RITUAL BREATHWORK
RITUAL BREATHWORK SCHOOL
THREE LEVELS OF TRAINING
Ritual Breathwork School offers three levels of training: Somatic Breathwork Instructor, Somatic Breathwork Facilitator, and Advanced Breathwork Facilitator. Begin where you are and go as deep as you are called, with every level grounded in nervous system science, embodiment, and sacred ceremony.
THREE LEVELS OF TRAINING
Begin as a Somatic Breathwork Instructor leading group classes in the studios you already serve, become a certified Somatic Breathwork Facilitator for private and small group work, or go deeper as an Advanced Breathwork Facilitator.
For Yoga + Fitness Instructors
Learn to lead a safe, powerful 60 minute breathwork class in the studio communities you already serve.
FOR THERAPISTS, COACHES + HEALERS
Become a certified facilitator for private and small group sessions through an immersive three day intensive.
For Practicing Facilitators · Coming Soon
An advanced training retreat for facilitators ready to go deeper. No certification required.
Every training level includes the Ritual Breathwork Facilitator Training Manual and Session Guidebook, lifetime access to our online training library of resources and tools to deepen your practice, weekly virtual breathwork sessions, and a supportive community of Ritual Breathwork student facilitators cheering you on.
WHY THIS WORK MATTERS
When a nervous system organizes around survival, it keeps responding to a threat that isn't actually in the room anymore. That's not dysfunction, that's a system doing its job a little too well. These patterns are intelligence, not proof that something's broken.
Insight alone doesn't retrain a system that's been bracing for years. That happens in the body, not just the thinking mind.
Ritual Breathwork gives the body a direct, repeated experience of moving through activation and back into connection, until the energy once spent bracing becomes available again: for creativity, intimacy, purpose, and the possibilities protection couldn't yet see.
THE RITUAL BREATHWORK DIFFERENCE
We're training you to create the conditions for clients to finally feel safe enough to actually feel their feelings.
Ritual Breathwork does not blast people out of their bodies or treat vulnerability as marketing material. You will learn to listen before you lead, work with the nervous system instead of overriding it, and support each client in building the capacity to feel, connect, and expand at a pace their body can actually hold.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
At every level, you'll learn a proven methodology and build the confidence to lead the full arc of an experience, from opening intention through integration. Instructors learn to lead a complete group class. Facilitators go further into private and small group sessions.
Build foundational literacy around activation, shutdown, capacity, and consent so you can begin meeting clients with more care and choice.
Create a safe, respectful container using titration, pendulation, co regulation, choice, and clear boundaries.
Guide activation and restorative breathing, intentional holds, movement, sound, meditation, and integration.
Work with intention, music, ritual, and presence to make each session meaningful without manufacturing intensity.
Learn verbal cueing, ethical and consent based touch, contraindications, intake, and integration practices.
Learn to structure and guide private sessions, groups, workshops, ceremonies, and retreat experiences.
Learn in community. Practice in real time. Leave knowing how to meet the room that is actually in front of you.
IN THEIR WORDS
I travelled from Canada to Ojai for Kali's Ritual Breathwork Practitioner Training, and it was beyond worth it. She delivers the somatic fundamentals necessary for safety in this modality while expanding the experience into the energetic and spiritual levels that help unite the mind, body, and spirit.
I have experienced and studied many forms of breathwork, from Wim Hof to deep four-hour immersive sessions, but Kali May's Ritual Breathwork training stands in a class of its own. This training is nothing short of phenomenal. It beautifully weaves together the power of the breath with ceremony, sacred intention, and grounded facilitation.
Kali's pure-hearted intentions come through. What moved me most was how beautifully she holds this training as ceremony, opening space for the deep healing energy and expansion of all her students. I'm so glad I answered the call.
Kali's Breathwork Training is a deeply spiritual and emotional journey that feels like a sacred reunion with your true and purest self. Her Ritual Breathwork gently peels back the layers, allowing profound healing, release, and remembrance. Held in a space of trust and intention, this training is a powerful return to the heart.
I left training feeling confident in my ability to lead a breathwork journey. Kali provided, above and beyond, the tools needed to be successful. The container felt so safe and welcoming that it allowed all of us to fully share ourselves. The support from Kali and the group was amazing.
I'm a mother of two who works in mental health as a private practice therapist. Kali and Ritual Breathwork has changed my life, my experience as a mother, my experience as a woman and my practice as a mental health clinician. I highly recommend this training!
LEVEL ONE · THE TWO DAY INSTRUCTOR INTENSIVE
Two immersive days to learn the Ritual Breathwork Method and lead a safe, powerful 60 minute breathwork class in the studio communities you already serve.
