Online Retreat Tailored and Designed for Koru Instructors
Join us for a weekend of experiential learning, focused on re-energizing your own practice and connecting with other Koru instructors from around the country. Make your practice, and your teaching, stronger!
This retreat will flow between periods of silence and periods of sharing and connection. Each day will be an opportunity for deep practice, mindful movement, nature connection, and small group meetings.
Spring Weekend Retreat For Koru Instructors
A weekend immersion into trauma-informed practices for self-love, mindfulness, and deep human connection.
What will I get out of this experiential learning retreat?
• Spend time practicing mindfulness modalities: seated practice with guidance and silence, movement practices like yoga and Qi gong, and relational practice in dyads and small groups
• Connect with with fellow Koru instructors, learn about their experiences on campus and in life through small group facilitated sharing sessions
• Experience skillful, trauma-informed teaching
• Learn tools and skills to bring back to your own communities
Who can attend?
Open to all Koru Instructors
Application Deadline
March 13 2023, 5:00pm EDT
Cost
$250 – $400 sliding scale
Duration
3 days, 2 nights online
“I loved it all, but especially the small groups (Devon was an AMAZING facilitator). They were incredible. I loved the wide variety of meditation – I loved learning the music meditation (I had never done that), I had forgotten how much I liked walking meditation and yoga, and Devon’s sky meditation was a top moment for me (I have a difficult time not judging my emotions).”
– Koru Instructor Julianne
What’s a typical day like?
Each day runs from around 9:30am to 10:00pm, online via Zoom with portions both on and off screen.
The day flows between guided meditation practices, workshops, mindful movement and yoga, small group conversations, wisdom talks and free time.
Explore topics like . . .
- Seated meditation
- Yoga and movement practices
- Mindful walking
- How to navigate difficult emotions
- Mindful communication
- Mindful eating
- Use of technology and social media
- Practices for kindness, compassion and self-awareness
- Applying mindfulness to daily life
You’ll have the chance to turn your video camera off and just listen with headphones for parts of the retreat. Other times, you’ll have the video on so you can see and connect with your peers.
“[The retreat was] a good “reset”; a reminder of what matters; reassurance that there are people who care deeply about making this kind of difference.”
– Koru Instructor, Nov. 2022
View 3/17-3/19 Retreat Schedule
“This enhanced my knowledge of all things contemplative”–Koru Instructor Robert
Is this retreat for me?
This retreat is for you if you…
- Are open-minded and willing to try something new
- Want to connect deeply with other self-aware people
- Are curious to try mindfulness and meditation practice, or want to deepen your existing practice
It’s NOT for you if you…
- You don’t want to be here! This is 100% voluntary.
- You’re struggling with serious mental health issues
- You’re doing this instead of going to therapy (Hint: it’s not a replacement).
How can I prepare?
Create a quiet, designated practice space for yourself where you can be uninterrupted during the retreat.
Turn off distractions, close other tabs on your computer, and do your best to just focus on the retreat experience while you’re with us.
Let your roommates, family and friends know that you’ll be on retreat and won’t be available! This retreat doesn’t require complete isolation, but we encourage you to separate yourself as much as possible from technology and other distractions.
Meet the Retreat Staff
Our team of faculty and mentors are a community of trained professionals, dedicated to empowering teens and young adults in a supportive environment.
Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme) teachers and mentors are professionals in the areas of mindfulness, health, and education and bring years of personal mindfulness practice to their roles, modeling authenticity, compassion, and respect. Find out more about the teachers and mentors on this retreat below.
Retreat Staff
Anthony Maes
Anthony “T” Maes found mindfulness during college when struggling with addiction, and it saved his life. He has practiced mindfulness meditation since 2003 including many weeklong and monthlong silent retreats. He’s been teaching teens in mindfulness retreats and weekly class formats since 2009 for various organizations including Spirit Rock and Inward Bound Mindfulness Education. On retreat he enjoys teaching emotional intelligence, diversity and inclusion, relational mindfulness, multi-racial liberation, and acrobalance. He is a teacher and coordinator of the weekly Teen Sangha meditation group at East Bay Meditation Center. He has worked as a wilderness mentor for middle-school boys with Stepping Stones Project and Back To Earth. He is passionate about supporting college-aged young adults, and has founded a leadership program for “aged out” Inward Bound Mindfulness Education alumni. “T” graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004, completed the yearlong Commit2Dharma program at East Bay Meditation Center in 2011, and is currently part of the Community Dharma Leaders training at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
Devon Sangster Rath
Devon Sangster Rath has been practicing mindfulness since 1997. She graduated with her Master’s in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002. Since that time she has worked with teens in many different capacities. Currently she works part time for Mindful Schools as a guiding teacher for their yearlong teacher training program and full time as a Social Worker in a public high school in San Francisco. There, she teaches mindfulness to both students and staff. Devon identifies as a queer woman and is heartfelt about the power of mindfulness practice to increase peace and freedom for all.
Tuition & Payment Information
Tuition is $250-$400 sliding scale for this 2-night, 3 day online retreat
Deposit & Balance & Refunds
Retreat payment is required to reserve a space on a retreat and includes a $35 nonrefundable application fee. If you sign up and are unable to attend, please cancel more than 7 days before retreat. A full refund will be offered, less a $35 application fee. For cancellations made within 7 days of retreat start, we are not able to offer a refund.
Diversity
We welcome and celebrate human diversity in all forms regardless of race, color, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ability, personal appearance, or religious/spiritual affiliation.
Accessibility
We are committed to accessibility. This retreat welcomes Koru Instructors from all racial/ethnic groups, sex and gender identities, abilities, and religions. Mindfulness creates a foundation for conversations that support understanding and deepen our connection to one another.
What other people are saying about our retreats. . .
I greatly appreciate this retreat: the simplicity, peacefulness, non-prescriptiveness, and kindness of the warm atmosphere created openness to questions.
– young adult
I learned love, connection, softness. How to look deep inside me, and find the authentic self.
– Zijun
There was such an overwhelming sense of community on this retreat. I have been on one other retreat in which my practice may have been more intensive; however this time around, the support from the instructors and my fellow meditators was absolutely palpable, making the experience undeniably joyful.
– Camden
I learned to not lose the present by focusing on the future.
– Christine
There was a deep sense of warmth and community.
– Owen H.