Durga's Tiger School®
A Path to Wholeness
From Young Explorers to Vibrant 50s, 60s & Beyond
Yoga · Tantra · Shamanism · Arts
Includes Yoga Teacher Training, certified through Yoga Alliance and Yoga Alliance International — 200 · 300 · 500 hours to choose from.
What tantra actually is
Most people think tantra is only about physical pleasure.
Life force flows through everything — your creativity, your relationships, your courage, your capacity to love. In this school, we learn to move that energy consciously, so it feeds every dimension of who you are.
Tantra is the ancient art of becoming fully alive — of meeting reality without flinching, without numbing, without pretending. It is a practice of wholeness. Of learning to inhabit your body, your relationships, and your existence with presence and intention.
This is what Iris has been teaching for over 30 years. Not theory. Not performance. A lived path.
For the Vibrant 50+ and 60+
Every seeker walks their own path
Luis, 52
For couples in this chapter of life
Powerful Moments, Shared
To come here is a great experience for us as a couple. I take so many powerful moments and fun moments… There is a lot of great energy and beauty in the place, in the other students, in the teachers — it is very inspirational.
Javier
It is a very safe space. I dive deep into my heart and the heart of my partner. I take the ability to express how I am and how I feel with my partner. And that I am ok as I am.
Franciska
Tiger Riders
Truth seekers from 20 to 70, here to learn to embrace a tantric lifestyle — together.
Tony, 70 · Midwife & Tiger Rider
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A word from our founder
Iris Disse
Energy flows with intent. I love to invite you here especially if you're in your fifties, sixties, and beyond — not because age defines what you need, but because I know what the world tells you: that you decline, that you have less to share, that partnership gets boring, that you're too old to begin again.
I am an elder myself, and I testify otherwise. My body is healthy. I still carry visions I want to put into action. The people younger than me love being near me — and they teach me too. Here, we don't do "retreat for older people." We do retreat for humans.
You know this moment: your love left, and for days you're tired and depressed. Then the phone rings. "I'm sorry. Can I come over?" And in an instant, everything in you lifts. You haven't eaten differently. You haven't slept more. Only your spirit decided —
it's good to be alive.
That's what we practice here, for four to nine weeks. You will experience yourself as a person.
Not as an age.
Iris Disse · Founder, Durga's Tiger School®
Our transformational yoga teacher training in Ecuador welcomes people in their 50s, 60s and beyond who feel that life is still asking them to grow, explore and become. Whether you arrive as a solo traveller or with a partner, you will experience Kaula Tantra Yoga, heartful communication, spiritual practice, creativity, movement and community living in the natural surroundings of the Andes.
No advanced yoga experience is required. The practice is slow, meditative and adaptable, allowing each person to honour their own body and rhythm. You can complete the training with the intention of becoming a certified yoga teacher—or experience it as a profound personal immersion without any obligation to teach.
This is not an age-segregated senior retreat. It is a multigenerational yoga teacher training where people in their 50s, 60s and beyond are actively welcomed, represented and valued.
The path is not always serious
The tantric path at Durga's Tiger School is deep — but it is not heavy. Alongside the inner work, the ritual, and the transformation, there is something equally important: joy. Playfulness. The freedom to be ridiculous, surprising, and fully alive.
You will find yourself laughing in postures you never expected to try. Discovering new sides of yourself — and of each other. Seeing your partner, or your fellow seekers, with completely fresh eyes.
This is what the tantric path does. It does not just deepen love — it lightens it. It makes room for the child inside you to come out and play again.
Playfulness has no age limit.
What you will live
Every day is woven from practice, ritual, community, and reflection. You will not just learn about tantra — you will live it, in your body, in community, in the land.
Kaula Tantra Yoga — daily
A slow, flowing, meditative practice rooted in ancient lineage. Each session is a moving meditation — 2 to 3 hours — that reunites body, mind, and energy. No pressure. No performance. Your body finds its own truth.
Heartful communication
Through the Talking Stick circle and applied tantric philosophy, you learn to speak and listen from the heart — not the ego. For couples and solo seekers alike, this practice can change everything.
Partner & Group Practices
You learn to give and receive — consciously, lovingly. Partner yoga and the Ayurvedic Walking Massage teach you to hold sacred space for another's body and energy. In group circles, you find yourself held, supported, by people you can trust.
