In 2018, I curated my first Decolonizing Yoga workshop for my local yoga studio’s Yoga Teacher Training program. Since then, I’ve facilitated the workshop over 20 times for over 1,000 yoga teachers and immersion students.
My Decolonizing Yoga workshops consist of lecture, group discussion, reflective exercises, and embodiment practices.
This training invites yoga practitioners to apply a critical lens to their relationship with Yoga.
Decolonizing Yoga Training
Rather than settle for the mere insertion of brown faces in yogic spaces as a solution to Decolonizing Yoga, this training examines the origins of yoga, the weaponized tentacles of the practice, and how the colonial and imperial layers of yoga are infused in contemporary practices and spaces.
This training disrupts the frameworks that equate decolonization with representation and identity politics and replaces it with an anti-oppressive and anti-imperial framework.
You will be guided to understand the significance of rooting the struggle to decolonize yoga through an ethics of social justice and collective liberation.
About the Workshops
The workshops invite participants to:
- Relate the framework of decolonization to your own ancestral lineage.
- Consider how orientalism, coloniality, caste-based supremacy and other structures of oppression are infused in contemporary yoga practices and spaces
- Contemplate how the decolonization of yoga is not simply about race/representation/identity; it is also about its weaponization by imperial and neoliberal structures
- Learn how to push back on homogenizing and & monolithic narratives of a cultural practice
- Learn how to integrate your yoga practice to movements that advance decolonial and and healing justice ethics
- Dialogue around examples of “colonized/weaponized yoga.”
- Build your capacity to thoughtfully engage in your daily practice.
- Develop a decolonized workshop series that’s tailored to your ancestry/community
Engagement
You will be invited to co-create this learning space by building community agreements, participating in group work, engaging in reflective practices (such as meditation and journaling), learning through lecture and popular education activities, participating in embodied yoga practices, and interacting with other participants through breakout rooms and assignments.
Join me at my Upcoming Online Decolonizing Yoga workshop this December, hosted by ABCDYogi. Register here.
Testimonials for Decolonizing Yoga Workshops
Alicia Atkinson“Sheena’s Decolonizing Yoga Workshop was nuanced, thoughtful, and provided an overview of history and current context that needs to be considered in the ever evolving practice of decolonization. She provided thoughtful and concrete guidance on how to practice decolonization of yoga as a teacher. She introduced the concept of the weaponization of yoga which is vital for any new or current Yoga Teacher to understand. I would highly recommend this workshop.”
Studio 34
Tyeisha Church“Thank you again for an amazing Workshop! Thank you for opening up in the space the way you did and pouring your Knowledge into us. You’re on an amazing path and I look forward to following your journey too! Continue being Great on Purpose! I plan to teach people to dig within and to continue to do their research. Also for a better understanding of how this world has twisted things. I loved your calm and cool teaching.. it felt comforting, not rushed.”
Studio 34
Julie J.“This is just the beginning of interrogating information and disinformation that is being presented as yoga history and the roots of yoga. Sheena teaches decolonizing yoga in a way that invites challenging but necessary discussion. Sheena has a wealth of knowledge about the history of yoga as it relates to politics and systems of oppression and I will be a more thoughtful and informed teacher because of her sharing this knowledge.”
The Well Studio
Roshni L.“Honestly, it blew my expectations out of the water. Dr. Sheena Sood is brilliant. She is simultaneously compassionate and passionate inviting you to become inquisitive and reflective about how yoga is used and how you use yoga within your practice. Her energy is safe and welcoming, while also challenging you to face the discomfort that comes with understanding the colonization and decolonization of yoga. I will remember this experience as empowering and be sure to reflect that forward.”
The Well Studio
Greg“It was not what I was expecting. I thought the focus was going to be on white/Western appropriation of yoga, but this workshop went much deeper in the the (many) histories and roles yoga has (currently) played in the machinations of capitalist elite. I feel like there is so much to take away. Perhaps most tangibly will be really examining the list of ways we can invite a decolonized yoga practice into the spaces where we hope to teach. I feel like every yoga teacher in training should experience this workshop.”
Studio 34
marci tint kotay“This an elucidating and masterful workshop. I believe anybody who likes to think and understand a little deeper about the origins of common held beliefs and stories can benefit from the content Sheena presents. She is engaging and a thoughtful presenter. I’ve been finding myself talking about the world stage in terms of gray, not black and white, and resisting the urge to be perfunctory, expounding that there is complication and complexity, that stories are rarely simple.”
3 Queens Yoga
What yogis are saying
mars“My experience with Sheena was rich with both information and care. I was really looking forward to this lecture and I did not leave disappointed in the slightest. I am honored to have sat with this teacher.”
3 Queens Yoga
