Seated (& Standing!) Strength (30 min)
Chair Yoga for Strength & Stability
This is a chair yoga session for which you will need a cushionless, armless seat with a mid-rise, upright back (a metal folding chair is ideal but not required). In this 30-minute Women’s History Month installment, we honor the feminine principle through movement as receptivity, acceptance, and faith. The chair symbolizes the safety and support of both the primordial and literal mother. Embracing Muladhara (first chakra), we allow the chair to protect and provide for us what we need to survive in the world. In this yoga practice, we undertake seated and standing modifications of poses such as Marjaryasana-Bitilasana (cat-cow), Trikonasana (triangle), Garudasana (eagle pose), Natarajasana (dancer), and even Savasana (corpse pose). From the chair out into the world, we rehearse the perception of safety through the feeling of faith. With this existential confidence that the mother’s work is complete, we can respect and celebrate the feminine aspect and the female being. Happy Women’s History Month!
This is an All Levels class.
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.