Freedom (30 min)
Black History Month Basics
In this 30-minute asana session, we isolate fifteen fundamental yoga postures that with their conscious and conscientious practice—an observance of the Niyama Tapas—we can move our body-being, the soma, out of pain, sadness, fear… suffering of any kind, and into freedom. That is the intention for the selection and sequencing of the Hadiya Yoga Freedom 15. In so practicing toward mastery, we address stabilizing the body, strengthening, lengthening, and centering “it” from all four primary bases of lying, kneeling, sitting, and standing, and all three primary planes of front, side, and back. The Freedom 15 starts representationally from the beginning of human life, i.e., Balasana (child’s pose), ends with its end, Savasana (corpse pose), and guides us through the stages of a full and free life with the other thirteen poses. Happy Uhuru (Freedom) History Month! Aṣè & Namaste.
This is an All Levels class.
Your Teacher
Shani (“Dr. OM”) Ojukwu Mantenso is the Principal Movement Specialist with Hadiya Movement Systems, a private virtual movement studio. A gymnast, dancer, and Ph.D. in Performance Studies, Shani is also a yoga teacher-healer trained and certified in trauma-sensitive MindBody Centering Yoga. Along with other movement forms like Pilates, barre/basic ballet, functional calisthenics, and tumbling fundamentals she offers through HMS, Shani is privileged to provide spirit-based and trauma-informed asana as an adjunctive therapy and mode of somatic centering, cultivation, and joy. Herself on a healing journey from depression, domestic abuse, complex PTSD, and global white supremacy/racial capitalism, Shani is a proud and self-proclaimed “wounded healer.” Through her intentional observance of the eight limbs of yoga, Shani Ojukwu Mantenso has dedicated her personal and professional life to creating the optimal conditions of possibility for freedom for herself and others—mind, body, and spirit.