Shamanic ritual & ceremony
Temazcal sweat lodge, cacao ceremonies, ritual and nature connection practices drawn from Andean and Tibetan traditions. These are doorways into altered states and expanded awareness — practical shamanism you carry into your art and your life.
Art, dance & expression
Durga's Tiger Dance, mantra chanting, shamanic clown, voice liberation. Through movement and sound you deepen creativity and intuition — and learn to see life from a completely new perspective. Your inner child, your wildness, your joy.
Community living
You share meals, practice, and life with an international group of up to 30 people. In this sangha you are not alone in your growth — you are held, witnessed, and celebrated.
I was simply looking for a yoga retreat — a place to decompress and meet like-minded people. When I spotted a Kaula Tantra, Art and Shamanism path at Durga's Tiger School, I jumped at the chance.
There's such great energy here — you can feel it in the air, across the landscape, in the yoga shala, and between the group. The teachers build and maintain a safe space and sense of trust needed to heal, to peel back some layers, let go, let loose, and allow our seeds to grow.
I loved the heady mix of classes — the majority of learning done in an experiential, hands-on, caring and sharing way. Exactly what my yoga and spiritual awakening journey desperately needed.
I'll definitely be coming back to complete the 500 YTT.
Craig · USA
Hear it from them directly
Words can only go so far. Watch what our Tiger Riders have to say in their own voices.
European family — couple with child
This path is for everyone
At Durga's Tiger School, the tantric path belongs to every person who feels called to it — regardless of who you love, how you identify, or what your relationship looks like.
What matters is the intention you arrive with: the willingness to be honest, to grow, to open. Every seeker who walks through these doors is received with the same warmth, the same depth, and the same freedom to be exactly who they are.
Come as you are. You are welcome here.
The Tiger Rider community
What you might be quietly wondering
These are fair questions, and we'd rather answer them directly than let you wonder. This isn't a training that asks you to keep pace with anyone else. It's built to meet you exactly where you are — and to prove, day by day, that this is where you belong.
Kaula Tantra Yoga is slow, breath-led, and adaptable. There is no performance standard to hit — your own experience is the only authority that matters here.
No abstraction. No performance. The tantra here is lived through breath, movement, sound, and conscious touch — in a safe, respectful, boundary-clear environment.
This is genuinely not a room of 20-somethings. The Tiger Rider community spans age 20 to 70, and your life experience is honored here, not politely tolerated.
Casa Kiliku sits at the edge of the Ilaló natural reserve. The mountain, the river valley, the forest — they hold the space for inner work in a way no urban retreat can replicate.
Our founder has walked this exact terrain of aging, intimacy, and aliveness herself, in a tantric partnership of over three decades. She teaches what she lives.
Choose your depth
Open to solo seekers and couples. Choose based on how deep you are ready to go — you can always return for more.
Internationally recognized
Durga's Tiger School is registered with Yoga Alliance International — the world's largest nonprofit association for yoga. This means your 200, 300, or 500-hour certificate is recognized globally, allowing you to teach professionally anywhere in the world and join the international registry of certified yoga teachers.
28 days · Ecuador
42 days · Ecuador
63 days · Ecuador
Iris in her own words
Meet your guide
Founder · Energetic Choreographer · Director
Iris is a composer, writer, radio producer, and filmmaker — and the living creative force behind everything Durga's Tiger School does. She has been on the tantric path for over 30 years, and in a tantric relationship with her partner David for 34 of them.
She did not found this school from theory. She founded it from lived experience — from the transformations tantra, shamanism, yoga, and art brought into her own life, her love, and her creative work. She teaches what she lives.
In each training you have the opportunity to work directly with Iris — to be guided, witnessed, and challenged by someone who has walked every step of this path herself.
Getting here
Getting to Casa Kiliku is easier than you might think. Ecuador is well connected internationally, and our location just outside Quito makes arrival straightforward and stress-free.
About Ecuador
Ecuador has had challenging press coverage in recent years. We understand this may give you pause. But we want you to hear it directly from people who came — who moved through Quito, lived in Tumbaco, and experienced the country with open eyes. Casa Kiliku is a safe, peaceful sanctuary. Ecuador, approached with awareness, is a deeply beautiful country to be in.
Tomas & Amelie share their experience of safety in Ecuador
Some people prefer to write. Others prefer to talk. Either way, we are here — and we respond personally.
💬 WhatsApp — +39 349 781 3230