The Personal Development Course is about putting LIFE first and increasing your ability to create the relationships you want. It is a series of fourteen weekends of intense Biodanza. Each weekend is an experiential group process.
The people participating in the course become your companions. They become friends, colleagues and people who support you in your life changes. Each weekend is supported by a Training Manual written by the Founder of Biodanza – Rolando Toro Araneda .
These provide the cognitive understanding of the experience and an opportunity to reflect on your life. Normally, you start on Saturday morning and finish on Sunday afternoon.
“The conceptual basis of Biodanza came from a reflection on life, a desire to be reborn from our broken gestures and our empty and sterile structure of expression. We could assuredly say it came from a nostalgia for love.”
“We have a way of being absent with our whole presence. By not looking at, not listening to, not touching another person, we subtly strip them of their identity. We do not recognize the person in them; we are with them but we ignore them. This disqualification, conscious or unconscious, has a terrifying meaning involving all the pathologies of the ego.
To celebrate the presence of another, exalting it in the essential enchantment of the encounter, is perhaps the only healthy possibility. ”
“The Biocentric Principle has as its starting point the Vivencia of a universe based on life.
Everything that exists in the universe – be it elements, stars, plants or animals, including humans – is a component of a larger living system. The universe exists because life exists – not the other way around.”
“Vivencia is an experience lived with great intensity by an individual in the here-now.”
Vivencias are a doorway through which we access the pure space of being, where time stops existing and we are here and now forever.”
“There is no doubt that the energy of life is one, common to plants, animals, and humanity. We are contained in a cosmic broth of life. The energy of life circulates in us and in nature as a flux. We humans block this flux; we try to stay isolated. But in reality we are linked by a subtle telepathic intelligence whose nature is love and which we can open or close ourselves to.”
“Humanity, throughout history, has frequently lost the great revelations discovered by its visionaries and gone through dark periods of dissociation and complete loss of identity. We can look for inspiration within these Mysteries in order to nourish the health and vitality of our civilization.”
“Our identity is revealed in the presence of the other. This notion of being different and unique is revealed in the presence of others.”
“Integrative trance has a restorative effect. The trance that leads to sleep, the trance that leads to sexual ecstasy, the trance of dancing are all examples of integrative trance. The mystic trance, accompanied by vivencias of supreme happiness, physical well-being and union with the cosmic totality is also a form of integrative trance. The trances induced during the exercises and ceremonies of Biodanza are integrative. During the integrative trance, states of anxiety disappear.
Coming out of an integrative trance has the quality of “rebirth.” The trance of Biodanza has profound “reparenting” effects.”
“Anybody that is not caressed begins to die. Contact is a source of health and is the most important therapeutic action. To see that all people have access to caresses ... is the only revolution that makes sense.“
“Vitality means having a strong will to live and possessing energy available for action.” this line is generated in the instinct of conservation of life, in the many mechanisms in charge of maintaining the homeostasis and regulation of the organism. It is linked to the first experiences of movement and feelings of energy.”
“Affectivity is a state of deep affinity toward other beings, capable of originating feelings of love, friendship, altruism, maternity, paternity, and companionship. However, opposing feelings such as anger, jealousy, insecurity, and envy can also be considered components of the complex phenomenon of affectivity.”
“A feeling of intimate connection with nature and with another person is a peak experience we rarely have in our lives. To know “for sure” that we are not isolated beings, but that we are participating in the unifying movement of the cosmos, is enough to alter our scale of values. Perceiving themselves as a source of intimacy and open with love undoubtedly influences people’s evolution, inundating them with vitality and inner unity.“
“Sexuality and life are absolutely linked. Sexual desire represents a strong motivation to live. Human sexuality is a way of being and growing. Our whole life unfolds according to our sexual connections. Human identity is organised in the natural flow of erotic energy.”
“Creativity is an integral part of the cosmic transformation, the path from chaos to order. The work of creation is always the expressive result of the act of living. The creator’s problem can be a struggle against his own overabundance. The humility necessary to take one of several projects and to carry it out well, as if we were eternal, thinking of the infinite time that it takes the universe to create a small flower, a bumblebee, an emerald.
Our opulence as artists is not in our overabundance, but in the humility to abandon our multiple options and to place our serene love in a single one of them.”
“By proposing a process of integration and development for each individual, Biodanza postulates freedom and respect for each one, the same respect the farmer has for the seed. This idea can only be supported from the axiom that the human seed is essentially good, that is to say that there is a divine impulse within it. All a discipline of development must do is to help individuals recognize this impulse within themselves.”
Caroline Churba will be facilitating the course and your journey of personal transformation. She is among the leading world figures in Biodanza and has forty years of participating in Biodanza.
Carolina has been offering these weekends in South Africa since 1998 and many people have gone through this personal development process with very positive results. There will also be invited local and international guest teachers of Biodanza who will lead specific weekends.
In 1996, she brought Biodanza to South Africa. In 2005, she was recognized by Rolando Toro Araneda and the world governing body of Biodanza, the International Biocentric Foundation, as the official license holder and custodian of Biodanza in southern Africa.
“I Started Biodanza at 18 in Argentina. Biodanza has helped me live my life in balance. Every class I have a chance to process my week. And I find my inner source of love that allows life to flow from week to week in a positive way. That is why I have continued with it for over thirty years!
I trained as a physiotherapist in rehabilitation and wanted to help people heal. I found that medicine treated the symptoms and focused on illness. I wanted to focus on generating health. Biodanza proved to be something I needed to apply not just in my own life but also through my professional life. I see people heal their lives through Biodanza from their very core. This gives me purpose in my facilitation.”
Rolando Toro Araneda (1924-2010) is the founder and creator of Biodanza now practiced throughout Europe, South America, South Africa and Japan. In the mid 1990s, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with Biodanza.
Born in Concepcion, Chile, 19th April 1924, he has followed many careers including school teacher, medical doctor, psychiatrist, medical researcher, poet, artist, African art collector and anthropologist. All have, in various ways, contributed to the development of Biodanza – his life's work. He has held many academic posts including the Chair of Psychology of Expression at the Institute of Aesthetics of the Catholic University of Santiago, Chile.
On the origins and emergence of Biodanza, he wrote:
“Biodanza has emerged discreetly in my life. It has gathered strength slowly, awakening people's interest, causing surprising changes in some participants, and above all creating a feeling of… hope in life.
“I believe that there were many forces manifested within me to finally create this coming together of art, science and love.
“Music was the universal language, the only thing everyone could understand in the Tower of Babel of the world.
“Dance was the ideal form capable of integrating body and soul. The dance experience offered all participants happiness, tenderness and strength.
“I also wanted to communicate this experience to a large number of people. From both these experiences and sensations, my desire to form small groups of people to dance, sing and meet within the music arose.
“So Biodanza became a way to share what was marvellous, together with others.”
This personal development course will have given you increased capacity for:
You will perceive the potentiality in life for joy, passion and health. You will be able to continue the process of self-transformation through regular Biodanza.
These fourteen weekends are the essential personal development necessary for a facilitator of Biodanza. To lead others in their personal growth, you must have experienced the impact of deep Vivencia on yourself and in your life.
On completion of these weekends, it may be possible to continue towards professional training as a facilitator of Biodanza. This is not for everyone and the experience of the above fourteen weekends will clarify your desire to pursue this as a profession.
At this point, the training will continue your own personal development but the focus shifts to learning the practical skills needed by a facilitator to lead a group. These skills are:
This requires a further eleven weekends of training, a supervisory period to assist you apply the material learned in your own group and a presentation of monograph.