The Balanzu Way is very different from most “shaman schools” out there in a variety of ways. These are some of the qualities that set us apart from the field:
- Addressing Cultural Appropriation and Authenticity in Shamanism
- Extended time and intensity of training
- Selectivity of Calling
- Self-Healing
- Equity
- Diversity
- Focus on Specific Ancestral Ways
- Living Mystery Tradition
- Humor & No Bullshit
Addressing Cultural Appropriation in Shamanism
In the Balanzu Way, our unique approach allows us to be united, but also richly different, and honoring of our cultural backgrounds, instead of appropriating the ways of others. This is one of the things that makes us very different from the many primarily white folks teaching shamanic techniques strip-mined from cultures of color, which were taught to them primarily by other white folks who don’t have authentic relationships to those cultures. This is one of the biggest shadows of modern shamanic work that contributes to a legacy of colonial harm, and it is something that, in itself, needs to be healed within our field.
Our teacher, Jai Medina, is a two spirit person of color, who works with the spirits and allies from their own indigenous Mexica heritage, which the Balanzu Way is grounded in. The spirits of this tradition give permission for people of all backgrounds to work with them if they’re in right relationship and do so in a good way. Along with that, students are expected to develop relationship with their own ancestral deities and ways. You can read this analogy of the potluck to learn more about the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation.
Extended Time and Intensity of Training
We are the only shamanic school or training program in the WORLD that requires practice hours with real people.
One of the other shadows in modern shamanic work is a lack of rigor and time dedicated to learning. Many people take a workshop or two, or buy a drum and decide they’re a shaman, and hang their shingle out without any kind of real training or oversight. In the old days, people may have spent a decade alongside their teacher and still considered themselves apprentices. At a minimum, they would spend years just watching, listening, and assisting their teacher. Or they would be working in intact tribal/village spaces where their knowledge or lack thereof would have been seen, and the reputation that engendered would have provided its own checks and balances, in ways that don’t exist in the modern world.
These days, we expect that medical doctors and psychologists will spend 3-5 years in school, which will include extended time observing real practitioners, and doing a clinical internship, where they get hands-on experience working with patients or clients while someone with more experience is there to guide them and oversee what they’re doing. These days, we have regulating bodies for every kind of mental and physical healing work…except energywork and shamanic work. After spending three years getting a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology just to be able to talk to people, it was clear to our founder that what they did in intuitive work had such a greater capacity to do harm than simple talk therapy, if people attempted it without proper training and guidance.
This lead to the creation of the Balanzu Way School, to raise the bar of excellence in the field of shamanic and intuitive work, and attempt to provide further support and some standardization, while still honoring the wild ways of learning directly from spirits, and indigenous ways of being and knowing.
The Balanzu Way School is the ONLY shamanic practitioner training program in the world that requires you to actually work with people, just like any other mental or physical health training program, and just like old-school apprenticeship methods. Would you go to a doctor who took a six-week course to learn basic anatomy and was then going to perform surgery on you without any experience? If you wouldn’t do that with your physical health, you may reconsider doing that with your spiritual health. And if that seems ethically questionable to you for a doctor to do, you may reconsider being a shamanic practitioner who does that to others.
Learning basic skills and tools in a weekend, or a week-long intensive once a year does not in any way qualify you to work with people. Years of consistent, weekly hands-on experience and support, extended learning, observing, and guidance is what will do that. And it’s what will help you as a modern shamanic practitioner to align yourself with the ethics and standards of care in other health care fields, while replicating the real hands-on learning of a true apprenticeship the way our ancestors did it.
Apprentices of the Balanzu Way School of Shamanic Arts graduate with 250 hours of client contact under their belts. That is akin to the hours required for a Master’s Degree in Counseling in Oregon state, and you will learn intuitive counseling skills alongside shamanic healing and energywork in that time.
Selectivity of Calling
We don’t take just anyone as a student who clicks the right button on our website and pays up front. We actually don’t want to teach everyone unless there is a true calling to shamanic work, and to our Way in particular. The spirits of the tradition must recognize the potential applicant and give their blessing for a student to be accepted. We have turned away potential students in the past when that did not occur, and generally when we heard from their guides or higher beings that there was a different path intended for them. We have also turned students away when we assessed on the human level that they weren’t ready for the rigor and challenge of our kind of work, or weren’t committed to the depth of self-healing that is necessary in this Way. We want to make sure you’re on the right path, at the right time, even if that’s not our path. If ours is not the right way for you, we’ll do our best to direct you to what is.
The Balanzu Way is not for everyone, and if you’re not certain it’s for you, the best way to find out is to meet Jai and do a few sessions with them. This will help you determine whether they’re a good fit for you as a teacher, and in the meantime, will teach you shielding, which is a foundational skill you must have in order to enter any of our programs.
Healer Heal Thyself
We are the only shamanic school or program in the WORLD that requires extensive personal healing.
