The Dance of Shiva
The Dance of Shiva is an exercise for the mind that uses the body. "Spirals, Transquarters, Changes" refer to the basic movement elements that it uses. Practicing these movements not only can we become more conscious, we can also improve our coordination, the balance between the sides of our body and the sides of our brain, our ability to make connections, sense relationships and also our ability to understand what is around our selves and within our selves.
There are two types of Spiral movements in the Dance of Shiva. Doing one type we hold the hand so that the palm is upright and move the hand in a continuous "spiral" while keeping the palm facing upwards.
In the other type of movement we hold the palm facing out to the side and keep it facing out to the sides as we move it in a vertical plane.
We refer to the first type of movement as a Horizontal spiral because the palm faces upwards while the second is refered to as a Vertical spiral because the palm faces vertically outwards.
In both of these types of movements the hand can move Forwards or Backwards and so in each case we have a Forwards Spiral and a Backwards spiral.
Doing these movements we exercise "Being Conscious" by sensing the position of our hand in order to keep it facing upwards or outwards. We can also sense our shoulder and our wrist while doing these movements and positions the parts of these joints so that it is easier for our palms to continue to face upwards or outwards. The more conscious we are of the parts of these joints and how they relate the better we can position them so that we have "Room to move," room to do the movements that we are trying to do. Using our senses and responding to what we sense based on what we are trying to do (in this case a Spiral movements) we exercise the "Doing Mode" or spatial mode of consciousness.
But even this simple movement can exercise the other aspect of consciousness, that of thinking. In the Doing mode of consciousness our awareness is expanded in space. In the thinking mode it is expanded in time. Using the Thinking mode we can figure things out. In the case of the Dance of Shiva, because some parts of the movements can be quite difficult we may have to spend time figuring out exactly what we have to do in order to allow ourselves to do the movement. Do we roll out shoulder and upper arm inwards or outwards? What's the best ways to rotate our forearm or wrist so that our palm stays upright or "outright." Will sliding our shoulder blade forwards or backwards help us in any way to make the movements easier?
Taking the time to think about what we can do we can then go about testing these different possibilties. We can then make decisions based on what we have experienced.
Creating limits and sensing possibilities are other aspects of consciousness. To practice these aspects we break down our basic spiral movements into four parts. For each spiral we give the hand four stopping points. In the horizontal plane we label these points 1, 2, 3 and 4 and in the vertical plane we label them a, b, c and d.
Because there are eight positions for one hand we need seven movements to connect one point to every other point. From position 1, we need seven different movements so that we can connect it directly to points 2, 3, 4, a, b, c and d. The goal of the Dance of Shiva now becomes that of learning the necessary movements to connect each point to every other point.
Sticking to the movements necessary to connect positions in the same plane to begin with, we already have two of the movements that we need. We can connect 1 to 2 and 2 to 3 and 3 to 4 and 4 to 1 using the Forward spiral.
We can also connect 1 to 4, 4 to 3, 3 to 2 and 2 to 1 using the Backward spiral.
How do we connect 1 directly to 3 and 3 to 1? We invent a new move called the Transquarter. This is like a shortcut move that breaks the rules. Instead of keeping the palm horizontal, jumping from position 1 to 3 we skip positions 2 and 4 and move the hand in the most direct way from position 1 to 3 and back the other way.
The same thing happens when we use this movement to connect position 2 to 4 and 4 to 2.
Now we have all the moves we need to connect points in the same plane. Incidentally, if we want to "connect" a position to itself, i.e. if we don't want to move the hand we can use a Zero move. This move is important when it comes to describing movements that involve both hands.
Now that we have the movements necessary to connect points in the horizontal plane we can use this same terminology to describe movements in the vertical plane.
A Forwards move can connect a to b, b to c, c to d and d to a.
A Backwards move can connect a to d, d to c, c to b and b to a.
A Transquarter move connects a to c, c to a, b to d and d to b. A zero connects a positions to itself.
Now we consider how to join points in different planes. How do we connect point 1 to points a, b, c and d? That's where the Change movement comes in. Using a Change we can connect point 1 to a. We can also connect a to 1. Using a Change Forwards movement we can connect 1 to b, b to 3, 3 to d and d to 1. We can also connect a to 2, 2 to c, c to 4 and 4 to a. The Change Backwards movement does the opposite. It connects 1 to d, d to 3, 3 to b and b to 1. It also connects a to 4, 4 to c, c to 2 and 2 to 1. I hope you can guess how the Change Transquarter works. It connects 1 to c and c to 1. It connects 2 to d and d to 2. It connects 3 to a and a to 3. Finally it also connect 4 to b and b to 4.
Now we have the eight basic movements (including the zero move) so that we can connect a position to any of the other positions.
If we use both hands together there are a total of 64 different hand positions. From each of these positions there are 64 possible movements. The goal of the Dance of Shiva is learning the positions and the movements so that we can Dance among them freely.
But, we don't have to learn all the positions and all of the movements to be free. We can learn little bits at a time and practice being free with those little bits at a time. We learn a little bit, make it a part of our experience and then grow outwards from there. Thus we become more conscious a little bit at a time.
Applying this attitude towards the things that we do, to life in general, rather than thinking about what we can't do, we can instead become conscious of what we can do. And being conscious we can also create possibilities. Dance of Shiva started of with two simple spiral movements. Breaking down these movements into parts we created sixty four positions and at the same time the 64 movements necessary to connect those positions. We created limits so that we could dance among them.
