Saturday May 29th, 2010.

4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

post edited to reflect new date.

The class.

The lovely Jackie teaching Dance of Shiva.

She is an absolutely terrific teacher, as well as being a friend and student of mine and a gifted dancer.

Open to all levels. Jackie is warm, friendly, a good explainer and totally non-judgmental. :)

Costs 25 euro (twenty reduced).

In German. Explanations in Spanish/English available if necessary.

Not to be missed.

Location: Studio Art Oriental, Schönhauser Allee 177 in Prenzlauer Berg*

* Train connection: U2 – Senefelder Platz

Contact infos.

You can reach Jackie by phone at +49 (0)176 25584034
Or by email: jackietauil /AT/ googlemail /DOT/ com

Hope some of you can make it. Can’t wait to hear all about it!

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

• Shiva Nata workshops in Berlin: questions?
• The Levy Flight. Patterns. Again.
• And more Shiva Nata classes in Berlin!

So.

Four incredible days of hot buttered epiphanies, genius insights, big changes, a ridiculous amount of fun, and somewhat inappropriate music.

In Portland, Oregon.

From Monday, May 3rd at 5:00 pm to Friday, May 7th at noon.

You can read all about this fabulous event here. But in the meantime, I thought it might be a good idea if Selma and I answered questions.

And oh boy so many great questions.

And the questions …

Will I have to share the epiphanies I have with other people?

Oh goodness, absolutely not. That sounds like it would be awkward and weird.

I mean, you can if you like. Hanging out with other Shivanautically-inclined people for four days might naturally result in all sorts of interesting conversations.

But you definitely won’t have to. And I won’t be asking you to share your epiphanies in public.

Will everybody else be a crazy Shiva Nata obsessed yoga master who I can’t even talk to?

Ha! Awesome.

I actually kind of wish I knew some crazy Shiva Nata obsessed yoga masters (other than Andrey, of course) to hang out with. But I don’t. Because there aren’t any.

But even if there were, if they seemed like the kind of people you couldn’t talk to, I wouldn’t invite them.

So really, my point is this:

We’re all Shivanautically-curious, or generally pro-having-breakthroughs. But we’re also people.

By which I mean: complex people with vibrant, full lives who are interested in all sorts of things, this being one of them.

And every retreat I’ve taught has been full of the most lovely, fun, easy-to-get-along-with people ever. Can some of you guys back me up on this one?

What if I don’t get any epiphanies?

*delighted laughter*

Ask me that again at the end of the week so we can have a good laugh about it together.

Seriously. If you don’t have at least twenty useful insights including a couple that rock your world, I will give you your money back.

While dancing a jig and eating a hat and pointing at the lovely flying pigs.

A week of Shiva Nata? Can I possibly do that without my arms falling off?

Excellent question.

Let me let you in on some sneakiness. We won’t actually be doing Shiva Nata all the time.

We will do it a few times a day, each time for no more than about twenty to thirty minutes, with breaks. Followed by yummy stretching.

So it’s not like waving your arms around all day, because that would be exhausting and crazy.

Your arms are much more likely to fall off from scribbling down all the ideas you’re having. But really. They won’t fall off. We’ll take care of you.

I need lots of time alone — will it all be group stuff?

Oh good! I need lots of alone time too.

If you look at the schedule, you’ll see that plenty of just-you time is built into the day, including a long lunch and designated Introvert Recovery Time.

Similarly, during our group time together, there will also be lots of time for things that aren’t group-like at all: like journaling, shavasana, guided exercises and quiet meditation or just spacing out.

And, of course, you can always take time out if you need it. No questions asked.

Can you reassure me yet again that it will be okay that I’m out of shape and overweight and older (but with lots of enthusiasm and good intentions!)?

Of course, honey.

Epiphanies are for everyone! And it really is much, much more of a mental challenge than a physical one.

That’s why roller derby girls and dancers and choreographers and martial artists have so much trouble with it too.

One of the things I love about doing Dance of Shiva is that it doesn’t require great physical strength or flexibility or toughness.

It requires a curious mind, some determination, and the willingness to be terrible at it (which is by far the hardest part).

If you’re younger than my oldest student (who’s 82), you’re not too old.

And if you can handle fifteen minutes of light aerobic activity with breaks, you’ll be fine.

Enthusiasm and good intentions sound great. (Though, really, you can get by without those too!).

Reassurances! You’re good.

What if I love Shiva Nata but am not such a silly person? Will I be out of place?

Silliness: not a requirement. There will be some, because I have a duck.

So some giggling may happen. But I certainly wouldn’t expect you to have to be silly.

