Shaking to Relax the Writer

Shaking
Ancientwisdom embodies ecstatic shaking as the oldest medicine. Kalahari Bushman,Quakers, Shakers, Japanese seiki jutsu,Native American shakers of the Pacific Northwest, and many pow-wow dancers useshaking for healing and shamanic experience.
Manytraditions use frenzied ecstasy as a prelude to a deep state of relaxation. Notto be confused with St. Vitus Dance or mass hysteria, remnants of ecstaticshaking remain in divers music and spiritual traditions; jazz, blues, rock androll, and gospel as well as ancient ethnic circle dances, kundalini yoga, andqigong.
Gentleor energetic shaking loosens the joints of the body, breaks up physical andmental stagnation, and opens energy channels. Shaking allows you to let go (andlook very silly) while banishing stiffness and shaking off emotional knots. Bradford Keeney,author of Shaking Medicine ,experienced what he calls enriched intuition from shaking.
HowTo Do It
Start by imagining you're Pinocchio and a kindly Geppetto is pulling yourstrings. Stand, feet apart, eyes closed or almost closed. Soften the knees.Exhale and begin. Try to feel the shaking originating in the belly. Let thebreath deepen. Move and wiggle all your parts as if you had no bones. Shake forat least 5 minutes daily for a few days to see if it works for you.
Shakingcan be a warm-up, a quick break, or a practice in itself. Laraine Herring, in The Writing Warrior , calls shaking an "energeticflush" for the body and "internal meditation" for the mind. She offersinstructions and a YouTube video to introduce writers to the practice ofshaking.
LiterarySide Trip - A famous member the Sufi dervish cult known for ecstatic dance, the 13thcentury poet Rumi, was recently called the most popular poet in America.
Excerpt from Relaxing the Writer Shaking and Rocking

 ***************************************************** More about Shaking...
Listen to Laraine talk more about shaking on this video -

And a demonstration 
Laraine somehow convinced her husband 
to demonstrate how to shake -