Kun Academy · in-person retreats led by Samer Hassan, ICF MCC

A journey that returns you to yourself.

Ihya — revival — is Kun's family of in-person retreats, led by Samer Hassan and built on Somatic Thinking™. We don't promise to change you. We help you come back to what you already knew the day you were truly present.

“When you feel you have lost yourself, the journey of revival begins.”

You don't need a new life so much as you need to live your life anew. So we step out of the noise — small circles, in nature, a few days that are lived, not explained — until the body listens again, the self settles, and the mind returns to its place as a partner, not a master.

Find the retreat that calls you ↓Register for the next retreat

Led personally by Samer Hassan, ICF MCC · built on Somatic Thinking™ · small circles, in nature (Egypt · the Gulf · Europe).

A lone figure at first light on a desert ridge, warm gold dawn ahead — “the return.”

The one story

Six retreats. One story: a human remembering themselves after a long absence.

Ihya is not a workshop, a lecture, or a course — and it is not a vacation. It is an opportunity to remember. Each retreat is a chapter of the same arc, and the arc is simple:

1Reviving the Self 2Reviving the Body 3Reviving Connection 4Reviving Innovation 5Reviving Impact 6The Grand Journey

When you reconcile with your body, your self heals. When the inside quiets, your connections clarify. And from there, your impact begins.

That is the whole map: it begins from the body, extends to the self, then to the people around you (connection), then to your work (impact), reaching your creativity (innovation) — until the circle completes in the Grand Journey.

You don't have to walk all of it. It's enough to begin from the door that calls you now — each station opens to the next on its own.

Who comes to Ihya.

People who feel the days passing while they run on preservation, not presence — “I'm not broken, but something in me has gone very quiet.” Professionals, creatives, leaders, parents. Most come alone, and leave among people. No fitness required — the work is awareness, not exertion. And it meets you from inside your own beliefs and values, never against them.

The method behind it

Learning that is lived, not explained.

We don't hand you concepts to take notes on; we design an environment your senses can't ignore. It runs on Somatic Thinking™ — working with thoughts, bodily sensations, and behaviour together until awareness rises — sharpened by sensory acuity (الإرهاف الحسّي), and carried by Sensory Engineering: the light, sound, texture, movement, food, and silence of each day shaped on purpose, from waking to sleep. You work in a conscious circle — somatic group coaching, intentional silence, conscious movement — so the change isn't a handout you carry home, but a shift in how you are.

This comes from a tradition that never split the body from the self. Lived practice leads; science (embodied cognition, interoception) and a deep heritage stand as corroborating witnesses, never the borrowed authority.

The six doorways

Begin where it calls you. Stack them in any order. The whole circle comes last. Each retreat is complete in itself — residential, in nature, in a small circle, with its own focus and its own people. Take one, or stack several in any order over time; everything compounds. The seventh, the Grand Journey, gathers them all — and it's the one retreat that asks you to have lived at least one revival retreat first.

Plain names and the feeling each opens — no prices here; each retreat's own page carries dates and fees once they're set.

Two ways in. Same six doors.

Come to be revived — to set the weight down and come back to yourself. Or come to work on something specific — your body, your bonds, your ideas, your impact. Either way you begin at the same six doors below; each one holds both. (Each card shows both: Restore & Recover — what you set down · Work on — the focus you pick up.)

Show me by:

Restore & Recoverset the noise down

Working onstillness & clearer decisions

Duration~3 days · a long weekend (Thursday arrival → Sunday)

FormatResidential, full board · Egypt, the Gulf, or Europe

PrerequisiteNo prerequisite · the gentlest doorway

1Door

Reviving the Self

Refine the interior. Reclaim your stillness.

The most accessible doorway. For the high-functioning person whose engine is still running but whose inside has gone quiet — living on preservation energy, not presence. Over a long weekend we go inward to clear the draining habits and the noise, and rediscover that simplicity is a kind of rest, and that silence, when you listen to it, is medicine. You leave carrying something hard to describe, but unmistakable in how you are with others.

Who it's for

Anyone who senses “I'm not broken — but something in me has gone very quiet.” Professionals, leaders, creatives, parents — especially those who've absorbed the culture that confuses rest with laziness.