In all the Shiva Nata classes I’ve taught over the past five years, we’ve always had a delightful variety of people, and that’s part of what makes it great.

Since thoughtful, studious people are often drawn to a practice that has so much to do with the brain, I can promise you that you will not be the only non-silly person there. :)

Okay. That’s not even slightly close to all the questions …

But it’s a start. More to come. Probably tomorrow.

In the meantime …

If you have questions about spending four amazing days getting seriously destuckified with me and my duck — or about Shivanauttery in general — leave them here in the comments.

Hope some of this was helpful.

Big love,
Havi

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

• Dance of Shiva on the brain
• Whoo! Workshop in San Francisco!
• Needles in haystacks. More patterns.

In Boise.

On Saturday, April 10th, 2010 from 9:00 am until noon.

Here’s what it is.

I quote Frank:

“A half-day workshop about how you can use your brain and body to get insights and ideas any time you need them. Half of it’s theory and pop neuroscience. The other half involves uncoordinated arm flailing to inappropriate music.

“We’ll talk about where ideas and insights come from (the neuroscience behind them).

“We’ll look at why common suggestions for getting out of a rut (take a walk, play a game, do something else) don’t always work. Then we’ll discuss tools for generating ideas and insights any time you need them.

“And we’ll do Dance of Shiva so all the stuff we talked about gets integrated into your body and your brain. That way you won’t lose it. Plus, there will be Hug Yourself Yoga.”

Uh huh!

Here’s my recommendation.

Frank is amazing.

Super bright. A lot of fun. And a really good guy.

If you’re anywhere near Idaho, you want to be there.

Sign up details are right here.

Yay!

That is all.

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

• Punk Rock Shivanauttery: answering a bunch of questions!
• Dance of Shiva on the brain
• Ask a Shivanaut: Dance of Shiva + pregnancy.

So I hope (or trust) that the pieces will all come together by the end.

Dance of Shiva meets art.

Remember the artist whose painting changed so markedly on the days when she did Shiva Nata as opposed to the days when she didn’t?

So Gisela was at the Dance & Paint workshop we did Friday at SPOLZ and I got to talk to her some more.

We talked about her art and her process and her almost-daily Shiva Nata practice.

Some of the interesting bits:

• She talked about the huge amount of clarity that Dance of Shiva gives her. That sometimes she’ll do a few minutes just to clear out the cobwebs so she can even think about starting painting.
• She talked about being startled by new coordination skills and the way they show up. Whether on the bicycle or maneuvering with bags of groceries or in the studio itself.
• She talked about the quiet and the calm that deepen her meditation practice, and about the power of the chaos and confusion that free her up to try new things.

Spolz! Try saying that without an exclamation point.

SPOLZ (pronounced “shpoltz”) is this communal artist collective thing-ey.

The artists in the group use it as studio space and they also teach classes there and do events. And they’re very open to combining art and painting with all sorts of things, mostly music, but also movement. Spolz!

Its name comes from the Spohnholzstrasse, the street on which it resides, which is apparently pretty much impossible for anyone to pronounce, even for native German speakers.

So they decided to just call it Spolz. Which then (naturally!) became SPOLZ!

They also started using the word spolzi as a noun to describe any tiny bits or sloshes of paint that land on the floor or a desk or a wall. Look, a spolzi! And then sometimes they draw little smiley faces in them.

So you find a little blob of green on the floor and then it’s smiling at you.

Anyway, I love it. I love everything about it.

And of course they cannot even slightly figure out why on earth I would come and teach there when (as they keep saying) I could teach anywhere. And so they keep asking me what’s wrong with me.

But really, it’s a beautiful space with clean, clear energy and lovely people. Teaching there is a joy.

Plus, the combination of Dance of Shiva and painting? Unbelievably great. Spolz!

Our class.

So we had three hours to combine Dance (Shiva Nata) and Paint (oh boy!), and some meditation-ey stuff as well.

The whole thing sped by in a blur, but here are some of the bits I remember.

1. Andreas lead a really beautiful visualization/meditation where we imagined that we were inhaling and exhaling colors at various parts of our body.

   I usually have trouble with these things as a decidedly not-so-visual person, but it was very calming and really set the tone.

2. The space was emptied out so that the only thing there was empty white walls and two of Gisela’s gorgeous paintings (yes, ones with that extra Shiva Nata juice).

   And a wall-hanging with prints of the chakras that I bought from Nine Tomatoes (who is @NineTomatoes on Twitter). Normally I’m not so much of a “chakra wall-hanging” person either, to be honest, but her stuff is outrageously beautiful and I could look at it all day.

