DJing: Another passion turns into a profession
If you’ve been reading my content for a while, you’ll know that for the past 25 year I’ve been turning many hobbies and passions into services and income streams – computers, photography, cooking, sexuality, and coaching, among others.
Last week I completed a week-long Ecstatic Dance DJ Training in Koh Phangan, Thailand.
This is another dream come true.
Another hobby and passion that I’m turning into a service, a profession and an income stream.
I’ve been passionate about DJing since i was about 13.
I wanted to use my bar-mitzvah money to buy DJ equipment but my parents strongly advised me against it.
I was the kid who put on the music at parties, and then that guy who stands right next to the DJ and observes anything they do.
I made mixtapes for my friends.
That’s when I started collecting music.
I listened to late night shows that played tunes that nobody heard during the commercial daytime programs.
I remember the joy of listening to music at the record store and going home with a few cassettes or an occasional vinyl.
I remember seeing the first CD player around ’88 at my piano teacher’s house. It was regarded with reverence and the CDs were handled like rare pieces of art.
I owe my wide musical taste first to my parents, who introduced me to a wide range of music genres and styles- Classical, Ethnic/Arabic, French chansons, Spanish guitars, rock, traditional Indian, folk, bossanova, Jazz, Israeli, world music, and more.
Then, on my own, in the late 80s and early 90s I got exposed to alternative rock, old school hip hop (Eric B and Rakeem will always be favorites), and Electronic music such as House, Acid, Techno, Jungle (Oh the first prodigy album !), Drum-and-base, and, again, many more.
My love for arthouse cinema and foreign films has exposed me to even more kinds of music.
Around ’97 I partnered with a DJ friend and held an evening called “Eclectic beats” where we played a wide range of musical genres at a hip artsy cafè.
In the mid 00’s I had a service called “Enlighten your iPod” where I sat with someone for an hour or two and recommended music to them. I was proud of my organized music collection while others who did it for free had all these “unknown albums /artists/titles” tracks.
I spent days and weeks getting new music, listening, and adding it to my music library. It was one of those activities where time just flew by as i was totally “in the zone”.
In the past few years i’ve been sharing my musical discoveries through curating playlists on Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/eyalnow ).
A few years ago i started to play music in my Tantra workshops and later in my Dansual (sensual partnered dance) events.
Throughout all these years, DJing was still a “oneday / someday” dream.
As i was listening to music, i started imagining how it would feel to drop it on an (ecstatic) dance floor.
I became an enthusiastic dancer and then an ecstatic dance facilitator and often found myself frustrated by the music at some of the “conscious” dance events.
I realized that instead of complaining, i need to do it myself.
In the past year I felt the passion to DJ swell and grow until i couldn’t deny it anymore.
So I started.
I held a few unofficial Ecstatic dance journeys for friends, which were great fun but also challenging. It’s so much easier to pass judgement on another DJ than actually doing this by myself.
I realized that “This is it !”, I’m going professional, and I bought a set of DJ controllers and paid for the laptop-based DJ software.
Last week I attended the Ecstatic Dance Level 1 DJ training with Kareem Raihani, who is an ED DJ known as a ‘Shaman of dance’ and ‘Dance floor Magician’. I’ve been enjoying dancing and listening to his sets for years, and last year i interviewed him about Ecstatic dance DJing .
It’s been such an amazing week.
I LOOOVED learning the basics, discovering how to do some of the things that i’ve heard for years, and geeking out on music trivia.
Even more important, we learned about the intention, the mindset, the love, the energy and the feeling of being an Ecstatic Dance DJ.
I was thrilled by the homework we got – creating transitions and mixes and then a 1-hour set.
Some of it came naturally and easily for me, and obviously some things look easy but i was humbled to make some (ok, many!) beginners mistake.
Obviously, I need to practice (and practice, and practice !) and i’m enjoying it so much. I wake up in the morning and think about song combinations and possible themes and can’t wait till I start playing at the bigger venues.
This isn’t a career change.
It’s an integration of more of who I am and what I’m passionate about (and you can totally do that as well).
I’m still committed to empowering people to unleash their full potential in love, life, and biz.
Actually I just created and launched my 2nd online program ‘Awakening Female Pleasure’, teaching men how to pleasure and connect with women, and it’s going great.
My new workshop “Tantra, Dance and Purpose” draws on my life-long experience and the magical and empowering combination of these fields. We’re gonna explore touch, align with our life purpose and, friends, we are going to DANCE!
You don’t need experience in any of these.
My message is that regardless of your level of experience, you can engage in loving and conscious touch, you can dance alone and with another, and you can make money helping people by doing what you love.
If you don’t see the connection between sexuality, dance and life purpose, then this workshop probably isn’t for you.
But if you understand that everything you do in life is interconnected, and if you feel the magic of this combination, you will experience a deepening in all these fields.
If you are feeling the inner call to participate, or to organize, shoot me an email at [email protected] with the title “Tantra, Dance and Purpose”.
I’m also available to hold Ecstatic dance journeys, Dansual dance classes or “Awakening pleasure” sessions at festivals, workshops and events.
I feel more on purpose, on fire, aligned, passionate, and in flow than I have in years !!
I can’t wait to share these workshops and my Ecstatic dance journeys with you.
See you soon,
e.