Trance Movement™ is a powerful, healing and transformative practice – a strong holistic approach – utilizing breath, movement, sensory deprivation (blindfold), rhythm and sound, to access altered states of consciousness and unlocking the body’s innate wisdom.
Trance Movement™ facilitates therapeutic healing, personal growth, and transcendence, inviting you to drop your masks of limited conditioning and separation, transcend ego and come home, deep within yourself.
The practice of Trance Movement™, as it is currently offered by trained facilitators all over the world, was founded by Aernoudt Knecht, bringing together his expertise in psychology, somatic therapies, and a deep understanding of healing traditions across cultures.
Trance Movement™ is a unique pathway towards wellbeing, inspiration and alignment, that is available in individual therapeutic settings, or as a group activity, in the form of workshops, retreats and trainings, and has guided thousands of participants on a journey of inner discovery.
Before starting, you meditate on what it is that you want to reach, or are willing to receive. You might choose an aspect of your life that needs clarifying or healing. For instance, embark on your journey to seek insight, or to process something, or to celebrate life. By choosing an intention you create direction and purpose for you journey, which also helps to integrate it into context of your daily life.
We start a Trance Movement™ session with intensive en conscious breathing. Breathing consciously (re)activates your life force. Your physical body contains all your personal life experiences and during the dance, tensions can be released, or solutions to certain problems may suddenly reveal themselves to you. You can read more about this in the article about breath as portal to inspiration and healing
In most of our sessions, all the participants wear a blindfold. The blindfold helps to not be distracted from visual impulses from the surroundings, serves as a tool for sensory deprivation, facilitates a mental clear-up, and allows to make a journey through ceremonial darkness. You can read more about this in the article about sacred darkness, blindfolds, surrender and transformation.
The rhythms and sounds take you on a journey and allow your body to freely move, to ethnical and electronic sounds from all over the world. You move to sounds that are healing, trance inducing and conciousness expanding. Usually we work with a combination of sounds from a sound system and live instruments. You can read more about this in the article on Sound and Creation
It’s human nature to move, grow, transform. Recurring patterns of thought and action tend to make us stagnate and narrow our consciousness. Healing and growth are in essence intertwined. In Trance Movement™ there are no fixed steps. You explore and move at your own pace, from deep within yourself. When your movements transform, something also changes within you, and how you relate to the outside world.
Cleansing the doors of perception, and freeing yourself from the constraints of ordinary perception, and from the shackles of your ego, altered states like trance allow you to transcend time and space.
During a Trance Movement™ session you connect to other dimensions of your existence, and to the subconscious levels of your being. Participants often tell about revelations or insights they received during a sessions. There are many ways to look at trance, and you can read more about it in the article on sleeping, waking, brainwaves, dreams and trance.
Trance is a state of consciousness that is experienced regularly by everybody, for example during sports, when you daydream on the train, while you are busy in the kitchen pealing peas, during deep meditations, …
Our brain operates on very fast Beta waves during our daily lives. When you relax from that, and move into trance, those frequencies will reduce to to the realms of Alfa (mental relaxation, meditation) and Theta (creativity, dreams, subconscious awareness). That’s one way to look at it. More about this in the article about sleeping, waking, brainwaves, dreams and trance, and in the article about high and low frequencies.
In trance you will see connections you did not see before, look at things from a different angle and perspective, and get in touch with the subconscious layers of your being. That’s another way to look at it. Like in dreams, in trance you process things, clean up your system, and find new inspiration. More about that in the article on how to change unconscious behavior.
There are many ways to look at altered states, and in the Trance Movement™ Facilitator Training you can learn all about it, from a professional perspective.
By joining a Trance Movement™ session you can work on a variety of intentions. Here are a couple of examples:
Trance Movement™ is a healthy form of movement, for people of all ages. During sports and dance, your brain produces endorphins, creating a sense of happiness and well being. You can adjust your pace according to your physical condition.
Human nature shows us that stagnation and blockages can lead to symptoms of illness. Embracing movement and change and actively participating in the creative process can lead to wellbeing and personal development.
Trance Movement™ is a good way to release stress, trauma and limiting conditioning.
During our lifetime we develop all kinds of skills for survival, to function in, and adapt to, others and society. Some of these habits have evolved from trauma, and make us feel bad about ourselves or our lives, or create problems in relating with others; they get in the way of a happy life.
With Trance Movement™ you can work through these things, and let go.
Trance Movement™ can play a powerful role in processes of personal growth, alignment and transformation.
It can also help you with transitions in your life: a new job, a child leaving the house, … Similarly, you can create specific rituals for moments like starting a new year when releasing the old, and welcome the new.
Trance Movement™ can be a method for deep healing to bring trauma to the surface, and process and internalize it. The setup, with the use of blindfold, music, movement and conscious breathing, facilitates easy access to the subconscious.
If you come for this specific purpose, it is recommended to discuss this with your therapist, and with us, first.