3. The stage. I love it!

   Andreas and Gisela built me a “stage”, which is really a big piece of wood covered in … little spolzis (spolzies?), and attached to other pieces of wood.

   So I got to dance barefoot on top of this wonderful paint-flecked board. And it was so perfect somehow. Just simple and exactly what it needed to be.

   We’ll have to take pictures next time.

The practice.

We did two rounds of Dance of Shiva mixed with two rounds of artistic endeavor and meditation.

So you’d go from the practice into meditation, and when you felt like it was time to go do art, you just wandered into the next room where there were desks and easels and supplies.

And tea and cookies, of course.

Then the back to the practice. Then more art. Then more exclaiming over how crazy and wonderful it was.

Oh, and we did Shiva Nata with colors, too.

More about that!

Shiva Nata with colors instead of numbers.

We ended up using colors for the horizontals:

Blue, yellow, red and white in place of H1, H2, H3 and H4.

So our sequences would sound like this:

Starting from yellow-blue: red-yellow, white-red, blue-white, yellow-blue.

Now: blue-white, white-red, red-yellow, yellow-blue.

Reverse the rotation: red-white, white-red, blue-yellow, yellow-blue.

And then: blue-yellow, white-red, red-white and back to … yellow-blue.

Except in German. But you get the idea.

It was awesome.

We kept speeding up so that the colors we were naming (calling on? imagining? perceiving?) kept bleeding into each other and everything got mixed up in the middle.

You might have noticed that we set it up so that whenever you cross the heart you get one of the heart-chakra colors (either green when you cross blue and yellow … or pink when you move from white to red).

Then when we did transquarters, we got purple between the red and blue, and a pale yellow when we mixed yellow and white.

It was pretty cool, is all I’m saying.

You’re probably wondering what we did for the verticals. We didn’t.

By the time we got to the verticals and some Level 2, we were already pretty wiped out.

That is to say, we were experiencing that weird and wonderful blank-slate-brain stuff that happens when Shiva Nata lets you turn everything off.

So we stopped using words and went right into straight-up mirroring, alternating between music and silence for our background.

Results?

Every single person there (twelve in all) reported painting stuff that they would never normally paint.

Everyone kept exclaiming things like, “This isn’t like me at all! I never use pink!” or “Triangles? Me? I have no idea where this is coming from …”

Lots of people got neat mini-epiphanies or surprising understandings from the subjects of their paintings themselves.

You could also really sense the presence of all the spirals in the paintings.

It was absolutely amazing looking at the paintings and hearing people tell their stories and process their insights about them.

Biggest regret?

That no one brought a camera. I would love to be able to put some pictures up here!

Maybe next time! We’re doing Shapes and Forms in the studio this coming weekend, and I have no doubt that will be interesting too.

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

• An amazing Shiva Nata story.
• And more Shiva Nata classes in Berlin!
• Hey, Shivanauts in Berlin!

So … maybe I can help. At least, I hope I can!

And whatever I can’t help with I’ll forward to my wonderful workshop coordinator.

Signing up. How/where can we sign up?

Good question.

Most of the events that I do are set up through my business (The Fluent Self), but the programs I’m teaching in Germany this year are through yoga studios and art studios.

That means that you’re going to have to sign up through them. And … apologies on my part for the extra hassle.

So, for example, contacting Home Yoga to sign up for the workshops there (which I would do sooner rather than later because they did fill up like mad last year).

How do you know which workshops to go to?

Who are the Shivanata workshops addressed to, meaning which level should people have to attend each workshop?

Should people working on Level 1 be attending workshop 1, people on Level 2 attending workshop 2, etc.?

I am (currently) at level 1, doing fine with arms and legs, but without rotating in space, and my friend is (currently) a bloody beginner concerning Shivanata, but already an experienced yogini. Neither of us can make it to the Introduction workshop. :( Please advise.

Ah, I see. That is a good question!

So … I know this sounds kind of weird but the levels aren’t important at all. Not for these workshops, at least.

I mean, it can take years for people to advance levels, so it would be pretty unfair of me to expect people to master a new level in time for the next workshop.

So I will be mixing levels and doing my best to make sure that everyone is equally confused. And I will be giving extra challenges to those people who are already working with the higher levels.

It’s absolutely okay if you miss the introductory class!

I promise that everyone will be fabulously lost and confused (see the FAQ)

So I’m going to say … come to whichever ones you can make it too, and it will be amazing. Selma and I will be completely happy to see you there. :)

What are the Dance & Paint workshops?

