Village Heartbeat

Zorina! She is a great teacher I have taken drumming classes — she has also taught in the Palo Alto Elementary Schools and taught my son! She makes drumming easy, fun, meditative, and so absorbing. I love taking classes, especially the Women’s drumming group and also going to drumming and movement activities. I always learn alot, come away feeling happy and whole, and really enjoy the music we make. I’ve been an audience member most of my life… it is spectacular to GET OUT THERE and actually perform. Thanks for your energy and encouragement, Zorina!

Zorina is an amazing teacher and a beautiful human being, and my world is so much richer with her in it.
I first took the drumming/​writing workshop in Redwood City. My experience was cathartic and deep. It opened doors to me and inspired me to keep a journal (which sits right on my djembe!).
I took an intensive djembe workshop, and was thrilled with how much I accomplished by the end. Sadly, this was Zorina’s last in the bay area before her move north. I look forward to attending more of her workshops in the future!

I started learning to play guitar in my mid thirties with no prior musical experience. My guitar instructor thought it would be good for me to take some drum classes to improve my rhythm. I didn’t have any specific referrals to anyone, but found Zorina (and Village Heartbeat) because she was teaching drum and rhythm classes in my town. Being new to music and instruments I was feeling a bit self-​conscious about just showing up to a group drum class, so I took a few private lessons with Zorina. She offered me one of her many djembes to play (now I have many!). I fell in love with drumming instantly! She made it so fun and easy and helped me progress rapidly. I couldn’t believe how much I could learn in each lesson, and then she’d send me home with recordings of what we did so I could continue to practice on my own. She kept encouraging me to try one of her classes or a drum circle, but I was «hesitant» — not knowing what that would be like. When I finally did, I couldn’t believe that I ever had any hesitation. It was so much fun to engage in the «interactivity» of a group drumming together, and then later joining drum circles and drumming together as a community. It really would have been fine to come to any of her classes as a beginner — I later brought beginner friends along to her classes and they loved them. Zorina and my intro to rhythm and drumming changed my world in many wonderful ways. I highly highly highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn to disconnect from the «mind» and connect more to their own «body» and to find inner rhythm and to just let go of «old stuff» and learn something new!

I have attended a number of TaKeTiNa workshops and practices with Zorina in the Bay Area, and can recommend her most highly for making this intriguing practice accessible while creating a community of delightful people. Her drumming is sensitive and exploratory, and per TaKeTiNa practice she encourages participants to accept the inevitable falling out of rhythm as they step and clap and sing.
I expect Zorina would be a great drum teacher too.

On August 2^nd I attended a Village Heartbeat workshop at the Odd Fellows Hall In Redwood City. It was announced as a writing and drumming workshop starting at 1030am and ending at 630 pm. Participants were advised they could bring their own drum. I brought my own drum– a frame drum. I am just learning how to play it, and hoped to gain some more experience with it. It turned out that the workshop was djembe-​only freindly, so I had to borrow one of the djembes on hand, and could not play my frame drum. When it came time for lunch the instructor, Zorina Wolf, announced that we would all be taking a two hour lunch. She advised that we needed that much time to let the morning’s activities set in. I am a bit skeptical, but it struck me as also a way to get paid more for doing less. Zorina is a good instructor, and the Odd Fellows Hall in Redwood City is a good setting for the class. Just know that if you go to a workshop with her that she may spring a two hour lunch into the middle of the workshop, and that the workshop is probably only for djembes.