Dragon Initiation — A Hybrid Retreat in Asheville, NC

Initiation

A transformational path for people ready to face their shadows, meet their edges, and emerge with deeper power, intimacy, and aliveness.

Foundations Training

Begins
August 11

In-Person Retreat

Sept 10 – 14, 2026

Asheville, NC

Integration

Following the
Retreat

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The Offering

Step into the hall of mirrors.

Your blind spots don't just affect you.

They shape every relationship you have.

Most people will never tell you what they actually experience with you.

Dragon Initiation is an invitation into a culture where honesty is an act of love.

Our Practices

Shadow Work

Face the parts of you that bite, seduce, hoard, and betray — the carnal indecency of your relationship to the taboo: power, desire, and sex. Step into the dojo — your old patterns are about to be broken.

Presented ByGambo Dojo

Edge Work

Enter what you normally avoid. Through relational risk, attuned expression, embodied scenes, board breaking, emotional intensity, and new choices, you meet the places where the old self usually takes over.

Presented ByDragon Academy

Field Work

Let the group become the vessel. Through improvised emergence, collective intelligence, surrender, synchronicity, embodiment, and relational practice, the field reveals what wants to transform.

Presented ByImmersive Fields

Participants in joyful connection at a past retreat

Essential Details

Foundations Training Calls: Begins August 11
In-Person Retreat: Sept 10–14, 2026 in Asheville, NC
Integration: TBA after completion of in-person retreat

Learn about Foundations Training Learn about Dragon Initiation Retreat

This Is For You If

You are done repeating old relational, emotional, patriarchal leadership patterns.
You feel a bigger part of you emerging.
You want embodied transformation, not just a pony ride.
You want a community of collaborative edge workers to support your deepest desires.
You want to explore shadow work, edge work & field work held inside one powerful container.

Retreat Glimpses

Participants in a high-energy partnered shadow work exercise

Participants in intimate face-to-face group dialogue inside the retreat lodge

Voices From The Container

What Initiates Say

This is the place that I've always felt HAD to exist even though I didn't know what I was looking for. And now that it's here I'm like… “This is it! This is what I knew in my heart had to exist!” This place of acceptance, and growth, and cultivation of genuine, genuine love in the unconditional form. I am so fucking inspired.

— Sabrina

It was 110% worth the investment. I was so afraid to take the leap. I am so so grateful I listened to my intuition over fear on this one.

— Jamie

I'm really appreciative of how this space really brought a balance of being facilitated and then really giving us our agency to create the experiences that we're wanting.

— Neil

A lot of times I'll come into a space, assess the scene and ask “is it safe?” In this space I just loved how I could shed layers and show up with different flavors and you all are like: “Yeah I like that flavor! Bring it! Yeah!”

— Chris

I want to say this with so much force: you are changing the world. You are changing the world. You are changing the world. We are changing the world! This was some juicy-ass fertilizer for growing. Thank you.

— Mariah

Every time people extended warmth they surprised me. I feel like each one of you showed up with intentional kindness. No really… every single one of you. That's crazy. Over the past few days you showed me kindness in a way that was unexpected and so moving. I'm really excited for all of us to see where we go, and I feel a lot of love.

— Jastyne

Who Holds The Fire

Your Facilitators

Five facilitators with decades of combined experience in embodiment, relational work, and transformational leadership.

Ali Williams

Founder, Dragon Academy

Ali Williams is the founder of Dragon Academy, a relational gym where people train the skills required for intimacy, conflict, and leadership. Her work integrates nervous system literacy, relational dynamics, instinct, power, and embodied truth into practical experiences.

A former Olympic-level synchronized swimmer and UCLA-trained leadership coach, Ali has spent the last decade building transformational communities, retreats, and immersive trainings, including Hawaii Tantra Festival and REVEL.

Ali is known for her ability to hold intensity without losing clarity. She helps people stay with what is happening inside themselves long enough for reactivity to become choice.

Aurora Kai Sunrise

Co-Founder, Immersive Fields

Aurora Kai Sunrise is a Co-Founder of Immersive Fields, a Creative Embodiment Coach, Sound Healer, and facilitator of relational edge work. With roots in Quebec, Massachusetts, and the Hawaiian Islands, she brings more than two decades of practice in sound, movement, stillness, and human connection.

Aurora creates spaces where people meet the hidden patterns shaping how they relate, express power, and move toward intimacy. Her work invites participants past performance and self-concept into honest contact with the body and the shadow.

Aurora is known for meeting what is uncomfortable with warmth and precision. She calls people into self-responsibility, embodied truth, and authentic power, rooted in reverence for the land and sea of Hawai‘i.

Axios Papaflessas

Co-Founder, Immersive Fields

Axios Papaflessas is the Co-Founder of Immersive Fields, a systemic group practice that helps people access the intelligence emerging between them. Through embodied exploration, honest relationship, and collective inquiry, he creates conditions where participants can give voice to what has remained unsaid, encounter hidden relational dynamics, and serve a purpose larger than the individual self.

As a Therapeutic Coach and Professional Facilitator, Axios brings more than two decades of study, training, and practice across therapeutic modalities, intimacy work, embodiment, and the improvisational arts.

His work combines a radically honest heart with a clear and empowering edge. He invites people to feel more deeply, reveal what is true, and stand taller in the power that is already theirs.

Jehaan Rehman

Founder of Embodied Edge

Jehaan Rehman is the founder of Embodied Edge and a sex and relationship coach. She brings ten years of experience in strategy consulting, leadership, and facilitation to the work of intimacy.

Through a blend of somatic practice and experiential facilitation, she guides participants beyond insight and into lasting, embodied transformation. Her rooms are built for people who want change they can feel in the body, not just understand.

Her work explores desire, boundaries, shame, communication, and relational mastery. She meets people where they are and asks for more from life, love, sex, and connection.

Courtney Babbidge

Advisor, Founder of Gambo Dojo

Courtney is a facilitator who holds a provocative pole in relational edgework.

She guides people into the body's unspoken truths, helping them dismantle social masks and encounter the deeper forces shaping their relationships, choices, and sense of self. Her work opens doorways into the underworld of instinct, desire, fear, grief, and power, creating opportunities for profound honesty and transformation.

Nearly two decades of ministry, leadership, and retreat facilitation have shaped her capacity to sit with intensity without flinching and meet whatever rises with grounded presence and unwavering attention.

The Threshold

Call To Action

Path One

Claim Your Place

For those who already feel the yes.

Use this path if

You know you want to be there.
You are ready to claim your place.
You want to begin the initiation now.
You are prepared to make a financial commitment.

Secure My Spot

Path Two

Schedule a Call

For those who feel the call, but want to connect first.

Use this path if

You have questions.
You want relational clarity.
You want to feel whether this is the right container.
You want to speak with the team before committing.

The gate is open. The next step is yours.