SDTTL1 UK 2023

Shakti Dance® International Teacher Training

Online & Live in Newcastle, UK

October 2023 - June 2024

Energise your Body ~ Awaken your Mind ~ Elevate your Spirit ~ Merge with the Life-Force & Express your Essence!

An academically extensive, while deep, and beautifully transformative training awaits you. The program has been developed to directly embody all theory experientially. You will learn to practice and teach a unique entwinement of yoga and dance. Embodying the teachings and healing through movement, you will be energised, your mind awakened and spirit elevated, as you merge with the life force and give expression to your soul impulse…

You will learn different yogic techniques and dance-styles and how they are interwoven and sequenced, according to their qualities and energy levels – as ‘tools’ to stimulate and rebalance the pranic flow in mind and body.

Learning to Practice and Teach Shakti Dance®

opens up a vibrant source of creativity, expanding your physical, mental and spiritual capacity. This transformational process lends form and expression to each teacher’s unique gifts. Regular practice releases old patterns, realigning you to your natural state. It expands horizons for clarity of purpose, facilitating the realisation of your soul potential. As a Shakti Dance® Teacher, in elevating you are elevated! When you share your innate gifts, your caring contribution nourishes the Sacred in our world, sustaining greater harmony and abundance for all.

Enhancing the Full and Vibrant Expression of Creative Being

Shakti Dance® is the point where yoga and dance meet – transforming dance into yoga. Here, dance becomes a conscious practice, heightening awareness and unfolding into yogic union.

In this Dance of Life, we live as individual vibratory fields in a swirling mass of vibrations. Our health, vibrancy and wellbeing depend upon how the vibrations in these fields are aligned and harmonised. As the yoga of dance, Shakti Dance® facilitates balance and harmony, using a three-fold synergy of rhythmic breath, movement and sound – together with sensory awareness, or mindfulness.

The Components of a Shakti Dance Class

Shakti Dance® illumines a delicate synergy of practice with mindfulness, synchronised to mantra:
✨ Cyclic Flowing Asanas,
✨ Rhythmic Breathing,
✨ Energising Dance Exercises,
✨ Free Dance,
✨ Relaxation,
✨ Mantra Movement Meditations, and
✨ Silent Meditation.

Background of Shakti Dance®:

Shakti Dance® embodies insights drawn from:
🐚 Yogic Philosophy,
🐚 Kundalini Yoga,
🐚 Sikhism
🐚 Sufism,
🐚 Buddhism,
🐚 Advaita Vedanta,
🐚 Tai Chi
🐚 Celtic Druidry and
🐚 Different Dance & Movement Styles.

“The soul is reflected and expressed through our dance when we are in most intimate contact with that Being that animates us.” ~ Sara Avtar​

Experience of a Lifetime 

This Shakti Dance® Teacher Training journey leads you to a place of true enchantment. Becoming part of a vibrant group, charged with spiritual energy, you can discover and unfold new self-nurturing aspects of yourself.

Express your Creativity

You will gain an increased sense of vitality and inner spaciousness through the harmonious alignment of your Shakti energy.  Your meditative state of peaceful presence is enhanced, so Shiva can blossom through Shakti, and organically express your inner potential.

Connect with your Inner Self 

Through this conscious yogic practice, you will increase your sensitivity and intuition, unfolding greater insight and inner guidance.  

Connect with your Self-healing Power

You will experience how this practice massages your body, releasing tension and blockages in your fascia. Your body and mind will be liberated from deep conditioning, relaxing stress, for self-healing and renewal – opening out into a peaceful, aware state and a gracefully flowing life.

Deepen your Personal Practice

The Teacher Training Program will help you take your yoga practice to a whole new level. By learning advanced techniques and poses from our experienced Trainers you will improve your personal practice and learn how to guide others to experience benefits from this discipline.

Improves Quality of Life

As you develop your daily Shakti Dance routine you will feel increased mental and physical energy, boosting your alertness and enthusiasm, diminishing negative feelings.

Shakti Dance®️ is ‘The Yoga of Dance’, a unique Yogic System with a distinctive self-empowering method and practice, created by Sara Avtar.

The practice of Shakti Dance®️ combines rhythmic mindful movement with breath and sound, attuning you to harmonic resonance. Through its graceful organic flow, you are aligned to merge with Source. This flowing, rhythmic practice meditatively coordinates mind, body and spirit, returning you to the sacredness of your natural state. Charged with radiant vibrancy, you are liberated into a state of peaceful presence and invited to creatively express your essence; to nurture the unfolding of your inner gifts – for the harmony of the whole.