What you'll live

Somatic Thinking™ practice in an immersive container.
A rhythm unlike ordinary life.
Conscious silence and stillness.
A small circle that grows real over a few days.

Outcomes

A calmer relationship with your thoughts and feelings.
The ability to stop instead of deplete.
An inner clarity that shows up in your daily decisions.

Not psychotherapy — an educational awareness experience; no diagnosis, no treatment.

Upcoming — register your interest and we’ll reach you when the next circle opens.

Restore & Recovercome home to your body

Working onpresence you can feel

Duration4 days / 3 nights

FormatResidential, full board · Egypt, the Gulf, or Europe

PrerequisiteNo physical fitness required

2Door

Reviving the Body

Reconnect with your body, so you can hear yourself again.

When your body walks one road and your mind another, the signal between them goes faint. Over four days we rebuild that relationship — learning to listen to the fine signals of movement, waking up sensory acuity (الإرهاف الحسّي) so presence returns to ordinary moments. My own journey revealed that the body shapes thought — it is not a vessel for it. No physical fitness required — the retreat rests on bodily awareness, not exertion.

Who it's for

Anyone living from the neck up, out of touch with the body's quiet intelligence — and anyone who wants presence they can feel, not just understand.

What you'll live

Somatic Thinking™ exercises.
Sensory Engineering (light, sound, texture, movement designed from waking to sleep).
Somatic group-coaching sessions, silence and meditation.
Sunrise walks, conscious eating, fireside companionship · a letter to yourself, thirty days on.

Outcomes

A harmonious body–mind relationship built on listening, not control.
Sensory acuity as a daily skill.
Balance restored from deep bodily awareness · your natural rhythm, found again. (A follow-up circle meets ~two weeks after you return.)

Not psychotherapy — an educational awareness experience; no diagnosis, no treatment.

Upcoming — register your interest and we’ll reach you when the next circle opens.

Restore & Recoversoften, reconnect

Working onyour relationships

Duration3 days

FormatResidential, full board

PrerequisiteNo prerequisite

3Door

Reviving Connection

Connect from awareness, not from need.

We learn the art of real communication and living listening — how to be present in a relationship without losing yourself in it, and how to build companionship that grows from awareness rather than from need.

Who it's for

Anyone who wants deeper, cleaner relationships — with a partner, family, friends, colleagues — and who suspects the problem isn't technique but presence.

What you'll live

Somatic Thinking™ in relationship.
Living listening and conscious dialogue.
Boundaries that connect rather than wall off.
A circle that models the thing it teaches.

Outcomes

Presence that holds in the company of others.
Connection without self-erasure.
Relationships built on awareness, not need.

Upcoming — register your interest and we’ll reach you when the next circle opens.

Restore & Recoverunclench, breathe

Working onyour creative spring

Duration3 days

FormatResidential, full board

PrerequisiteNo prerequisite

4Door

Reviving Innovation

Leave the fear. Let the idea come.

Creativity rarely dies for lack of talent; it goes quiet under fear. Here we free the imagination from that fear and use Somatic Thinking™ as a path to renewal — expressing ourselves in new ways without losing our roots.

Who it's for

Makers, founders, writers, leaders — anyone whose creative spring has gone dry under pressure, deadlines, or self-doubt.

What you'll live

Somatic Thinking™ as a tool for creation.
Play and experiment in a safe circle.
Presence as the soil creativity actually grows in.

Outcomes

Imagination unhooked from fear.
A renewed, embodied way of making.
Expression that's new and rooted.

Upcoming — register your interest and we’ll reach you when the next circle opens.

Restore & Recoverstep off the treadmill

Working onyour work & leadership

Duration3 days

FormatResidential, full board

PrerequisiteNo prerequisite

5Door

Reviving Impact

Make your work look like you.

We revisit what work is for, and reconnect it to intention. We balance aims with outcomes and discover that real impact begins from a clean intention, not from noisy achievement — work that finally looks like you.

Who it's for

Leaders and professionals running on output who want their effort to mean something — purpose and presence brought to the work itself.

