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15-Day Somatics and Yoga Teacher Training Retreat in Veracruz, Mexico
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Basubu says
So, you’ve mastered Hatha, Vinyasa and Yin yoga, what’s next? This 15-day teacher training retreat offers yogis a completely new approach to yoga through trauma-informed movement. Ideal for yoga teachers, social workers, therapists, and health care professionals, this unique retreat teaches students how to rebuild body awareness and cultivate resilience. During your stay, you’ll explore sensorimotor art therapy, somatic education and much more. Two traditional sweat lodge ceremonies are also included as well as delicious vegetarian meals.
Nervous System Education
Sensorimotor art therapy practices
Eligible to register continuing education hours with Yoga Alliance upon completion
All vegan meals
Daily yoga movement practice
Somatic education and Biology of Stress
Two traditional sweat lodge ceremonies (Temazcal)
Instruction in English
Min. 4 - Max. 8 participants
This is a foundational training on a trauma-informed approach to movement and yoga, somatic education and embodied social justice. Trauma-Informed Movement is an approach in which movement educators have an understanding of how trauma impacts the brain, nervous system, movement, and overall whole body. The goal of the trauma-informed movement is not to diagnose or cure it. Instead, it is a targeted practice designed to assist movement educators to enhance the following for their students: rebuild body awareness, create choices for their own body, and what feels appropriate.
People
Program
Certifications
The course/hours count as Continuing Education hours for Registered Yoga Teachers (RYT®) only.
This training provides the foundational framework to understand how trauma impacts the body and mind and how to use mindful movement and somatic education to reduce trauma and stress symptoms and cultivate a greater sense of well-being and resilience. This training also introduces an embodied approach to understanding and transforming entrenched patterns of relating to others based on inequitable social power dynamics. offering a clear description of how oppression is experienced as a bodily ‘felt sense’ and identifying the mostly unconscious behaviours that perpetuate oppression.
This training is open to all backgrounds, especially will be most helpful for yoga teachers, social workers, therapists, health care professionals, educators, and activists looking for tools to better support people to reclaim a sense of safety in their bodies and empowerment in their lives.
You will be working with tools like:
- Sensorimotor art therapy
- Somatic education
- Task-based movement
- Dance
- And more
This 100HR training divides into two modules
1st 50HR: Starting with ourselves
We cannot take others to where we have not been, and strategies alone do not produce healing experiences. We support facilitators in connecting to their own self-compassion and worthiness so that they can offer a more compassion-centred experience for their students.
2nd 50HR: Facilitating an embodied trauma-informed movement class
Program topics:
- Daily morning yoga
- Somatic education of the nervous system
- The biology of stress
- The enteric nervous system through somatic education
- The Polyvagal theory
- Movement tools for self-regulation
- Trauma-informed language and cueing
- Practice teaching
- Oppression and embodiment
Sample schedule
Arrival day
- 15:00 - 16:00 Arrival, pick up at the bus station
- 18:00 - 19:00 Dinner
Daily program (subject to changes)
- 07:00 - 07:30 Meditation
- 07:30 - 09:00 Movement practice
- 09:30 Breakfast
- Break
- 10:30 - 13:30 Session
- 14:00 - 15:00 Lunch
- Break
- 16:30 - 18:30 Session
- 19:00 Community Dinner
- Rest
Departure day
- Breakfast
- 11:00 Leave to the bus station (KiekariTerra is around 1 hour away from the bus station)
Saturdays are days off (on this day the meals are not provided, only breakfast).
Excursions
On Saturdays, you will have a free day. On this day you could go to the organic market and the nearest coffee towns. On this day, afternoon meals and dinners are not provided, only breakfast.
Optional activities
- Visiting the town and local markets
Accommodation
Check-in
12:00
Check-out
11:00
The accommodation will be in a tent only for you, including a pad, sheets, and a pillow (KiekariTerra will provide all these for you). You will sleep with the sound of the river and wake up with the sound of the birds. There is no electricity so it is perfect to reconnect with your circadian rhythms.
