This Sei-Ki Residential workshop will be the second of its kind, yet unique and within a much longer tradition. It is your chance to fully immerse yourself in Sei-Ki, The Way of Touch with focus, camaraderie and joy.
Akinobu Kishi, the founder of Sei-Ki, used to share his work in residential settings every year. These events offered an opportunity for more intense immersion and fostered an international community.
Alice and Alexandra brought the Sei-Ki Residential back as “Sei-Ki on the Edge” in 2024 and are building on that success in 2025. It will be an expertly presented event bringing all the focus, community and journeying of the originals.
A residential workshop is so much more than the sum of its parts. We swim in the Sei-ki atmosphere without dissipating it through contact with the outside world. This helps subvert the idea that it is simply a technique for health and it embeds Sei-Ki as a way of life.
Sei-Ki on the Edge 2025 is open to everybody who has attended at least one Sei-Ki workshop with Alice or Alexandra. It will be intense and last one day longer than the first edition in 2024, from Thursday (24 April) until Monday (28 April).
Unique. For the first time, the Residential will be offered within a renewed Sei-Ki Training and there will be the opportunity to sign up for an extra one-day “Dive Deeper Class” (28-29 April): a day in a more intimate, tutorial-style setting, for a limited number of students who are committed to learning with us.
Find all the info you need on this page:
Residential | 4+ days
“Dive Deeper Class” | +1 day
Sei-Ki is the Way of Touch. A Way is a discipline through which the practitioner is committed to seeing things as they truly are. The traditional Japanese Ways include: the Way of Martial Arts, Budo; the Way of Tea, Chado; the way of calligraphy, Shodo and others.
Sei-ki: the Way of Touch, is not a formally recognized Japanese art, yet it embodies the principles of a traditional Way and its founder, Kishi Akinobu, understood it in this context.
Stepping onto the Way of Touch will change your life, it will change the way you see and experience everything. The student of a Way is a seeker, forever curious and eager for learning. A seeker may not always be able to say what they are looking for, but know that it is of ultimate importance.
Our aim is that students understand the nature of this art as Way and find fulfilment in it. We want to bring Sei-Ki more into the world as a real, professional alternative to conventional understandings of health.
To achieve this, Sei-Ki practitioners need to be well-rounded, wise, skilled individuals, humble in their self-understanding yet clear, ethical and focused in their professional approach.
Travelling a Way and professionalism are not mutually exclusive. A ‘spiritual’ person is of limited value if they cannot function at high level in the world as well as being connected to eternity. This must be the project of a conscious community.
The residential workshop is a powerful support for this project.
Learning Sei-Ki as a Way doesn’t work within the formal educational formats we are used to in the West.
Training in Sei-Ki is personal and professional development. It is ultimately a solo activity, since it requires strict, inner discipline. Those drawn to it are typically people who carve out their own paths in life and who are self-motivated.
But if we are too much alone, and listen only to our own heads, we will eventually get lost and falter. Following this Way must take place within a community that is wiser and more knowledgeable than any single individual.
This is the idea of a Sei-Ki Training. While the training nurtures the development of each person’s original wisdom and confidence, it does so, not in the service of ego, but in service to others as the ultimate driver.
We need contact with those who embody the art more strongly than we currently do, have travelled the path ahead of us and can offer a guiding hand.
Sei-Ki is authentic and wholehearted relating.
With a big yes to whatever life IS.
Practicing Sei-Ki requires commitment and courage,
nurtured by curiosity and joy.
We invite those committed to the Way of Touch.
It will be a challenge, perhaps financially and in terms of time, but primarily as a process of cleansing that will, at times, bring up resistance and discomfort. But the benefits can be huge. These include:
Prerequisite for participating:
We welcome a range of experience and ability but, in order to provide the best learning experience, we wish to ensure everyone has a basic understanding of the work and enjoys our particular, classical, approach to this work. So, to join this workshop you must have attended at least one Sei-Ki workshop with Alice Whieldon or Alexandra Gelny (before the Residential, not necessarily before signing up for it).
The “Dive Deeper Class”
is an extra day after the Residential, limited to a maximum of 10 students who are committed to learning with us and would like the opportunity to train and explore in a more intimate, tutorial-style setting.
If you are interested, please apply in the registration form.
Participation fee EUR 650.-
plus accommodation and food (4 nights, 4+ days full board):
* EUR 364.- in a double room
* EUR 404.- in a single room > UPDATE: all single rooms have been booked up
The rooms have their own washbasins. Shared use of showers and bathrooms.
The maximum number of participants is 18.
Participation fee EUR 170.-
plus accommodation and food (1 night, 1 day full board):
* EUR 91.- in a double room
* EUR 101.- in a single room (first come first served)
The rooms have their own washbasins. Shared use of showers and bathrooms.
