on the emotional level.

Realizations about how your patterns work.

About what elements they’re composed of.

You remember things.

You dream things.

You notice things.

All of a sudden, you know why you do something the way you do it. And you know how to do it differently if you want to.

Epiphanies on the mental level.

Realizations about why you think the way you do.

A different ability to conceptualize things.

A new way of looking at things.

For me, I was able to suddenly grasp German grammar after ages of struggling with it. To no longer suck at math.

So for me it’s been learning how to think in a very structured way.

However, when I work with scientists and engineers and good-at-structured-thinking-types, their experience is that they learn how to think in a very intuitive way.

Which is kind of why it’s so hard to explain what kind of epiphanies you’re going to get. Because the Dance will always give you the thing you need the most.

You’re going to get them.

As long as you consistently challenge yourself to do something that is not possible for you, you’re going to get them. And the thing you’ll get is the thing that you personally need the most.

The thing that’s missing for you right now is the thing you will receive.

Epiphanies on the spiritual level.

Awareness.

Connection.

The ability to find your way back to the center of your heart.

So …

Right.

It’s hard to say.

Your epiphanies will vary.

Some will by tiny and some will be momentous.

Some will come in the form of dreams and some will come in the form of memories and some will just be there, fully formed and ready to use.

The thing that’s missing for you right now is the thing you will receive.

And how could I possibly know what’s missing for you?

Maybe you don’t even know what’s missing for you.

But you will.

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• A Dance of Shiva mini-epiphany.
• Shivanautical realizations + epiphanies: take 2
• Shivanautical realizations + epiphanies: take 1

And I haven’t the foggiest notion of how to answer this.

Other than renting the film in question …

So I’m putting this out to you guys. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?*

*See? I have seen movies. On occasion. Okay, fine. I am completely culturally inept. But curious.

Havi,
Just watched Jim Jarmusch’s “Limits of Control”.

Question: Is this, what the artist-killer is practicing a form of Shiva Nata??? It would explain the magic he’s able to do…

Okay, so my initial guess is … hmmm, probably not. Just because that would surprise me to no end.

But? I honestly don’t know.

Who wants to help us out here?

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• What, Non-Sucky Yoga Month again?!
• Ask a Shivanaut: setting intentions
• Needles in haystacks. More patterns.

The reason I forget about it is actually almost part of the answer, but now I’m getting ahead of myself.

So here it is:

Is “coordination” a pre-req for Shiva Nata?

The short answer is: “Oh dear God, no!”

But it’s the longer answer that’s more interesting.

Actually, the less coordinated you are the better.

Here’s the thing you have to understand about Shiva Nata.

We’re training your brain to be faster, better and more powerful. More capable of quickly making and accessing new neural connections.

But we’re doing that by intentionally practicing the parts that are too hard for us. We’re challenging our coordination, not using it.

More than that, though …

We’re trying to mess it up. We’re trying to get it wrong. No, more wrong!

You’re only doing it right when you’re doing it wrong.

So if you’re really coordinated? It’s going to be more work for you to make sure you’re getting challenged. It will still kick your ass, don’t get me wrong. You’ll just have to work a little harder.

And if you’re not so coordinated — or not at all — that’s good news.

Because you won’t have to work as hard. You’ll already be lost from the get-go, which is what you want. I mean, that’s the whole point.

So yes. Lack of coordination is a huge advantage in Dance of Shiva.

Now here’s the irony.

Unfortunately for you (hahahahaha), the more you do Dance of Shiva, the more coordinated you will become. Which means you’ll have to work harder.

It may, in fact, turn you into a ninja. Or something. For example, my teacher. I have never, ever seen him drop anything. If something falls he catches it. He’s just that fast.

So your days of being completely uncoordinated are sadly numbered.

On the other hand, Shiva Nata only gets harder and harder. And each new level is crazier and crazier. So as your brain evolves and your body catches up, there’s still work to do.

You’re still going to be bad at it. And feel completely uncoordinated, incompetent and generally befuddled. Which is a good thing! Confused yet?

The reason I always forget about this question.

I guess I’ve just been doing this for too long.

The idea — however revolutionary it may be — that I’m trying to do everything wrong in this practice, that I’m trying to be bad at it… it’s already ingrained in my system.

It’s a part of me.

It’s just so obvious to me (from years of practice) that of course you actually want to be uncoordinated. And on the other hand, that you will constantly be getting more coordinated…

Oh the paradox. Oh the conundrum. Oh the frustration, madness and joy that is the Dance of Shiva.

So I forget to reassure people. Let me reassure you now.

