A shaman is a person who communicates between this and the spirit world. They journey into the spirit world to gain wisdom and healing and are taught by their spirit guides so basically every shaman's training is unique to them. All shamanism is the same at the core, meaning they communicate between worlds... are chosen by the spirits, etc, but each culture has it's own unique practice that adapts to times but doesn't change much throughout history.
This is something interesting that happened to me just last month, I had a dream that I became a shaman, and that I had to find a yellow rock that glowed. My mother was with me. If we find the rock it would show us the way to my little brother's spirit. He was lost and (being all emotional about some shit, I don't want to put him on blast for it, lol). But we found the rock and it guided us in his direction, almost like a compass, glows stronger in the right direction. We ended up finding my brother and brought him back. Anyway, I told my mom about it because it was so weird, and I never had a dream like that before.
On another note, my mom recently became a shaman and her guides force her to wake up early in the morning to practice. I talked to her a lot about what its like and what she sees. She just started but her spirit guides are teaching her what to say and how to say things. They frequently show up in her dreams to teach her. She tells me her spirit guides take her on journeys to different places and show her different things. She doesn't really know how to communicate well yet in the spirit world but she's learning little by little.
Since she needs a lot of experience she's been soul calling each member of the family for hours and hours. As much as 4-8 hours in one sitting. She said she doesn't get tired. It's surprising because before she became a shaman my mom always complained about pain and body aches. I don't hear her complaining about that anymore. She mentioned to me that when she was soul calling for me, she had to go to Arizona (that's where I went to school) and she talked about a tall building by the river. It's weird because I worked at a tall building by the river (Hayden Ferry Lakeside) and one day I decided to go up to the top floor to watch the sunrise. When I got up there and the elevator door opened, there were things strewn all over the floor (basically this shit looked like an abandoned building). I was so scared. I quickly pressed the close button. But the door took forever to close. I forgot about it until my mom mentioned that to me. I asked her why her spirit guide took her there. She said that she has no choice, they want to take her there to call my soul back, but she also mentioned that when she got there, something freaked her out on that floor of that building. Just looking at the building below you will never think of it that way.
My aunt has the ability to be a shaman, they visit her every night but since she is not married yet and still wants to pursue her career, she's not going to be one yet. But it's always nice talking to her, she has a lot of interesting experience, and I love 'interviewing' her, lol.