The system of Shakti Dance®️ embodies the ‘Principles of Harmonious Movement’. We learn to move organically in waves and spirals with relaxed aware flow and to attune to our inner cyclic harmony, igniting the creative feminine Spirit of Shakti. In the process, the harmonic current of prana-shakti unravels our entanglement and illumines our shadows, releasing us into healing and awakening. From an aware state of heightened sensitivity, we open up to our core vibration and cascade into free dance, discovering our authentic self-expression. As we step into wholeness, we can harmonise and heal the world.

Physical Body ~ Lakshmi: Radiant Embodiment
Principles of Harmonious Movement ~ Bandhas ~ 5 Elements & Postural Alignment ~ Rhythmic Breath ~ Dynamic Cyclic Asanas ~ Sequencing Movement & Graceful Flow

Energy Body ~ Kali: Transformational Release
Systems of Yogic Anatomy: Vayus, Chakras, Nadis, Meridians, Rasas ~ Frequency & Electromagnetism ~ Pranayama in Motion ~ Different Qualities of Dance

Mental Body ~ Saraswati: Creative Consciousness & Geometry of Mergence
Aspects of Mind ~ Meditation ~ Focus & Mindfulness in Motion ~ Influence of Mantras, Mudras, Musical Rhythm and Sacred Geometry ~ Celestial Communications ~ Mantric Choreographies

Yogic Philosophy
Patanjali ~ Vedanta ~ Samkhya ~ Bhakti Tradition

Hindu Mythology
Shiva & Shakti ~ Three Principle Gods & Goddesses

Methodology
Dynamic Structure of the 8 Phases of a Class

Development & Growth as a Teacher
Acquistion of Techniques ~ Integration of Effects of Practice ~ Role & Expression of a Teacher

Full address for non-residential

Re-Co-Co
3rd Floor, 1 Carliol Square,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 6UF
recoverycoco.com

Residential retreat in February 

Rose’s Bower,
Great Whittington,
Newcastle, NE19 2HE
https://www.rosesbower.com/

This Teacher Training will be taught by official Shakti Dance® International Trainers in the English language.

This Training Program culminates in the certification as an Instructor of Shakti Dance® Classes or workshops of 1-3 hours.

Training Hours:
✨24 days of 180 classroom hours,
✨25 hours of early morning practice (sadhana)
✨45 hours of personal study (reading and practicing the techniques at home)
– a total of 250 hours.

Sara Avtar
Shakti Dance® Founder

I’m British born in Edinburgh, educated in London and qualified in Germany, currently living in Italy. I am a life-long dancer and Originator of Shakti Dance®️ ~ The Yoga of Dance. I have practiced and trained in various styles of yoga and meditation since 1987, certifying as a Yoga Alliance / E-RYT 500 Kundalini Yoga Lead Teacher Trainer and Sat Nam Rasayan Healer.
Along the way, my inspiration has been sourced from Sufism, Theravadha Buddhism, Tai Chi, Qi Gong and an array of different dance and movement styles, all of which have found confluence and synthesis in the unfolding practice of Shakti Dance®️.
Studying Naturopathy in Germany and training to be Art and English School-Teacher at the Goethe University, Frankfurt, was a foundational experience for creating and writing the Curriculum & Manual for the Shakti Dance®️ Teacher Training Program, first launched in 2005.
I am a Mother and CEO of the Shakti Dance Academy and have trained hundreds of Shakti Dance®️ Teachers all over the globe, including a talented team of Teacher Trainers.
Alongside dance, I love to compose music and sing, and have released six albums to date, with mantra-music for Shakti Dance®️: “Shakti Lila”, “Merging”, “Swara Rasa“, “Waves of Grace“, “Swaha” & “Release“. – available on the Shakti Dance®️ Academy.
Through spontaneous playfulness and spiritual practice I have found Self-support and empowerment as a woman and mother. My intention is to share this inner resource with others, transforming art into yogic technology – combining harmoniously dance, breath and song with awareness, for the vital expression of peaceful Presence.
Through teaching Shakti Dance®️, I love to help others savour the nurturing depth of their Being, while holding space for deep release and the much-needed unfolding into wholeness, for planetary harmony. Read More

Jo Linney
Professional Trainer

Jo Linney Nimrita Kaur has had a long journey with Kundalini Yoga & Shakti Dance, including co-presenting several Shakti Dance teacher trainings in the UK where she lives. She often uses live instruments to enhance the sacred space she loves to hold with others. Jo is a vocalist, composer, visual artist and nature lover.