Trance Movement™ can be a source of inspiration, for all kinds of aspects of your life, from personal growth to the infusion of projects you are working on, i.e. the start of a company, the making of art, the writing of a book…. Trance Movement rewires the brain, and brings you in an innovative and creative state.
The experience of deep meditation and trance, through Trance Movement™, can foster a deep sense of connection, with one’s self, with others, and with the world we live in. Altered states often bring about a profound sense of the interconnectedness of all things.
In the same way as you would light a candle or pray for someone, you can devote a Trance Movement session to someone.
Trance Movement can be a moving meditation, a path to alignment, transcendence and enlightenment; or a dancing prayer. Even as a group you can jointly choose an intention.
This is one of the most meaningful and powerful experiences that human beings are capable of having, and that all human beings should aim to encounter at least once in their lives!
Cleansing the doors of perception, and freeing yourself from the constraints of ordinary perception, and from the shackles of your ego, Trance Movement™ allows you to transcend time and space. This experience brings the capacity to truly behold paradox, where you can hold multiple perspectives in your mind at once, conceive of opposites, and somehow behold them simultaneously.
The experience also brings the sense that what was seen, and what was understood, and what was felt, has some deeper meaning than everyday reality, and that this depth of meaning lasts indefinitely. It also brings the sense that everything is interconnected, a sense of cosmic unity, and of oneness with everything. Often this is accompanied by immense positive feelings of bliss, ecstasy and gratitude, or a sense of connection with the divine.
It’s an experience beyond language, that you can’t quite put it into words, characterized by its fluid quality, dissolving just as quickly as it emerged. But even though it’s a temporary experience, the change is lasting, and you are forever transformed by new perspectives, and by a new visionary understanding, that is deeply felt.
No, you don’t need to have any specific experience; we only ask you to be open, and willing explore and move with a blindfold.
Here’s what you need to bring to Trance Movement™.
During the session everyone is blindfolded, except the facilitators. They move through, and hold the space, amongst the participants, to ensure that no serious collisions occur. The space is often marked, in order to avoid touching walls.
No you can’t. The blindfold is an essential part of Trance Movement™. If during session, you start feeling uncomfortable with your blindfold, we advise you to first explore this issue while moving, before you decide to remove it. Of course, you are free to take it off, but you will be gently asked to leave the space, out of respect for the other blindfolded participants.
The sounds and rhythms vary according to the moment, and the theme we are working on. From sounds of nature and ethnic music from all over the planet, right through to contemporary and electronic beats. Often we play live with a variety instruments. Occasionally only live music is played but that would be explicitly mentioned in advance.
Read more on our page about Sound & Rhythm.
No, it is not necessary to have experience with trance or meditation. Your facilitator will explain everything and take you along, and will be happy to answer any questions you might have, in the circle or individually before or after the session. You can also send us your questions here.
This varies according to the space available, and other circumstances like the number of facilitators. In the summer of 2007, in the Netherlands, an estimated 300 to 500 blindfolded people participated in the outdoor opening ceremony of a festival. During that same festival, also, a session was facilitated for one person in a workshop tent. On average workshops have between 6 and 25 participants.
During our normal activities children and young adults under the age of 18 can participate when accompanied by an adult. We do have good experiences with youngsters from the age of 9 upwards. Occasionally special activities are organised for children and young adults.
Trance Movement™ can be a beautiful way to connect with your baby in your tummy. That is why women who are experienced are welcome to join during their pregnancy. However, you should let us know in advance, so we can offer special attention to your safety.
You can dance during your moontime. Understand however, that Trance Movement™ during this period of the month can make the experience more intense.
Yes, you can participate with a slight injury, as long as you respect your own limits. You can move in a relaxed way, for example. You can even move while seated on the floor. And you can lie down at any time if needed.
You can move your body to the rhythms whilst seated, but of course it’s not always easy to move around with a wheelchair amongst barefoot dancers. Best to contact us in advance so we can discuss the possibilities according to the available space, the number of participants and facilitators.
We make it a priority to create a space free of judgment, where all are welcome. Trance Movement™ is actually especially suited for shy people. All of the participants are blindfolded. You can experiment with all kinds of movements without the feeling of being watched. The facilitators are not blindfolded but they are concerned with music, safety and holding space.
No. Trance dance is not recommended for people with a serious heartdisease, or people who are suffering a psychotic episode. It goes without saying that it is important that you mention and discuss any serious mental or medical conditions with us in advance.
No. A Trance Movement™ session can be an intense experience which, according to some, is comparable to a psychedelic experience, but no drugs are used during our activities. At the beginning of a dance session, we use a conscious breathing technique which results in more energy and a high amount of oxygen. All natural.
Facilitator Certification Training
M1: Journeyer & M2: Facilitator
Rhythm, Sound & Music
Soul Retrieval
Visionary Darkness
Breath Awareness
Rhythm & Altered States
Soul Retrieval
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