Do you have any closer description of what will be done at the “Dance and Paint” workshops? Are there any prerequisites to be fulfilled by the people who want to join? Is it a sequence of workshops to be attended one after another, or is it more or less the same workshop being offered several times?

The Dance and Paint workshops are something that got started last year.

Andreas teaches design at the at the Design Akademie Berlin and is also a long-time Shivanaut (three years? four years?).

Last year he asked me to join him in a series of fun art-therapy-ish workshops that he had planned. We did movement meditations on themes of space, color, chakras, movement. And we did Dance of Shiva. And visualizations/perception exercises.

And a TON of drawing and painting. And it was nothing short of incredible.

Seriously. The results people had (artists and non-artists alike) were spectacular.

Breakthrough city. There was a guy who had been dealing with a two year block around painting, and this brought him back into a regular painting practice. It was so cool we could hardly stand it.

So we decided to do more of them this year.

We have a different curriculum for each one.

And they can build on each other or be taken separately. So you are more than welcome to take them as a series or to just come to one or two of them.

Hope that helps

Will try to answer more questions as they come in as well as updating the general page about Berlin workshops as we get more information (just heard about two more classes I’m apparently teaching and will have someone put them up!)

So looking forward to seeing some of you in Berlin!

*jumps up and down*

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

• Hey, Shivanauts in Berlin!
• The Levy Flight. Patterns. Again.
• And more Shiva Nata classes in Berlin!

Getting to do Shiva Nata every single morning was the most awesome thing in the entire world.

As was working on the new Shivanaut Manual for the Advanced Kit.

You know what else was incredibly great?

• We worked with words instead of numbers.
• We wrote poetry with our bodies.
• Twenty-seven women spiraling in unison, getting lost in unison, cracking up hysterically when the too-fast became impossible.
• At some point, someone started referring to it as shiva shit – as in, “I love it when you do your shiva shit and weird stuff happens” — which was sticky.
• And somehow, in the wrongest way, this brought the right balance of levity to the chaotic madness that was our practice.
• Epiphanies were had right and left.
• We wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.
• We asked hard questions.
• We created intentions.
• One woman said that she was able to write poetry again after our Shiva Nata class — for the first time in thirty four years. I know. It was amazing.
• We messed around with each of the first four levels. We did all sorts of ridiculous things with transquarters.
• We danced to music. We danced to the patterns of language. We danced to the stars.
• We combined opening with protection, sensing with giving, accepting with receiving, grounding with growth.
• We opened up to new combinations, new possibilities, new movement, new stillness.
• It was beautiful.

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

• Help me out? Title for the Shivanaut Manual?
• Announcement! The teleclass! (NEW DATE)
• Ack! I’ll never be able to do this!

Selma and I will teaching a three hour workshop in San Francisco.

Three hours of “work through your stucknesses with Dance of Shiva and Havi-inspired wackiness” magic. And epiphanies. Bring it.

It’s really, really, really soon. Like, practically now.

Sunday, July 12 from 2:30 – 5:30 p.m.

What you need to know:

• There is only room for ten people. We might even have to close it at eight.
• My workshops sell out very quickly.
• It’s in the Castro. Details, directions and possible ride-share info when you sign up.
• It’s going to be outrageously great. Admittedly, it’s not an entire weekend in North Carolina, but still, we can do a hell of a lot of destuckifying in three hours.

What you need to bring:

• A stuckified pattern that you want some insights/shifting with (you won’t need to tell anyone what it is so no worries there).
• Something comfortable to wear (we’ll be Shiva-ing it up).
• Pen and paper.
• Bottle of water.

That’s it.

Details and sign-up stuff. And the SECRET CODE.

EDIT: ALREADY SOLD OUT. Sorry sorry sorry. That was just under 30 hours, so yeah, pretty quick. Sorry about that — we’ll set up some more events soon …

My assistant made a lovely page.

It’s on my other website.

–> This is the link!

Take a look because it would be so completely amazing to hang out with you in person and be wacky together and have breakthroughs.

Also I set up a coupon for my readers and students. So if you use it (please use it!) you save $25. The coupon code is SECRET (see, it’s a secret) and you have to press the button that says “Apply” or it won’t work.

That’s it.

Other than that, general rejoicing. Rejoicing!

And a question …

For those of you who can’t make it to the San Francisco workshop, do you want to be updated when stuff gets added to my schedule?

Should we start a very specific mailing list thingy that’s just for events? I can’t imagine I’ll update it more than a few times a year, but would that be something that interests you? Let me know in the comments and I can set something up.

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

• Punk Rock Shivanauttery: answering a bunch of questions!
• Dance of Shiva on the brain
• Make. It. Hard.