Come Home to Your Original Alignment for Symmetry, Strength, Well Being
January 16, 17, 18 2026
Join us for a transformational journey to restore balance and alignment.
Rediscover the vitality, freedom, and balance your body was designed to enjoy. Join us for a rejuvenating weekend retreat designed for people who want to move with ease, release tension, and feel strong, centered, and confident.
Register for the Retreat!
Spaces are Limited
- Deposit to reserve a spot at the retreat - $200
- Full Early Bird Tuition - $990 (Pricing good until October 16, 2025)
- Remainder-Early Tuition (if deposit paid) - $790 due October 16, 2025
- Full Tuition - $1,250 is applicable from October 17, 2025 until sold out.
- Remainder-Full Tuition (if deposit paid) - $1,050 is applicable from October 17, 2025 until sold out.
- Commuter Full Tuition - $834
- Commuter Full Tuition (if deposit paid) - $634
About the Retreat
Step away from the rush of daily life and immerse yourself in a transformational experience that will help you restore your body’s natural alignment, improve posture, and unlock your full vitality. Guided by world-class senior instructors, you’ll receive personalized attention, gentle hands-on guidance, and practical techniques you can use for life.
Set in the serene surroundings of Vallombrosa Retreat Center in Menlo Park, CA, this all-inclusive retreat features:
• 13 hours of uplifting classes
• Comfortable accommodations
• Three nourishing meals daily
• A supportive, like-minded community
Meet Your Instructors
Special Guest – Thea Sawyer
Finding your center using the breath as a guide
Like gravity, the breath is a force of nature. You cannot force, fake or fabricate it. But you can follow its path. When you do, it becomes a guide to inner stability and grounding.
Thea will let you experience full body breathing to stabilize you while sitting for work or watching TV, standing or walking.
Thea’s book Put Your Back at Ease is available on Amazon and her translation along with Catharine Vedrine of Noelle Perez’s book Living on the Axis is available here.
Jean Couch:
I didn’t need a Stanford MA in Education to get me teaching. I started teaching dance at 14. Soon after starting yoga classes, I was teaching yoga at the YMCA. After doing Continuum for a year or so I was passing on this deep physical exploration to my yoga students. My passion was for all things physical, but in my heart of hearts I knew I hadn’t found the essence yet. When I was introduced to Aplomb in 1988, every cell in my body informed me that I had found my life’s work. That led to the Balance Center, 1992 – 2017, where I have had the honor to teach thousands of students and teachers the basics of Aplomb. My work continues to this day, teaching in person and on the internet, to anyone who wants the freedom of being centered physically.
Janet Cook: Everyone in my yoga class loved Savasana…. except me! I hated it. Due to a hidden scoliosis, it was impossible to get comfortable. One day my yoga teacher handed out a flier for an intro class at Jean Couch’s Balance Center. After experiencing sitting in Balance and being exposed to the logic of Aplomb I knew I was hooked. I joined the teacher class and have been teaching since 2004. Over the years I attended seminars with Noelle Perez and the French teachers. My body has changed dramatically: neck straighter, back muscles more balanced, scoliosis reduced significantly, shoulders back and settled down, hips more even, bunions nearly disappeared, and a sense of peace has come to my body… all due to the practice of Balance.
What You'll Experience
- Simple, powerful alignment techniques you can use every day
- Gentle, hands-on adjustments and personalized feedback
- Strategies to strengthen spinal health and release tension
- A deeper awareness of how your body moves and feels
- Renewed stability, confidence, and vitality
- Lifelong friendships and community support
What You'll Take Home
- How to sense your body.
- How to make sense of your body.
- Individual know-how for symmetry.
- Where to strengthen spinal health.
- How to center yourself.
- Grounding that energizes and leaves you stable on your feet.
- A greater ability to be aware.
- Community support for on-going practice.
Retreat Schedule of Events
Friday
4:00 PM – Sign-in
6:00 PM – Dinner
7:15 – 8:30 PM
- Welcome & Introductions
- Sitting Guidelines with Individual Check-In
- PowerPoint Overview: Original Alignment
Saturday
8:00 AM – Breakfast
9:00 – 9:50 AM
- Guidelines
- Getting onto the floor
- Lying on back with individual check-ins
- Getting up from the floor
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM (with 15-minute break)
- Special Guest Teacher: Thea Sawyer – Breathing
12:00 PM – Lunch
- 1:10 PM
Afternoon 50-minute classes (groups of 9 students) - Climbing stairs and walking
- Anatomy and awareness
- Upper spine, neck, and head
4:00 – 4:50 PM
- Standing and bending with individual check-ins
6:00 PM – Dinner
7:15 – 8:30 PM
- How to sit to watch TV (with individual check-ins)
- PowerPoint: Contrasts / In and Out of Alignment
Sunday
8:00 AM – Breakfast
9:00 – 9:50 AM
- Exploring Your Individual Imbalances / Asymmetries
10:00 – 10:50 AM
- Stretches That Address Asymmetries
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
- Session (topic to be determined or continuing practice)
12:00 PM – Lunch
3:00 PM – Check Out, Say our Good Byes until the next retreat.
About Balance
Posture is learned. Every child on the earth is in Balance until the age of 3. After the age of 3, children begin to imitate the postures of the people around them. If a person lives in a culture where the adults are Balanced, then that person grows up in Balance. However, in modern cultures, most people are out of Balance. Posture is a cultural phenomena.
The Physics of Flesh and Bone.
Up until 1920, most people on the planet were in Balance.
In the 1920’s, there was a shift in the fashion of posture when the flappers ushered in a new trendy way to stand, sit and move. They moved the pelvis forward, uncentering it. This caused the spine to lean backwards, in compensation the head and shoulders moved forward, causing imbalances throughout the body.
You are designed to be friction-free. However, when the pelvis is off-center, every joint compensates and is off center. This causes friction in the joints and is the wear and tear that is the underlying cause of premature aging, joint and back pain. So, when you realign and recenter the body, underlying wear and tear dissolves. You experience pain relief and soon regain your strength and vitality.
Even if you’re not in pain, balance optimizes performance because it makes everything efficient and easier, in daily life and athletically and artistically.
Living on the Axis
This woman is Noëlle Perez-Christiaens, the founder of Aplomb. The Balance Center is based on her teachings. Her wonderful book can be purchased here.
Cancellation Policy
A $200 deposit is required to reserve your spot at the retreat.
The deposit is refundable before October 16, 2025, with a $25 handling fee deducted.
Early Bird
- On October 17, 2025, if you haven’t paid early bird tuition in full, you will forfeit your reservation and $200.
- Up until November 15, 2025, the early bird tuition fee of $990 minus $100 administrative fee is refundable.
- From November 16, 2025 until the retreat, there will be no refunds issued for early bird tuition.
Full Tuition - $1,250 is applicable from October 17, 2025 until sold out.
Full Tuition
- There is a refund of full tuition minus a $100 administrative fee if requested by November 17, 2025.
- There will be a 50% refund of full tuition if requested by December 17, 2025.
- From December 18, 2025 until the retreat, there will be no refunds for full tuition.
Waiting List
- If you pay $200 for being on the waiting list and you don’t attend the workshop, we will refund the $200 in full by January 23, 2026.
Your body was designed for ease.
Let’s bring you back home to it.