The weather at KiekariTerra is very changeable. The training taking place in October/November/February will experience more cold days during the mornings and evenings, so if you are sensitive to cold, make sure you bring warm clothes. In KiekariTerra they will provide blankets but if this is not enough for you, you can also book the training in warmer months like March, April and May.
There are three cats living in the house. Therefore, if you are allergic to cats this is not the best training for you. They also have two dogs that will be around while you are here, they are very welcoming and calm dogs some nights they bark, some nights they don’t, depending on their mood. If you have any type of situation with dogs, this is not the best training for you. There is also a rooster that sings early in the mornings around 5:30 - 6:00 a.m. If you are a light light sleeper maybe you would like to consider, this is the ranch life, you are very welcome to our land if this resonates as a good learning experience for you.
All of the students will get some tasks to do as Karma Yoga during the training, this could be keeping clean, and tidying the shala, keeping the communal table clean, feeding the chickens, checking the sawdust in the dry toilets, helping set the dinner table.
Private tent
Private room | $1,525
provided by KiekariTerra
Food
You will enjoy 3 delicious homemade meals a day. The food is vegan/vegetarian. On your day off (Saturdays), only breakfast will be served.
If you are a coffee lover, the retreat centre is close to the best coffee town in Mexico, where you can find organic coffee during the free day.
In the retreat, they will provide fruit for in-between meals. If you need to bring some snacks of your preference you are welcome to do so, just keep in mind not to bring garbage (plastic bags, metallic cans, etc).
What's included?
- Printed Manual/PDF Manual
- Clean water and tea from the garden
- 14-night accommodation - camping in a tent (mattress, linings, and blankets provided)
- All vegan/vegetarian and local foods
- Eligible to register continuing education hours with Yoga Alliance upon completion (if you are already registered, this is optional)
- 2 Temazcal ceremonies
- KiekariTerra Welcome Kit
- Round transportation from Xalapa Bus Central to Kiekari Terra Institute
What's not included?
- Airfare
- Lunch and dinner on days off (Saturdays)
- Snacks of your preferences
- Laundry service
- Additional services not mentioned in the program
Location
Instituto KiekariTerra A.C is an educational retreat centre for sustainable and resilient communities. It is located in the middle of the Cloud Forest in the town of Xico, Veracruz. The centre is located among mountains and rivers. Instituto KiekariTerra is an off the grid educational centre, so the exposure to electromagnetic waves is minimal and it is the perfect site for a digital detox.
Nearby Towns
Xico
5 km
Cosautlan
9 km
Coatepec
11 km
How to get there
Arrival by bus
Round transportation from Xalapa Bus Central to Kiekari Terra Institute is included in the price.
Nearest airports
JAL El Lencero Airport
27 km
VER General Heriberto Jara International Airport
94 km
Nearest train stations
Pacho
17km
Alborada
19km
Los Berros
19km
Instructor
María
Maria Kiekari (E-RYT 500) Co-founder of KiekariTerra Institute and Encuerpa Savia (SomaticTranspersonal Therapy). She has been practicing and teaching yoga for about 15 years. Certified in the Yoga Detour Method by Cecily Milne, in Mindful Strength by KathrynBruni-Young, Yoga Tune Up by Yoga Tune up Fitness, Eco-Yoga and Sustainability by the Metta Earth Institute in Vermont, USA, Movement for Trauma Level 1 & 2 Certification by Jane Clapp, Mind Body Therapist by Embodied Philsophy, Transpersonal Educator by Macuil Institute, Conscious Body Practitioner / Jungian Somatics by Jane Clapp.
Cancellation policy
Cancellation
Cancel up to 15 days in advance for a 86% refund
Changes
You may not change your dates after booking
Covid
Contact host for terms if you test positive for Covid
Full refund if you cannot travel due to Covid restrictions
Full refund if the retreat does not take place due to Covid restrictions
People
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