From Jai: “No program, in any of the healing arts, truly supports and requires wounded healers to heal themselves to any real degree before trying to heal others. I know, because I have spent the last decade specializing in supporting wounded healers. I have worked with medical doctors, naturopaths, nurses, massage therapists, acupuncturists, psychotherapists, social workers, psychics, other energy workers and shamanic practitioners…if there is any healing profession out there, I have seen them. And I have generally seen them in burn out and exhaustion because no one ever taught them how to take care of themselves; their training gave them skills to practice, but didn’t leave them personally prepared to do the work.
Your own healing is the foundation for any true, sustainable work in any healing field. Let me teach you that first, and give you the foundation you need, so you don’t come to me in burn out 2 or 10 years down the line like my other clients.”
Across the three years in our apprenticeship, students complete a minimum of 50 hours of personal healing sessions with a Balanzu Way practitioner or apprentice. This is generally twice a month in the first year, and a minimum of once a month across the next two years. Many students complete quite a bit more through their exchange of practice sessions with other students in their second year.
This work will ensure that you are clear and have confronted your demons, that your healing comes from a place that is clear and aligned with Spirit, and that you have the tools and practice necessary to be an incredible healing practitioner, who also knows how to value and take care of themselves, while being able to set impeccable boundaries.
Equity
We are the only shamanic school or program in the WORLD that offers a STUDENT CLINIC for shamanic healing.
As the Balanzu way is headed by a QTBIPOC person, we tend to draw people from marginalized backgrounds. Collectively, we are committed to creating equity in this world, and in healing work specifically. This work, especially when you have to pay for it out of pocket, is expensive for many of us. Shamanic healing, the traditional ways of tribal peoples around the world, shouldn’t only be available to those with access to wealth and privilege.
Our school is deeply committed to creating accessibility to shamanic healing for historically marginalized peoples. One of the ways we do this is by offering the world’s first Shamanic Healing Student Clinic. There are student clinics for massage, acupuncture, medical doctors, psychologists…why not shamanic work?
Because students need to practice under supervision in order to graduate, their student fees and the donation of their time supports low income people to receive work at deeply discounted rates of $40 for 30-minute sessions. People may also sign up for full hour sessions with a third-year apprentice at close to half of Jai’s regular rate. This is what we call aya’a, a kind of interdependence that helps support everyone.
Please see our student clinic to find out more about it, or to sign up for the waiting list.
Diversity
Besides supporting equity in accessibility, we are generally the most diverse group of any shamanic healing school or program. Our groups generally have a majority of queer and trans folks, but we also have straight folks with kids, grandmas, you name it. Depending on the cohort, we often have more students of color in our courses than should be represented by the population of Portland. BIPOC students generally make up about 30-40% of our classes, in a city where the ratio of people of color to white folks is about 17%.
In order to participate in our programs and graduate, white students must complete 20 hours of anti-racist training in their own time outside of class. This is one way of making sure they can engage with the cultures of color they’re learning about and the people of color they’re learning with in a good way.
Focus on Specific Ancestral Ways
We don’t believe there is a ‘core shamanism’ that is ahistoric, acultural, and available to all people. All shamanic ideas, practices, higher beings, etc. are grounded in specific, indigenous cultures. Anyone who is working with or teaching things they believe to be ‘core’ are working with things that were originally taken from a specific indigenous culture, whose culture and context was then stripped away from the practice or teaching.
We believe this is an inherently colonial and harmful way of engaging with magical and spiritual practices drawn from ancient ways. Instead of being generic, we are deeply specific, working with all the specificity of a whole, new, living tradition grounded in specific place and the cultures of ancient Mexico. Every person must have permission from the spirits of this living tradition to practice, through right relationship with them, and with Jai, as the authentic conduit of their own ancestral ways. Each person must also learn and develop their own ancestral ways, whether Viking, Celtic, Aboriginal, Hmong, Blackfoot, etc., in order to find authentic grounding in tribal, earth-based healing ways they can claim from their own heritage.
The Balanzu Way is a meta path, that balances one way that we all learn, that holds us together, while creating space to weave in a variety of different, rich ancestral ways that may be unique to an individual, but that weaves together a hoop of an interconnected world. In this way we do both/and in terms of history, culture, and sacred paths, instead of offering something as if it’s generic.
Living Mystery Tradition
Most people who are teaching shamanic tools are doing it without any connection to a whole, living tradition. They’re teaching a mix of random techniques the teacher has picked up in various ways, which are taught piecemeal without the context of relationship or connection. The Balanzu Way is a whole, living mystery tradition, which was largely created and structured by our sacred beings. These beings are the real teachers and creators of the Balanzu Way, and when people step into our tradition, they come into relationship with them as guides, teachers, and protectors. This is a new living tradition that is based in the bones of the ancient past, but which has evolved to be alive for our era.
Humor & No Bullshit
Jai is known for startling their students both with intense challenges, and also by making them laugh with their wry, expletive-laden observations. Here at the Balanzu Way, we take the work seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We call bullshit on New-Age nonsense when we see it, and laugh at ourselves when necessary. This is important medicine to stay grounded and humble as we develop greater power and capacity in the realm of spirit.
Balanzu Way School of Shamanic Arts 