In-person intensives are on for 2024! In the meantime, Kimberly's trainings and workshops are a great introduction to some of the material covered in these intensives. Kimberly is also available for one-on-one coaching to incorporate social change, justice, and equity into your work (and everyday) life—​get in touch.

Body Wise Professional Development Intensive

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Do you ever feel like injustice is just too big for your work to make a difference?

This 5-Day Professional Development Intensive is an immersive, educational experience crafted to help do-gooders like you work to create the equitable, just world we want to live in. Because yes, change is possible, and your work—and how you do it—matters.
All of us must ensure that our actions line up with our values, and we can't do that alone. We need to learn to use our own lives as the tools for cultural transformation, in concert with others. That work involves rest and self-compassion as well, and we meet in Hawaii for five days to do it. Held by the beauty of nature, we'll explore how our bodies and emotional intelligence influence our work, and prepare for transforming our professions too. So much is possible when we learn together, in this kind of environment.

During this Intensive, you'll get the chance to work with Kimberly in group settings and one-on-one to uncover and dismantle the fears and unconscious bias that hinder us in our professional lives, reinforce injustice and social hierarchy, and make us feel like our contributions don't matter.

Who this intensive is for:

Body Workers
Therapists
Yoga Teachers
Fitness Teachers
Counselors
Life Coaches
Health Coaches
Personal Trainers
Nutritionists
Teachers
The Body Wise Intensive is specifically for those who are ready for long-term, larger-scale intentional engagement. It is for anyone who wants to explore the intersection of body, ability, size, and perceptions from social, therapeutic, and personal perspectives. Anyone who wants to move beyond "beliefs" to address the often unconscious micro-aggressions we perpetuate in our work and our own lives too.

In particular, I want to welcome those whose bodies live at the margins and intersections of public acceptabilities, personal practice, and working with others. As a fat, queer-femme, disabled (and of course, aging) yoga teacher and sociologist-writer, I'm well aware of how our marginalized selves become specimens for learning in classes and workshops, while our other acquired intelligence may be dismissed. I aim to create a setting in which everyone's lived experience, practice, and learning are valued, where we contribute and receive as experts and learners—acknowledging as many of our identities and experiences as we choose.

What to Expect Professionally

What to Expect Personally
  • An exploration of unconscious bias and how it influences each of our lives, how it leads us to uphold cultural values with which we may not even consciously agree.
  • Tools for working with bias - in ourselves and others - so that we can treat all bodies with care and welcome.
  • Discovery and discussion about the intersections of body-ability bias, focused on three specific types of bodies: fat bodies, aging bodies, and disabled bodies.
  • Tools to work with and expand our current understanding about bodies, so that we facilitate greater awakening, ease, and ability in those whose lives we touch.
  • Tools for approaching social change/justice and body equity that uncover where our strengths and contributions lie, and how to use them individually and in concert.
  • Practice with language and approaches that increase inclusion.
  • Discussion on moving from ally-ship toward real intersectional involvement where we are invested in each others' positive outcomes.
  • How to acknowledge the oppressor and oppressed within. We'll practice compassion for both, along with how to shift our own language and behaviors.
  • A beautiful environment in which to reconnect with nature, swim, move and relax.
  • Two outings to visit local Hawaii.
  • A place for your body and your physical practice/ability to be honored and appreciated.
  • Time to write and stargaze, and explore your connection with the social and natural world.
  • Activities and prompts that place you and your body in relationship with other people's bodies and identities—a chance to explore how you are perceived and perceive others in your work.
  • Daily yoga—throughout the week, a combination of restorative, active and gentle classes.
  • Fabulous food and birdsong daily.
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Red Road, Hawaii

Sample Rates

All rates include your tuition, meals, and adventures. Not to mention the beauty of Hawaii.
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There is a variety of lodging options available (all rates include sales tax):​
  • $1770 ($1460 Early Bird) - Shared room, two beds, one bath
  • $2300 ($1999 Early Bird) - Single Occupancy, Private Bath
  • $899 ($799 Early Bird) - Commuter Rate (no lodging, meals provided)

A deposit of 50% tuition reserves your spot in the intensive.
If the Intensive is canceled, you will receive a full refund.

A Few Testimonials

"Hands down the best professional education retreat (and personally meaningful experience). I have ever been on! Kimberly Dark will hold you with kindness and compassion. If you’re a helping pro working for inclusivity and social justice, make your way to the Big Island this year."

"Such a great professional development retreat... The retreat is personally and professionally impactful. Taking home so many good memories and ways to carry this work forward!"

"Please, please, please attend the retreat if you can. I have experienced so much movement and insight this week, and made amazing new friends and colleagues from the US. It was well worth the trip from the UK."

"Such a wonderfully held space... perfect balance of group time and time on our own. Perfect balance of meeting us where we were, and pushing us a bit beyond."

"This retreat has been personally transformative... This retreat helped me take a large step into my power [and] to observe the unconscious biases that might be a barrier around collaborating with my clients on their own well-being."

"It sounds cliche to share that her work changed my life, but I do not have other language for it. Through her, I am learning to not only accept my body but to treat myself with kindness. Her work plays at the intersections of queerness, fat, gender and anti-racism work."
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Carlsmith Beach Park, Hilo

Accessibility

The Puna coast, while magnificently beautiful, is not accessible to all. The retreat center and yoga practice space are each accessed via a short stairway. Terrain is uneven as well. For those who can navigate stairs at least once or twice a day, this intensive will be appropriate and we'll include visits to the sea where entry is easy and currents are calm. For those unable to navigate stairs, this intensive won't be suitable.
Similarly, regarding COVID safety, because this is a retreat center where other groups are also gathered, there's no way to control whether others mask, have vaccinations, etc. Touch and distance within our group are possible, but there is risk inherent in this type of setting. Please carefully consider whether this kind of gathering is suitable for you at this time.

​No ASL interpretation will be provided.

Please inquire if you'd like to work toward bringing this intensive closer to you, in an accessible format. Kimberly has traveled to provide classes and workshops in accessible venues in the past, and is committed to continuing to helping East Hawaii become more accessible over time.

COVID-19 Safety Precautions

Participants' safety is our first priority, and so we will continue to monitor CDC, EPA, and Hawaii State protocols and adapt our offerings accordingly.

Cancellation policy
If your flight or trip is interrupted due to updated Covid-19 safety protocols, you will receive a full refund of your tuition.

Additional Resources

The thing is, it's possible to be really hip to size oppression and still harbor deep fears about aging which can translate into discrimination. Or, perhaps a person is a disability activist who still considers fat a choice and claims of oppression based on fat unworthy. Stigma against fat, disability and aging each have similar cultural roots (at least nowadays in Western Culture): fear of death and appearing incapable or unattractive. Much of our focus will be on these forms of stigma, all the while holding an intersectional view of how cultural oppression (and internalized oppression) include EVERY stigma: race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.