The maximum number of participants is 10.
Arrival on Thursday (24 April) from 3 pm.
The Residential ends on Monday (28 April) at 3 p.m.
The “Dive Deeper Class” ends on Tuesday (29 April) at 3 p.m.
You will receive more info and further organisational details a few weeks before the event.
Don’t wait too long for signing up!
To secure your place, fill in the registration form and transfer 50% of the participation fee and cost for accommodation within the following ten days. You will receive an invoice with all payment details after your registration.
The full amount will have to be paid one month before the event at the latest.
We are open to agreeing on an individual payment plan with you. Please get in touch with us directly, if this is what you need.
The BergZendo is a place of peace and strength, immersed within beautiful nature. It is a Zen and seminar centre of the BodhidharmaZendo Vienna and is located in the Hohe Wand Nature Park, about an hour’s drive South of Vienna. At just under 1,000 metres above sea level, the BergZendo is “enthroned” at the top of the Hohe Wand (this literally means “High Wall”), an impressive karst plateau in southern Lower Austria.
From here, a breathtaking panoramic view opens up above and into the valley. The sunrises are unique.
We practice in a beautiful, light-filled space.
The rooms are furnished in a simple style, inspired by Zen.
This special place in nature will support us to fully engage with what is, with our senses, with ourselves and with each other. We are happy to offer you this space for the Sei-Ki Residential and are very grateful to BodhidharmaZendo Vienna for their hospitality.
Exact address:
BergZendo
Am Almfrieden 87, 2724 Hohe Wand, AUSTRIA
By public transport
Train to Wiener Neustadt (main station).
Then either take the regular bus (on weekdays) and continue on foot, or take a taxi from Wiener Neustadt. There is a special fare to BergZendo for EUR 60.- per trip regardless of the number of people and vehicle, for larger groups there is a minibus. In both cases, advance booking is absolutely necessary to get the special rate! On request, we will be happy to coordinate the joint pre-booking of a taxi.
By car
The BergZendo Hohe Wand is easily accessible from Stollhof via the Panorama-Bergstraße. On Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays there is a toll on this panorama road.
International Arrival
The train connections from Vienna Central Station (Wien Hauptbahnhof) to Wiener Neustadt are good and numerous. The nearest airport from BergZendo is Vienna International Airport.
Alice has degrees in Philosophy, Religious Studies and Theology. She has a doctorate in Feminist Philosophy. She graduated from the Shiatsu College, London, in 1994 and worked with Kishi Akinobu from 1998 to his death in 2012. She is co-author of „Sei-ki: Life in Resonance – The Secret Art of Shiatsu“ (Kishi & Whieldon, 2011, Singing Dragon, London). Alice is dedicated to presenting and promoting Sei-Ki as she received it, directly from its founder. She is committed to perfecting, both for the love of the pure form and in order to pass it on intact to future generations.
She is also a teacher and practitioner of Clearing, a communication approach from the work of Yogeshwar Muni, and author of, “Mind Clearing: The Key to Mindfulness Mastery” (2016, Jessica Kingsley, London). In that tradition, Alice is a master of the Enlightenment Intensive contemplation method, combining the Zen sesshin with the dyad communication form.
Alexandra has been involved in shiatsu since 2004 and has been passionate about Sei-Ki since 2011. She started on her Sei-Ki path with Akinobu Kishi and then continued with Kyoko Kishi, and Alice Whieldon. Through learning from Alice, then translating and assisting for her, a close and nurturing collaboration has evolved.
She practices Sei-Ki in her studio in Vienna and shares her Sei-Ki path as a facilitator.
In addition, Alexandra is a certified ÖDS (Federation of Shiatsu Austria) shiatsu teacher and a certified Wellmother teacher (by Suzanne Yates), with a special expertise in all themes related to reproductive health from menstrual cycle through pregnancy, birth and menopause. She has been teaching internationally since 2016, in German, English, Italian and French.
Alexandra also offers individual support as a life coach and psychosocial counsellor.
Alice and Alexandra have known each other since 2017. They are committed collaborators and look forward to sharing the heart of Sei-Ki and the life of this Way of Touch with you.
It is their mission to bring Sei-Ki more into this world.
I am dedicated to presenting and promoting Sei-Ki as I have received it, directly from Kishi.
I am committed to perfecting, both for the love of the pure form and in order to pass it on intact to future generations.
Sei-Ki is what I had long been looking for in shiatsu.
It is what brings me into contact with the nature of life in others and in myself.
I am committed to continue on this Way and to share Sei-Ki more with others and the world in a sincere and authentic way.
Please get in touch, if you have questions or if you are not sure whether “Sei-Ki on the Edge” is right for you.
We look forward to hearing from you!
