A Yoga Teach-in for Palestine
Thursday, March 14th, 2024 | 3-5pm ET / 12-2pm PT
RESERVE NOW
Join yogis4palestine, featuring Sheena Sood, and Aniqa Anwar for this teach-in co-sponsored by abcdyogi, la la lil jidar, & race & yoga journal. Event art designed by Palestinian artist Qais Assali
Logo images for race & yoga journal (left), abcdyogi (right)
Flyer designed by Palestinian artist Qais Assali
Image description: An art piece with a red background depicting a person carrying a yoga mat and rifle on their back with the workshop title written in curved font around the image, date and time in the top corners, and sponsors in the bottom corners of the image.
This Yoga Teach-In calls on yoga teachers and practitioners to deepen their awareness of and solidarity with Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and the genocide in Gaza by anchoring their yoga practice in a call for a ceasefire and an end to settler colonial apartheid.
The part lecture/part workshop has a 3-fold purpose. Attendees can expect to:
1) Deepen awareness of how Zionism and far-right military and law enforcement institutions -- including Hindu nationalist and caste supremacist ideologies -- around the globe weaponize yoga to advance ethnonational and colonial agendas against the Palestinian people;
2) Learn how yoga studios and practitioners, including those who call for “peace & love” and neutrality, are complicit in using yoga to normalize colonization and participate in spiritual bypassing; and
3) Strategize on how yogis and yoga communities can take action and build long-haul resilience to interrupt Zionism and “omwashing;” and organize our yoga practice in solidarity with Palestinian resistance and freedom.
Registration is sliding scale $0 - $50 and 100% donation based. All proceeds will be directed to USCPR (US Campaign for Palestinian Rights).
Learn more about the facilitators and yogis4palestine
Sheena Sood
Sheena Sood, PhD (she/her) is a Philly-based activist, yoga practitioner, healing justice visionary and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Delaware Valley University.
Image description: Sheena is kneeling, smiling, and wearing a keffiyeh beside a dog, who is also showing solidarity with Palestine!
Having first encountered the political weaponization of yoga during visits to McLeodganj, India while studying yoga at Kailash Tribal School, Sheena began her research on Omwashing Yoga: Weaponized Spirituality in India, Israel, and the US. This project examines the growing incorporation of yoga and mindfulness by far-right law enforcement, military, and vigilante groups -- and how they use yoga to advance ethnonational, colonial, and supremacist agendas. Her work has appeared in Jadaliyya, Race & Yoga Journal, Al Jazeera, and Colorlines.
As her research and writings explore the casteist and Hindu nationalist layers of yoga and its weaponization by the far-right, Sheena’s offerings harness yoga’s potential for collective healing. While curating offerings, such as her Decolonizing Yoga workshop or Wisdom of Avatar: The Last Airbender series, Sheena works to help participants recognize yoga’s oppressive layers and liberatory potential. Whether curating children's or adult yoga offerings, Sheena uses yoga as a medium for politicized healing. In 2021, she co-founded “Yogis for Palestine,” a collective that offers yoga in solidarity with Palestinian liberation. Sheena is also the founder of Yoga Warrior Tales, a program that uses interactive, adventure-based narratives to teach kids yoga and mindfulness through a social justice lens. Learn more at www.yogis4palestine.com, sheenashining.com, and yogawarriortales.com.
Aniqa Anwar
Aniqa is a Philly based yoga teacher and has been teaching since 2021, and practicing yoga for over a decade. She first met Sheena through her Decolonizing Yoga workshop and it sparked a vision for her of the liberatory potential of yoga. She is a co-collaborator on Yogis for Palestine, and envisions yoga as a powerful path for both, individual spiritual expansion, as well as expanding collective consciousness, particularly by harnessing the power of yoga in solidarity with collective liberation. Our yoga practice can help us turn towards towards global suffering with an engaged heart, and give us the tools to bear witness and take action.
Image description: Aniqa is standing against a white wall and smiling, wearing all black.
This event is also co-sponsored by Race & Yoga Journal. Read the journal here.
Flyer designed by Palestinian artist Qais Assali
Image description: An art piece with a black background depicting a person carrying a yoga mat and rifle on their back with the workshop details written in the borders and sponsors in the bottom corners.