A weekend that feels like a week
Some things need more than a day. More room. More time to land, to open, and to really sink in.
What this weekend brings you is an immersion that reaches deeper than a single day can, and the room to open layer by layer, in which everything is allowed to be seen without judgement.
What Untie Me is
Untie Me is a tantra retreat weekend with surrender as its central theme. We work with breath, touch, voice, play and rope. Shibari, the Japanese rope art, is one of the roads we use to bring you out of your head and back into your body. The rope gives structure so that you can let go. The weekend is bigger than the rope alone: it is a full immersion in trust, connection and presence.
This is a residential tantra retreat with an evening temple and a carefully built ritual arc. A journey through three gates, from shame to the unashamed body. The thread running through it: from control to trust, from functioning to feeling.
Technique is covered to the minimum you need. The rest is experience.
The programme: three gates
Some editions run from Friday evening through Sunday, others from Saturday through Sunday. What applies is listed with the date in the agenda.
Friday: the landing, 18:00 to 22:00
The weekend starts on Friday evening. We lay the foundation: safety and trust. Everything that follows rests on it. We open with a short round in which everyone says where they are and what they came for, so the group can find each other before anything else opens.
Saturday: the unravelling, 10:00 to 18:00
The first day starts with making contact with shame in the body. Where does it sit? How does it feel? Through tantric exercises, shibari basics and consent work you learn to lead and to follow. The rope becomes an instrument of release: it makes you present.
Saturday evening: temple of surrender, 19:30 until late
The evening temple is a sacred, sensual space. With music, candlelight and a carefully held bedding you follow your desires consciously. Devotion above drama. Playing from presence. This is the temple event where the darker sides and the light come together.
Sunday: the unashamed body, 11:00 to 17:00
Integration. Through bodywork, expressive movement and quiet exercises you anchor the experience in your body. What you let go of does not have to come back. What you discovered you take with you.
What makes this retreat different
Shibari as a tantric instrument. Most tantra retreats in Belgium and the Netherlands work with massage, breath or dance. Untie Me adds shibari: the Japanese rope art that turns physical restriction into inner freedom. The rope creates a safe boundary within which surrender becomes possible. That is rare in what is on offer in the Benelux.
Shadow work and darker sides welcome. Here you may explore your darker sides and desires, from the philosophy of Existential Kink and shadow work: what you suppress is given room. Shame is lived through, as a gateway to release.
The evening temple as ritual high point. The weekend holds a full temple event: a ceremonially held space where music, candlelight, play and conscious meeting are central. A lived temple experience, rare in what is on offer in Belgium and the Netherlands.
More on how I work with shadow work is on shadow work in tantra and kink and the darker sides.
Practical
- When. Four times a year.
- Where. Land van Jan, Moerstraatsebaan 182, Bergen op Zoom in the Netherlands, and internationally in Prague.
- Price. Early bird three hundred euro, regular three hundred and fifty. For couples six hundred early bird and six hundred and fifty regular.
- Included. Accommodation, two evening meals, two lunches and two breakfasts.
- Bring. A kink or fantasy outfit, personal items, oil and a sarong.
- Language. Dutch or English.
- Booking. Through Hipsy.
You will find the next edition in the calendar.
Who this is for
Untie Me is for individuals and couples who are ready to go deeper. You bring:
- earlier experience with tantra, bodywork or consciousness work
- self knowledge around your own triggers and limits
- skill in self regulation, so you can stay with yourself when it gets edgy
Important to know. This is an advanced weekend. If you have no experience with tantra or bodywork yet, start with a free shibari introduction or a day of Shibari meets Tantra.
Sexual energy is welcome. We work with it consciously, with slowness and consent as the guide. You can take part solo or as a couple.
How intense it is
On the chili system Untie Me sits at level 3, surrender. Nudity is welcome when it feels right, and never required. Clear attunement, first of all with yourself, is always central. This asks for high self awareness and the ability to breathe through your own resistance within a safe bedding.
Read how the chili system works and why I work trauma informed.
What participants write about it
The weekend was a beautiful journey that seemed to last a week. Immersed in liberating play with the right marking of boundaries.
participant
A two day workshop in which everything was welcome... practising surrender, trust, boundaries and desires, straight through your shame.
participant
Wonderful, playful, connecting, shameless, and sacred weekend with Michael as an inspiring spaceholder.
Paul A.
Freedom. Finding again what I had suppressed.
Stephanie
I feel very open. The sense of belonging gives me a boost. Tantra is beginning to feel like a family.
Ellen
I really felt myself coming loose from all the issues that have been playing out these past months.
Heidike
The moment I felt that I could really give trust to the partner doing the exercise with me. That was the most valuable moment for me.
Heidike
Als switch dominant zijn en ook vooral submissive in overgave. Trouw aan mezelf blijven: nee is ook okay.
deelnemer
Prana
After taking part in Untie Me, Kelly van Riel wrote this poem about what came loose in her. It is here with her permission.
Whispering words, softly kissing the ear,
honey sweet lips longing for touch,
entwined fingers seeking bodily contact,
tenderly biting the neck,
merged breathing rolling on the swell of the torso.
Streaming hair, a raging sea of flame,
a shimmering longing for connection,
waking what lies hidden.
An inner dragon chained in the shadow of your being,
waiting patiently for a passionate spark,
unwinding itself from the deepest part of your soul,
the iron grip screaming under tension,
clamping links splitting apart,
the passion breaking out into the light.
Like a reptile shedding its old skin,
escaping the grip of the past,
tasting the air with a forked tongue,
feeling every subtle tremor of the wind,
tasting regained freedom,
moving soundlessly towards an unknown future.
A passage from surviving to living,
a passage of feeling and accepting.
Becoming aware of your own primal force,
the dance of energy, prana.
Kelly van Riel, 2026
About the guides
Michael is the founder of Shibari-Tantra and guides workshops and private sessions from Ghent. He combines tantric principles with the Japanese rope art and puts the emphasis on safety, consent and conscious presence. His way of working rests on the Wheel of Consent, extra slowness, continuous check-ins and careful aftercare. More about him on about us.
Christina Oud guides alongside me. She works around healthy self love and sensuality, with softness, humour and depth. Her Vulva Power work gives women room to meet their sensuality as a source of life force. Together we carry the weekend: two voices, two angles, one bedding. Her website is christinaoud.com.
What a weekend. I am still walking around with a heart that overflows. Grateful for all the people who dared to meet themselves. Not the polished version. Not the mask. The raw, vulnerable, powerful human underneath. (...) I love how Untie Me keeps growing into a place where rope is ultimately not about rope, it is about freedom. About surrender. About truth. About being human.
Christina Oud, co-host