Darshan Nam
Associate Trainer

Shakti Dance entered my life, in 2018. I started teaching morning sadhanas and classes. During the classes I am creating an environment for my students to get the most out of their practice. I know that when we are able to feel calm and connected to ourselves, we are more capacity and potential to create meaningful change in our lives and world around us. Everyone is unique and therefore my approach is individual so students can go deeper into the practice and focus their mind on the current moment so that the purification of the body and mind is deeper.
Professional qualifications and certifications:
– Master of Psychology
– KRI-certified Kundalini Yoga teacher, levels 1 and 2
– Shakti Dance Teacher and Trainer
– Meditative Gong Healing Therapist
– Hatha and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga Teacher

21 to 22 October 2023
In-person (non-residential) at ReCoCo central Newcastle

18 to 19 November 2023
In-person (non-residential) at ReCoCo central Newcastle

16 to 17 December 2023
Online

20 to 21 January 2024
Online

12 to 19 February 2024
(Residential) at Roses Bower, Northumberland

16 to 17 March 2024
Online

20 to 21 April 2024
Online

18 to 19 May 2024
In-person (non-residential) at ReCoCo

14 to 16 June 2024
In-person (non-residential) at ReCoCo

Academic costs include:

  • 12 months of Shakti Dance Academy Membership (from 21st October 2023)
  • Tuition fees,
  • Technical Support,
  • Teaching Materials in the English Language,
  • Organization Costs,
  • Exam,
  • Certification,
  • Royalty payment for the Training Program
  • Saraswati Flowing Asanas & Saraswati Standing Exercises Video

There is limited space for this Teacher Training Program. If you are seriously considering enrolling to secure your place send the Application Form and deposit payment of £400 (non-refundable deposit).

PAYMENT OPTIONS

Early Bird – Enrolment before 1st July 2023

  • One Time Payment: £1900 (including deposit payment)
    • £400 deposit payment
    • £1500 To be paid by 14th October 2023
  • With Instalments: £2100 (including deposit payment)
    • £400 deposit payment
    • £400 1st October 2023 – 1st Installment
    • £400 1st November 2023 – 2nd Installment
    • £300 1st December 2023 – 3rd Installment
    • £300 1st January 2024 – 4th Installment
    • £300 1st February 2024 – 5th Installment

Regular Price – Enrolment after 1st July 2023

  • One Time Payment: £2300 (including deposit payment)
    • £400  deposit payment
    • £1900 To be paid by 14th October 2023
  • With Instalments: £2500 (including deposit payment)
    • £400 deposit payment
    • £450 1st October 2023 – 1st Installment
    • £450 1st November 2023 – 2nd Installment
    • £400 1st December 2023 – 3rd Installment
    • £400 1st January 2024 – 4th Installment
    • £400 1st February 2024 – 5th Installment

Please notice payment of complete tuition is obligatory even in the case of dropping from the participation at the Teacher Training at any point from any reason. For certification the participant is entitled to attend the missed modules (up to 6 days) max. 6 months after passing the exam at any of the forthcoming Teacher Training in Europe. (more details in SDTTL1 Legal Disclaimer)

Travel and Accommodation Costs are not part of the Training Cost
The total residential costs for food and accommodation varies depending on the different accommodation options. Please ask for more details.

Accommodation payments will be paid directly to the venue at residential retreats.

Shakti Dance Level 1 Certification Requisites:

  1. 180 classroom hours
  2. 45 hours of self-study* and written summaries
  3. Full payment of the Training Program fees
  4. Participation in at least 10 mornings of sadhana (1.5 – 2.5 hours early morning practice), during the training program. 
  5. In addition to the training program, attend 30 hours (1hr = 60mins) of Shakti Dance regular classes or workshops (practical not theory), with any previously Certified Shakti Dance teacher (prior to your training group). The time period given for this completion ranges from 3 months before training begins, until 6 months after the end of training. Online classes and workshops will be recognized only if purchased through Shakti Dance Academy and with a valid Academy certification of participation.
  6. Completion of any extra Study Assignments in order to recuperate missed classroom hours
  7. Completion of any Follow Up Tasks after the Practical Exam
  8. Pass the Shakti Dance® Level 1 Practical and Written Exams
  9. Complete all the training requirements no later than six months after the end of the Training Program. An extension may be granted by official request to the program organizer and Shakti Dance Academy.
  10. The final decision for qualification lies with the Lead Trainer and the Shakti Dance® founder Sara Avtar Olivier.
  11. Insertion of Personal Teachers’ Profile Page in the Shakti Dance Academy Teacher’s Directory. NB: If this occurs later than 12 months after Teacher Training Program begin, renewal of Academic Membership will be necessary. 

*The 45 Hours of Self-Study include:

  1. Personal practice of specified yoga-asanas and Shakti Flowing-Asanas
  2. Personal practice of specified meditations and/or Celestial Communications,
  3. Keeping a diary of experience during the practice of specified meditations and/or Celestial Communications
  4. Personal practice of specified Standing Sequences and/or Mantric Choreographies
  5. Reading of course manual or hand-outs during the Program
  6. Background reading of suggested books
  7. Short essays of theoretical nature and summaries of diaries relating to personal experiences during the 40-day practice of Shakti Dance.