You will experience the practice in your own body, learn the architecture behind it, and practice guiding it with direct feedback. This is a focused training for public group classes, workshops, and retreats, designed for yoga teachers, Pilates instructors, and group fitness coaches who want a meaningful new modality to add to their schedule.
The method, the arc of upregulation and downregulation, safety, screening, contraindications, and scope of practice.
Leading the full class: opening the room, cueing each phase, pacing music and breath, integration, and guided practice with feedback.
LEVEL TWO · THE THREE DAY FACILITATOR INTENSIVE
This is an immersive training intensive built on a simple truth: you cannot guide someone somewhere you are unwilling to go yourself.
You will move between nervous system education, facilitated journeys, live demonstration, partner practice, group reflection, ceremony, and hands on coaching. The room becomes the laboratory, and your own body becomes part of how you learn.
Foundations, safety, nervous system science, and experiencing the method.
Session architecture, cueing, consent, touch, music, ritual, and practice.
Facilitation, integration, professional preparation, and live application.
FACILITATOR TRAINING INCLUDES
WHO THIS IS FOR
Ritual Breathwork School is for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, Pilates instructors, group fitness coaches, bodyworkers, retreat leaders, energy workers, wellness professionals, and humans who feel called to hold transformational space. Movement teachers often begin as Instructors. Those called to private and small group work choose the Facilitator path. No previous professional breathwork experience is required. Curiosity, integrity, and a willingness to participate fully are.
CERTIFICATION + PRACTICUM
After completing the 3 Day Facilitator Intensive, you will guide six practicum sessions and submit reflections and session materials for review. This is where what you learned becomes embodied, responsive, and unmistakably your own.
Once you have completed the training, practicum, and certification requirements, you will be recognized as a Somatic Breathwork Facilitator through Ritual Breathwork School.
You will continue to have access to weekly practice, learning resources, and community support as your confidence grows.
THE EXPANSION LAB™
Being exceptional at the work and knowing how to make a living from it are two completely different skill sets.
You may know how to create safety, guide transformation, and stay present with a client, then freeze when it is time to explain what you do, choose a price, make an offer, show up online, or build the systems that keep your work moving.
The Expansion Lab gives you focused strategy for what to build next, then helps you uncover the protection, patterns, and hidden payoff that can keep you planning, preparing, and procrastinating instead of launching. Six focused program movements, a growing Practice Lab, and twelve months of live support help you turn insight into action.
Bring your business as it is. I'll bring mine. We'll build what comes next together. $597 · Coming soon.
Join the WaitlistFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
There is no gold star for choosing the most intensive option. The right pathway is the one that fits how you learn and how you want to hold this work.
Level one, the Somatic Breathwork Instructor Training, is a two day intensive for yoga teachers, Pilates instructors, and group fitness coaches. You learn to lead the Ritual Breathwork Method as a structured public group class, workshop, or retreat offering. It is not a facilitator certification or a training in private, one-to-one breathwork.
Level two, the 3 Day Facilitator Intensive, is the certification pathway for becoming a Somatic Breathwork Facilitator. Ritual Breathwork Facilitators complete the intensive, six practicum sessions, and certification review, and go deeper into individualized support, trauma-aware attunement, integration, and holding more complex transformational experiences.
The Advanced Breathwork Facilitator training retreat is coming soon for facilitators ready to go deeper. Join the list to hear first when enrollment opens.
This is an immersive training—not a weekend of sitting through slides. You’ll learn through teaching, demonstration, receiving the work in your own body, supervised facilitation practice, observation, feedback, and integration.
The training covers:
You will experience the work from both sides of the room because we don’t believe you can responsibly take someone somewhere you have never been willing to meet yourself.
Ritual Breathwork School is designed for therapists, coaches, yoga teachers, bodyworkers, healers, retreat leaders, wellness professionals, and people who feel called to hold meaningful, body-based spaces for others.
You may be brand new to facilitation, or you may have been holding space for years and know there is another level of safety, depth, and integrity you’re ready to bring into the room.
This training is not for anyone looking for a quick certificate without the responsibility that comes after it.
We don’t teach facilitators to push people past their edge, chase the biggest release in the room, diagnose what is happening, or take over someone else’s process.
Students must be willing to practice consent, respect a participant’s choice to pause or stop, receive feedback, complete the required practicum, work within their professional scope, and recognize when someone needs support beyond what breathwork can provide.
This program is also not intended to function as treatment during an acute physical or mental health crisis.
There are no formal professional prerequisites, but all students must be at least 18 years old.
We strongly recommend experiencing Ritual Breathwork as a participant before beginning facilitator training. There is a world of difference between understanding a breath pattern intellectually and knowing how it feels in your own body.
