Ya'Acov Darling Khan has been studying and practicing shamanism all his adult life. When he was 21, he was hit by lightning and through this, began a three-decade-long journey of initiation. Join his potent 90-minute session and step beyond the noise, drop into the beat, and meet the unbroken intelligence of your real, raw self in movement. No fancy steps. No dogma. Just your body, your breath, and the living ceremony of the dance.
- 1. What are you most looking forward to about your workshop?
Honestly? Watching people remember who they really are. There’s nothing quite like seeing someone’s eyes light up when they drop the armour, let the body lead, and realise, “Oh! This is me!” It’s a bit like watching the sun rise in human form. And at the Mind Body Spirit Festival, there’s always this delicious mix of curiosity and chaos in the air — perfect conditions for transformation. - 2. What experience/knowledge will people gain if they come to your talk, too?
They’ll walk away with a felt sense — not an idea — of what it means to be truly embodied. To trust their own movement. To recognise that wisdom doesn’t live in the head alone — it pulses in the hips, breathes in the chest, and sings through the feet. It’s less about learning something new and more about remembering something ancient that’s been there all along. - 3. You describe this as movement medicine for the 21st century — what makes it especially relevant now, in such uncertain and fast-changing times?
We’re living in what I call “the age of the spinning head.” Information overload, emotional burnout, doomscrolling our way through the apocalypse! The medicine is to come back into rhythm with life. Movement Medicine is a technology for reconnection — body, heart, mind, and spirit — so we can show up sane, kind, and grounded in a world that really needs us awake. It’s not about escaping the madness. It’s about dancing right through it. - 4. We're seeing somatic workshops popping up everywhere these days. How have people's relationship with sacred movement changed since Covid/the last few years?
Covid stripped us down to our essentials. Through missing them, we learned just how important touch, breath, and togetherness actually are. Since then, people are less interested in performance and more interested in presence. Movement isn’t about looking good anymore — it’s about feeling real. Sacred movement is becoming streetwise again, and I love that. The sacred doesn’t need incense and feathers (though I do love both ?). It just needs honesty. - 5. How is your workshop different to those others and what kind of shift or awakening can they expect to feel?
Movement Medicine weaves together shamanic practice, dance, ceremony, and neuroscience — it’s embodied spirituality with its feet on the ground. You can expect to meet yourself — the raw, unedited version — and to discover that movement isn’t something you do; it’s something you are. The shift? People often walk out with more aliveness, more clarity, and a deep sense that their life actually belongs to them again. Plus, there’s usually a lot heart – tears and laughter mixed. Healing is re-creation. Movement Medicine reminds you how naturally creative you are. - 6. Can people come with no dance background — maybe even feeling disconnected from their bodies — and still get something profound out of it?
Absolutely. In fact, those are often the people who get the biggest breakthroughs. There are no steps, no choreography, no pressure to perform. If you can breathe, you can dance. And if you can’t quite breathe yet, we’ll start there. The body knows the way — even if the mind’s forgotten the map. - 7. A lot of us crave connection — to our bodies, to each other, to something bigger. How does this practice help people find a sense of belonging and purpose?
When you move with awareness, you plug back into the great web of life — that living pulse that connects us all. You stop being a lonely satellite orbiting your own story and remember that you belong. That belonging brings purpose naturally. You stop trying to “find” it out there, and instead, you embody it. The dance teaches us that we’re never separate from the earth, from each other, or from the mystery that moves us. - 8. What’s one story or moment from a past workshop that captures the kind of transformation people can experience?
I remember one man who came in with his arms folded, clearly thinking, “What the hell am I doing here?” Step by step, he started to move — just a little — and by the end, he was weeping, laughing, and dancing like his life depended on it. Afterwards he said, “I feel like I’ve come home to myself for the first time.” That’s it, really. That’s why I do this work. - 9. You talk about movement as medicine — what kind of healing have you seen happen through this work?
I’ve seen people release years of grief they didn’t even know they were carrying. I’ve seen frozen shoulders start to move again. I’ve seen people forgive themselves, reconnect with joy, remember their power. I’ve seen people re-awaken their creative sexual energy and heal from all kinds of trauma. Movement is the oldest form of medicine we have — it realigns us with life’s intelligence. And when that happens, healing — physical, emotional, spiritual — becomes not just possible, but inevitable. The joy of the mind becoming a little more still as the body moves is palpable. People often can’t believe how easy it is to shift their precious attention from thinking to being. Forty years in, I still get goosebumps watching people wake up in their own skin. It’s not magic — it’s movement. Though, truth be told, sometimes the two are hard to tell apart. And there’s one truth that hums in my bones in my bones: when we move, we remember. When we remember, we love. And when we love, the world begins to heal.
Join Ya'Acov's Movement Medicine for the 21st Century workshop at the Birmingham Mind Body Spirit Festival this November. Find out more here.