What you'll live

Somatic Thinking™ applied to work and leadership.
Realigning effort with intention.
Presence as the source of durable impact, not pressure.

Outcomes

Work reconnected to meaning.
Impact that lasts because it's clean.
Leadership grown from presence, not force.

Upcoming — register your interest and we’ll reach you when the next circle opens.

Restore & Recoverthe whole circle

Working onbody, self, connection & impact, woven

Duration7 days · in nature · the flagship

FormatResidential, in nature

PrerequisitePrerequisite: at least one revival retreat

6Door✦ Capstone

The Grand Journey

Seven days in nature — until you return whole.

The capstone that gathers everything before it: seven days in nature where body, self, relationships, and work meet in a single harmony. It is not the end of the road — it is its new beginning. Open to anyone who has already lived at least one of the revival retreats — the Grand Journey weaves together what they began.

Who it's for

Those who've walked at least one revival retreat and are ready to give the work the time it deserves — the full circle, in one immersion.

What you'll live

Every thread of Ihya, woven together.
Deep Somatic Thinking™ practice.
Sustained silence, movement, and circle in nature.
Integration that holds after you leave.

Outcomes

Body, self, connection, and impact in one rhythm.
A return that lasts.
The new beginning, not the finish line.

Upcoming — register your interest and we’ll reach you when the next circle opens.

Before you arrive

What a Kun retreat is — and isn't

So you arrive with the right expectation.

Not a workshop or a course.

No slides to survive, no notes to file. The learning is lived.

Not therapy.

An educational awareness experience — no diagnosis, no treatment. If you need clinical care, we'll say so honestly.

Not a vacation.

Rest, yes — but rest with a direction: a return, not an escape.

Not a performance.

No fitness, no prior Somatic Thinking, nothing to prove. You come as you are.

What it is: a small circle, in nature, where an environment is designed for your senses and a few honest days return you to yourself.

The Companionship

And around all of it — a home. The Companionship.

Most people arrive at Ihya alone. Almost no one leaves that way. When the retreat ends you don't simply go home — you join the Companionship (صحبة كُن): a living, worldwide community built on the same values we grow in every circle, where people work, play, and grow together. The return continues among your people.

Proof & credibility

Retreats led by the founder — with the track record behind them.

1000+

people trained

15+

countries

1M+

lives touched

500K+

sessions

The Founder

Samer Hassan

Samer Hassan, ICF MCC — the highest credential in coaching. 15+ years of professional practice; 30+ years of martial and healing arts; creator of Somatic Thinking™, co-author of Coaching Presence (McGraw-Hill / Open University Press, 2021). He leads every Ihya retreat himself.

Moments from the retreats

Moments from the retreats.

Small circles, in nature — as they're lived.

▶ Video

Dawn in the open

Showing

FAQ

No. It's an educational awareness experience — no diagnosis, no treatment. It's built to return you to your own presence and clarity, not to clinically treat a condition. If clinical care is what you need, we'll tell you honestly.

No to both. The retreats rest on awareness, not exertion, and they're built for beginners. You come exactly as you are.

Yes — most people do. You arrive alone and leave among people; the circle, and the Companionship after it, are part of the work.

Begin from the door that calls you now — most people start with Reviving the Self (the gentlest entry) or Reviving the Body. Each retreat is complete in itself, and you can stack them in any order. The Grand Journey is the capstone — it asks you to have lived at least one revival retreat first.

No. Ihya is open to everyone, of any background or belief, and it meets you from inside your own values, never against them. It draws on a deep human heritage and a faith of gratitude and presence — but it asks nothing of your creed.

In nature, in Egypt, the Gulf, and Europe (with more locations opening), in small circles. Each retreat opens for registration of interest first; dates and fees are confirmed per venue and shown on that retreat's own page. Register your interest and we'll reach you when the next circle opens.

Somatic Thinking™ is Samer Hassan's methodology, and it is the ground under all of Ihya: we work with thoughts, bodily sensations, and behaviour together until awareness rises — not concepts to memorise, but awareness that is lived. To understand it from the ground up, start with the first article in our series.

“What Is Somatic Thinking?” — read the article →