Contact Samantha- samcatcam@gmail.com for pricing, training dates, or questions.
To become a certified Shakti Yoga Dance instructor, you must first hold a 200 hour certification with YA, or have comparative training in another country. If you are American, you receive 40 hours of YA credit.
You must complete the virtual 40 hour course work that certifies you as a Shakti Yoga Dance Instructor.
If you are doing the training for your own joy and personal expansion, there is no prerequisite other than you must be in good physical shape, and have a minimum two years of Yoga.
Dance, or other movement background is not required, though it’s helpful.
The 40 hour virtual training gives you Yoga-layers of Asanas connected to mudras, chakras, and Shakti Goddess energies. The Yoga flow is enhanced by choreographic tools that connect it all into stories of Grace . You are on a journey of joy and confidence as you learn to teach and create each Shakti Yoga Dances. We dance life. We partner ourselves and one another as we open body/spirit/emotion to the dance, and the dance calls us toward deeper life. We work physically and metaphysically; Consciously and subconsciously; visibly and invisibly. The creative power lying within Shakti Yoga Dance’s layers informs the choreography AND your body. Expect to change! In sharing your unique gifts, everyone benefits. Discovering new pathways to embrace spirit connects us all at higher vibrations. These Teacher Trainings have transformed us in surprising and regenerative ways. Time and again I observe bodies, like flowers, opening to Grace…..From Lotus to Alapadma!
Workbook
Each training co-creates its workbook. You receive informative papers each week, to which you add your journaling, and homework. Each dance is delineated through its: synopsis/intention, music, mudra, chant, and poem, along with simple, specific warm ups of what the body needs in order to execute a dance.
If you are unfamiliar with using Sanskrit for the poses, I send a short dictionary of both Sanskrit and English to give clarity and depth when instructing. Being able to give verbal cues throughout each dance at the right moment is important for ease in linking the poses.
Benefits
As you repeat and incorporate the richness within the layers, the body begins to dance as spirit, translating directly to other aspects of your life, and teaching. You begin to see new possibilities and opportunities.
These dances on the mat, like all dance, induce a greater state of theta brainwaves, which facilitate access to creativity, healing, and intuition. The majority of all communication is non-verbal, and it is this that connects us. The intuitive, sensory sea of the third eye, the Ajna Chakra, whose seed sound is Om, whose color is violet, whose issue is the spiritual path, is a beneficiary of, and a servant to Shakti as she dances us.
Moving from the core is instilled by the constant use of bandhas throughout each dance. This enriches an ability to easily access both physical and emotional depths in other aspects of life.
Through expanding intuitive, the ability to express mudra, chant, poetry, music, breath, and asanas, deepens, becoming more transformational. As Joe Campbell wrote, “We find tracks that have been waiting for us.” We don’t need more data, or speed. The earth is asking us to awaken our 6th sense, to increase theta states of childlike wonder, to nurture the biology of innovative expression.
Many people who have wanted to dance, but didn’t feel they could, love the experience of a structured Yoga-choreography that creates a safe container. Being led step by step into deep waters allows the body to eventually swim sensuously and courageously far out to sea.
Shakti Yoga Dances challenge and encourage innovative teaching methods. They keep the mat fresh and alive. Like all Yoga, they demand we stand totally present, releasing worry, stress and depression. They instruct the body to give itself over to something greater than self.
These dances that call Shakti into us, offer another way to enter the Practice, especially when in the doldrums. The music begins, muscle responds, the breathe expands, and the brain can’t help but follow.
Shakti Yoga Dances are rituals of remembrance. We remember our potential. We remember we are not separate from one another. We remember we are light-bodies.
There is a tribal joining that happens through the rituals of Shakti Yoga Dances. It’s lovely to dance alone, but far more powerful to become part of a community moving more joyously through the world in song and dance. We shift from shadow and depletion into Grace and healing, and we need this now more than ever.
Who benefits most? There are modifications within each dance, and there are simple as well as advanced dances. This wide spectrum make them available to all levels, but having a strong Practice makes the process easier and the layers more accessible.
Oscar Wilde was correct when he said, “The final mystery is oneself.” Shakti Yoga Dances induce a magical consciousness to re-connect us to more of our mystery. Because they contain a toolbox of energies, including layers of the subtle body: chakras, koshas, vayus, and gunas, the dances become very personal, and as you repeat the moves, you open those places within-waiting and wanting expression.
Expectations when instructing the Shakti Yoga Dances
The dances change you, as you change them. Enriching your beautiful nature is part of the nature embedded in the choreography. What you bring to the dance, not only your physical prowess, but your sympathy, empathy, and heart-knowledge, engages and impacts your students directly and profoundly.
Much of the learning comes from repeating the choreography, so that it seamlessly connects, not only asana to asana, but breath to breath, from feeling to choreography. You must be comfortable enough with the dance to call each move before it happens, and easily cue breath and timing of each link.
Shakti Yoga Dances support your personal Practice. As you expand your knowledge and use of the subtle body layers, you add your expertise, and your story to the whole.
Please contact Samantha for pricing, dates of trainings or any further information.