Ta Ke Ti Na- Join the living groove
09/03/2009 - By Chuck Cogliandro
The TaKeTiNa Experience
The TaKeTiNa experience connects us to archetypal rhythm imprints we have all shared in community, rewires the neuro-muscular body for deep relaxation and greater creativity, and fosters new ways of learning through the resonant energy field.
I’m lying in my sleeping bag under an oak tree at the Seven Oaks Pathwork Center, outside Charlottesville. It’s the middle of August, 2005. Fully leafed out and perfectly shaped, the tree is more than 20 years old now, and was planted to commemorate the first year that Barbara Brennan began her teaching of energy healing there. It’s a dewy summer night and the surprisingly loud song of insects washes over and around me in waves, like the shaking out of big, softly buzzing sheets. Letting my awareness relax, I start to expand into the experience, leaving my body behind. The surge and fall surrounds and hypnotizes me, and I am completely taken over in a natural bowl of sound energy. If I bring my awareness to my body, it feels completely relaxed and open; when I reconnect with the sound, I know it’s the portal to a world of balance, harmony, and the rough perfection and fairness of nature’s cycles.
As I continue opening to the waves, I begin to notice another insect sound, shorter and fuller-sounding, under the soft, rocking roar of the katydids. It’s in a different frequency band and a distance away from the first sound that’s closest just above me. One of the ways I’m organized as a musician is to instinctively listen for any cycles of repeating patterns, and at first I don’t believe what I’m hearing; the new insect is chicking its sound square on the downbeat of the first’s ku-ku-ku-kuh. Every time. I listened for many minutes, thinking the sounds would shift out of phase and return again later. But amazingly to me, they remained together in perfect alignment. Ecstasy. Nature’s inherent resonance. Harmony, cooperation and music-making between species, each sharing its unique core expression to create an even richer and more beautiful pattern to contribute and radiate into the universe of all and oneness. Each aware of, and feeling the other, staying together in cadence to create something larger than the sounds they create alone.
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My concentration in music has been with rhythm and drumming, and since 1992 I have let myself be immersed in West African percussion and the music of the djembe ensemble. For people who are naturally drawn to drumming music, whether as a participant player, dancer or listener, there is no need to explain or justify what it is that makes them come alive with drumming. It's fun; it's high-energy and dynamic; it moves one's spirit and body and provides connection to something larger, be it a group of people, the pulse of creativity and celebration, an ancestral lineage that transcends the present physical reality and takes one far enough back to the place where the first ancestors came from. Or it may be as simple as oneness- a surrender to the knowing that the divine is in charge, and one's purpose is to align with divine purpose, and that there is enough of everything for everyone.
I've had many experiences in drumming. I've made and repaired hundreds of drums, performed with dozens of different groups, taught classes and led workshops for preschoolers to seniors, made recordings with my own groups as well as others. I've studied with master teachers from other cultures and backgrounds. And through all of it, the most transcendent personal experiences I've had have come through the TaKeTiNa rhythm process. Created by Austrian Reinhard Flatischler, TaKeTiNa is a deeply evolved method for consciously connecting to primary rhythms which we carry in our DNA and our collective consciousness as a people. It's not for learning the rhythms of any specific culture, although if you are a musician it helps you feel the multiple layers of rhythm that create the richness of most of the world's cultural music. I feel instead that it can modify your neuro-muscular system and allow you to join more consciously with the innate rhythms of your body, the earth and the cosmos that have always been supporting you.
From the perspective of an outside observer, a TaKeTiNa workshop looks like a group of 50-60 people standing in one large circle, with the two leaders in the center guiding the group into the stepping, chanting and clapping of rhythm patterns. Once the group's synchronization has been fully established, the chant turns into a call-and-response singing. Occasionally someone may spontaneously leave the pattern and move individually inside the circle, or even lie quietly on the floor, only to rejoin the movement later. Eventually the entire group lies down as the movement and sound fades, for reflection or meditation. There is a time of sharing within the group, and then the process begins again with new patterns.