After registering, you’ll receive lifetime access to the online training library, including preparatory materials, readings, and exercises to review before the live training begins.
Not every part of it.
Restorative breathing can often be adapted to meet different bodies and nervous systems, but the more activating breath patterns and optional breath holds taught within the method are not appropriate for everyone.
Please consult a qualified healthcare provider before participating in the activating portions if you are pregnant or may be pregnant, or if you have:
Please contact us before enrolling if you have a history of panic attacks, severe dissociation, psychosis, mania, recent psychiatric hospitalization, or significant psychiatric instability. Ritual Breathwork is not appropriate during an acute psychiatric crisis, active psychosis or mania, or when there is an immediate risk of harm to yourself or someone else.
Written medical clearance is not required, but consulting the healthcare professional who knows your history is strongly recommended. Never discontinue medication to participate in breathwork.
Having a contraindication does not automatically prevent you from completing the training. Depending on your circumstances, modifications may include restorative breathing, omitting breath holds, or observing certain practices. Please contact us before enrolling so we can determine whether the training can be completed safely and meaningfully.
It means the person breathing remains in the driver’s seat.
We teach facilitators to work with choice, consent, pacing, titration, pendulation, co-regulation, and integration. Intensity is never treated as proof that the work is effective.
Students learn to recognize when a nervous system is approaching its edge and how to respond without pushing, rescuing, diagnosing, or shutting down the process. Sometimes the most powerful thing a facilitator can do is slow down, stay present, and let the body lead.
No. Hands-on support is always optional.
Consent must be specific, informed, and ongoing. Agreeing to one form of touch does not mean agreeing to all touch, and you may change your mind at any time.
Students learn how to ask for consent clearly and how to facilitate effectively without touch. No one needs to override their own boundaries in order to learn how to honor someone else’s.
Certification is not issued automatically at the end of the live training.
To become a certified Ritual Breathwork Facilitator, students must:
If more development is needed, a student may be asked to complete additional practice or mentoring before certification is issued. Our goal isn’t simply to hand out certificates. It’s to make sure the people carrying this work are prepared to hold it responsibly.
Certification recognizes that you have completed the Ritual Breathwork curriculum and demonstrated the required facilitation competencies.
It is a private professional credential, not a state-issued healthcare or mental health license. It does not authorize you to diagnose or treat medical or psychiatric conditions, provide psychotherapy without the appropriate license, or work outside your existing professional scope.
Before facilitating independently, graduates are responsible for understanding the laws where they live, obtaining appropriate professional liability insurance, and using responsible intake, consent, emergency, documentation, and referral procedures.
The Studio Intensive takes place over three full days from Friday through Sunday. The Somatic Breathwork Instructor Training takes place over two days, November 14–15, 2026, in Ventura, California. Dates for the Advanced Facilitator Training Retreat will be announced soon.
Studio training days require in-person participation. Because experiential practice cannot always be recreated through a recording, missed studio time will be handled individually and may need to be completed during a future training.
A detailed schedule will be provided before the program begins.
You’ll receive lifetime access to the online training library, course materials, and available session recordings. You can return to the curriculum as your practice grows and revisit the foundations whenever you need them.
After the training, facilitators also receive ongoing access to:
You may be the one holding the room now, but that doesn’t mean you should have to hold everything alone.
Please bring comfortable clothing, a refillable water bottle, a journal, layers, lunch and snacks, and any personal grounding item that helps you feel supported.
Yoga mats, bolsters, blankets, eye masks, and training materials are provided.
Lodging, transportation, and meals are not included in tuition. Upon request, we can provide a list of nearby hotels, vacation rentals, restaurants, and grocery options.
Yes. We want students to be able to participate as fully and safely as possible.
If you have mobility, sensory, disability-related, dietary, technological, or other access needs, please contact us before enrolling or as early as possible before the training. We will work with you to explore reasonable accommodations while ensuring the essential experiential and certification requirements can be completed.
Cancellations received at least 14 calendar days before the program start date are eligible for a refund of tuition paid, minus a $150 administrative fee.
Cancellations received fewer than 14 days before the program begins are non-refundable. No refunds are issued after the training has started, including for withdrawals or missed sessions.
Requests to transfer to a future training must be received at least 30 days before the original program start date. Approved transfers are subject to availability and a $75 transfer fee.
Extenuating circumstances may be reviewed individually, but exceptions are rare and are not guaranteed.
THE FIRST RITUAL BREATHWORK TRAINING COHORT
Every cohort becomes a living part of the school: a room of people learning to trust themselves, support one another, and carry this work forward with care.
Find your training levelThe breath is the bridge. You're learning how to guide the crossing, one nervous system at a time, starting with your own.
