Day 1: April 5 from 10:30-2p ET | 7:30-11a PT | 3:30-7p GMT | 5:30-9p EET

Day 2: April 6 from 10:30-2p ET | 7:30-11a PT | 3:30-7p GMT | 5:30-9p EET

Full Investment is $60 for the 2-day training. We highly recommend attending both days to receive access to the replay.

Get a special offer now: When you sign up as a Patreon member, you receive a discount code for 50% off the ticketed event price. As a Patron, you can join us for this (or any) abcdyogi event for HALF OFF!

To receive the replay, attendees must be able to participate in at least 4 hours of the live training.

Capacity for this event is limited so be sure to reserve your spot ASAP!

Join Dr. Sheena Sood for Foundations of Decolonizing Yoga: A Conversation and Training and apply a critical lens to your relationship with Yoga. Rather than settle for the mere insertion of brown faces in yogic spaces, this Foundations 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.

In this workshop, you will be invited to:

1. Relate the framework of decolonization to your own ancestral lineage.

2. Consider how orientalism, coloniality, caste-based supremacy and other structures of oppression are infused in contemporary yoga practices and spaces

3. Contemplate how the decolonization of yoga is not simply about race/representation/identity; it is also about its weaponization by imperial and neoliberal structures

4. Learn how to push back on homogenizing and & monolithic narratives of a cultural practice

5. Learn how to integrate your yoga practice to movements that advance decolonial and and healing justice ethics

6. Dialogue around examples of “colonized/weaponized yoga.”

7. Build your capacity to thoughtfully engage in your daily practice.

8. Develop a decolonized workshop series that’s tailored to your ancestry/community

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.
Please sign up in advance to have ample time for all suggested pre-work.

ABOUT SHEENA:

Sheena Sood, PhD (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Delaware Valley University and a Philly-based scholar activist, yoga practitioner, and healing justice visionary. Sheena earned her basic and advanced yoga certifications at Kailash Tribal School in McLeodganj, India in 2011 and 2013. Her research “Omwashing Yoga,” examines how far-right ethnostates weaponize yoga to advance neoliberal, colonial, and supremacist agendas. Her work has appeared in Jadaliyya, Race & Yoga Journal, Al Jazeera, and anthologies such as The Yoga Teacher’s Survival Guide.



As her research and writings explore the Brahmanical caste supremacist, ethnonational and colonial layers of yoga and its weaponization by far-right ethnostates, Sheena’s offerings harness yoga’s potential for collective liberation. While curating offerings, such as her Decolonizing Yoga workshops, Sheena works to help participants recognize yoga’s oppressive and its liberatory potential as a tool for politicized healing. Sheena serves on the editorial board of Race & Yoga Journal; is a co-founder of Yogis for Palestine - a collective of yoga teachers and students, who strive to embody our practice by politicizing yoga toward action for Palestinian freedom and liberation; and is also the founder of Yoga Warrior Tales, an educational program that uses interactive, adventure-based narratives to teach kids yoga and mindfulness through a social justice lens.

Thursday, February 27th from 12-2pm PT | 3-5pm ET

Shoka, grief in Sanskrit, is an experience we will all encounter in our lives at some point.

Join Ayurvedic practitioner, Anjali Deva, to explore GRIEF through an integrative lens, bridging Ayurvedic wisdom and lived experience. With each breath we take, our collective grief becomes more apparent. In this workshop, we will explore Ayurvedic tools, including food and herbs, to support healing while grieving; we will explore the role of community in healing and learn how we can better understand the often overwhelming grief process. This workshop is for anyone interested in learning how to support themselves or loved ones through grieving.

SPECIAL OFFER: Reserve now at 50% off by becoming a Patreon Member here.

Sliding Scale available. Use code “SLIDINGSCALE” to bring your investment down to $32.50

We will explore the following questions:

• What is grief? How do the Doshas impact our physiology when we grieve?

• How can we better care for ourselves during this time?

• What practices can Ayurveda share with us about self-care during times of loss?

• What foods will support me through the grieving process?

• What herbal allies can I call on to support me? We will explore Ashoka, Tulsi, Ashwagandha, Rose, and California Poppy as herbal allies.

• How does being in a supportive community enable our healing?

During this class, we will explore our herbal allies through a mindful tea-drinking practice. We encourage you to bring a warm tea to class. We recommend ‘Joyful Heart’ from Banyan Botanicals (use code ROOTED-RASA for 20% off) 

About Anjali Deva:

Anjali Deva is an Ayurvedic practitioner, educator, and writer from the mountains of Southern California. Her private practice, Rooted Rasa, specializes in an integrative and trauma-informed approach to Ayurveda. Anjali founded Mādhya Way, a school for Ayurveda.  She co-authored “From Stressed Out to Stress Wise,” published in July 2023. Her compassion-based approach helps alleviate anxiety, depression, PTSD, digestive disorders, and women’s health issues with a holistic framework.

Anjali has been greatly fortunate to have been introduced to Ayurveda and Yoga at a young age by her father and mentor, Arun Deva. Her clinical experience began at Hope Integrative Psychiatry overseen by Omid Naim, MD. Her familial lineage is rich with the desire to preserve and maintain these healing arts.

Driven by her aspiration to better understand the connection between food and mood, she has trained with Kerala Ayurveda Academy, Loyola Marymount’s Yoga and the Healing Sciences Program, and with various teachers both in the United States and India. Her strong passion for digestion and mental health provides others with a holistic approach to find their inner harmony and resilience for healing. Anjali is dedicated to sharing the Wisdom of Ayurveda for the benefit of all living beings. Learn more at rootedrasa.com  

Monday, April 29th 5:15pm PT / 8:15pm ET

Join the free monthly gathering for South Asian yoga & meditation practitioners to connect. Open for you to join whether or not you have taken over, and regardless of whether you teach!

The gathering begins with an opening practice led by a rotating teacher followed by a reflection question for the community to consider.

Submit reflection questions or anything you’d like to discuss to takeover@abcdyogi.com!