For the participant, however, much more is taking place on inner dimensions. The opportunity for new, communal learning through the group's energy field is created by the experience of rhythmic movement and chant. The body, brain and nervous system are brought to a place of profound relaxation and balance, and the neuro-muscular system is rewired for greater health and perception. Archetypal rhythms from nature and the body inspire creativity and new ways of being. No less than one's lifelong patterns of learning are up for review. Unconscious patterns that limit growth can be processed and dissolved. For musicians and especially drummers, it is a powerful way to develop a deeper understanding of multiple simultaneous rhythms.
Reinhard has used the TaKeTiNa rhythm processes in concert with medical doctors and music therapists in Europe to study its effects on patients with chronic pain patients. One collaborative study resulted in high pain patients being able to reduce their pain medication by 50%. Another study found that the process stimulates frequencies which occur during restorative sleep or deep meditation, and another resulted in a 100% increase in synchronization between the cerebral hemispheres over a period of two hours of the process. For more information on this research see www.taketina.com
When I attended my first TaKeTiNa workshop in San Francisco, in January of 2004, I had already been a professional musician for 15 years. I was also in my first year of studies at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. I felt that I needed to be humble and respectful, and check my musician's ego at the door, as I had an idea of what was involved, but I had never done it. The participants, surprisingly to me, were mainly not musicians, but all sorts of folks- writers, computer programmers, parents, students. On the first day I noticed how my training helped me understand the connections in the polyrhythms, and I was able to join with about 75% of the layering. On the second day, I felt ready to really move ahead and show how well I could do with the process. This is called coming from the ego, and in TaKeTiNa this is a big, brilliant mistake. I could not even feel the simplest beginning layers, and kept having to start over, creating pressure on myself with the belief that everyone knew I was completely messed up. In TaKeTiNa there is always an invitation to surrender to not knowing what is happening in the rhythm, and for the first time I decided to completely give up. Feeling rather embarrassed and alone since no one else had gotten lost yet, I dove into the circle to lie down on the floor.
Something very powerful can happen in a true surrender. I was feeling my sense of failure and frustration, and then for some reason I decided to ask, 'well, what is my relationship to the group right now?' This is a powerful awareness tool and also essential for a musician, who needs to be present to the music, the audience, the other players and his own self all at the same time. I discovered that, rather than judging or criticizing me, the group was actually including me and holding me with non-judgmental compassion, because they all knew that at any moment they could fall out of rhythm and join me on the floor. It was only me that had caused a seeming separation by judging myself. As the singing and movement swirled around me I began to have an emotional release, which took me back to my early years in school. I felt the defense of accomplishment and success I had created for myself as a coping mechanism. I also saw how I had created the erroneous belief that I had to be the best student, and that I had to do it myself. I was being given the opportunity to revisit these images, and take the risk of connecting with the community in a new and healthier way. I got up, walked to the side of the room and journaled for a long time.
In the two subsequent TaKeTiNa workshops I've attended, I've made deeper personal connections to the resonant group energy field and built more trust in learning with the body and soul memories as well as with the mind. I've had powerful releases and been lifted into glorious dimensions. And the work has helped me feel and integrate the richness of the polyrhythms inherent in West African music. Last November at the workshop in Palo Alto, I spoke to Reinhard and asked him about coming to Atlanta, and he was interested. When he looked at his calendar he had one weekend available before 2012. I said, “I'll take it.” I'm thrilled to be co-producing, with Amy Jackson and Colleen Caffrey of Rhythm Synergy, “The Power of Rhythm,” a three-day workshop with the creators of the TaKeTiNa rhythm process, October 16th-18th, 2009 at the Clarkston Community Center just east of Atlanta. No previous experience as a musician is required, but a willingness to be curious and open to new experiences will be helpful. Even your ego is welcome.
Chuck Cogliandro is a musician in Atlanta and is in private practice as a healer. For more information on the Atlanta TaKeTiNa workshop, see either of the websites www.kumandi.com or www.drummingatlanta.com For more on the brain state research Chuck has done with rhythm, see www.kumandi.com/healings.htm