If you are hopelessly uncoordinated, revel in it! Because you’re going to be getting your hot buttered epiphanies faster and with less effort.

Though yeah, if you keep at it, it won’t be long until you won’t get to call yourself “uncoordinated” any more.

And if you’re a dancer or a choreographer or have done a ton of martial arts, come to one of my workshops or use the DVD in the Starter Kit. And you’ll also get to feel like an uncoordinated, flailing mess like the rest of us. :)

We’ll just have to work a little harder.

The hardest class I ever taught was a group of professional dancers and choreographers in Berlin. They were all from Argentina and Spain. I taught in a mixture of English and German… and they could do pretty much anything I threw at them.

Yeah, I got them — finally — to the point where they were utterly and completely lost confused and overwhelmed (which is, after all, the goal).

But man, it was so so so hard. And I was sore for a week afterwards!

Moral of the story?

You don’t need to be coordinated.

You don’t need to be graceful.

You don’t need any experience with dance or movement. Because all these things that seem and feel to you right now like a lack or a hindrance are actually going to be the key to your success.

The oven door, if you will, to those hot buttered epiphanies.

Where you are right now — wherever that is — is a good thing. I promise.

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Dance of Shiva + Roller Derby! Whoo!
• What if you don’t like it?
• The Levy Flight. Patterns. Again.

Hello Havi,
I’ve been reading your Fluent Self blog lately and really enjoy it.  

I’m considering ordering the Shiva Nata materials, but am not sure if I should do so.  I have only a little bit of experience with yoga, and wonder if I should already be good at that before I try Shiva Nata.  

Should I begin a yoga practice and then try Shiva Nata?  Or just go for it?
Thanks and Happy New Year to you!
Lynn

Good question. And one I always forget to make explicitly clear. Because, of course, I suffer from the classic problem of Knowing Too Much.

You absolutely don’t need any yoga experience for Shiva Nata.

Traditional yoga won’t make you better at Shiva Nata, though actually Shiva Nata will definitely make it easier and more fun for you to do traditional yoga, if that’s something you’d like. 

It’s for the brain much more than it is for the body (though yes, it does give you a nice work out too). 

Also, keep in mind that starting a physical yoga practice is all about getting into the habit of it, and Shiva Nata is very useful for building and creating new habits that support you, because it teaches you so much about your patterns and how they work. 

So yeah, I’d say just go for it. 

And anyway, if you wait until you’re “good at yoga” you’ll be waiting a long time …

The truth is, there’s kind of no such thing as being good at yoga.

Admittedly, this is more of a philosophical point, but still.

The more yoga you do, the stronger and more flexible you’ll get, absolutely.

Certain poses will get slightly easier, other poses will get a lot easier, and some you may never be able to do because of how your bones fit together or a thousand other things.

It will get easier to focus, easier to be kind to yourself, easier to breathe.

But good at it? Mmm. Probably not. Because yoga is one of those unending life-process-ey things.

It is — as I say at least six times a day — the science of learning how you work and then liking yourself anyway.

So can you get good at that? Better at it, sure. It becomes easier for you to be in this process. Or it comes to you more naturally.

To be truly good at it, though … I tend to think that’s not really possible.

And there’s definitely no such thing as being good at Shiva Nata.

Okay, so whether or not you can be good at yoga is a philosophical debate. Agree with me or disagree with me, either way.

But Shiva Nata? Hahahahaha, no. You won’t be good at it, and moreover, you can’t be good at it because it’s all about making sure that you’re always doing it wrong.

In other words, the only way you can be good at it … is by being bad at it.

Which kind of ruins the whole “good at it” part.

Since the goal is always to be doing it wrong, you’re constantly looking for and choosing to be in a state of challenge, chaos and confusion.

Because once you start “doing it right”, you stop getting the cool effects.

Oh, the paradox. Oh, the pain-in-the-ass-ness of it all.

I know. I’m sorry. Honest I am.

But hey, totally worth it.

Seriously, the epiphanies rock. The wonderful-ideas-coming-to-you-regularly is really great.

And you learn so many fascinating things about yourself.

So yeah, my advice would be to jump right in and start playing with it. See what happens. Some wild and crazy stuff, for sure.

Take care, Lynn! I can’t wait to hear how you like it. It will be fun to have another Shivanaut on board.

And warm wishes for a wonderful, happy, healthy year to you too,
Havi (and Selma the duck)

If this seemed like your thing, you might like these too:

• Ask A Shivanaut: mixing practices
• Shiva shiva, tell me more!
• Ask a Shivanaut: Dance of Shiva + pregnancy.