A Weekend Workshop
with Aaron Johnson and Holistic Resistance

Saturday – Sunday:  Nov 4 & 5, 2023

3 sessions over two days

Join us to talk about race, identity and human connection.  With an emphasis on personal relationship, this weekend will give you an opportunity to explore how our thoughts about race and racism affect our individual selves and communities.  Using active listening, group exercises and singing, participants will gain confidence embracing the unknown, unfamiliar and difficult issues in our lives such as race and racism.

What you can expect:

• Deep connection and relating to people across identities about oppression and liberation
• Self-inquiry and witnessing others in deep inquiry
• Collaborative, innovative, and participatory group work and conversation.
• Intimate, deep, and thoughtful work in pairs/dyads.
• Being physical & in close proximity with others (consent-based; no intensive exercise)
• Expanding your ability to sit with discomfort
• Using your voice in various ways to express and discharge emotions
• Learning to more deeply hold Black stories, pain, and resilience

Session 1: Saturday 1 – 2:30 pm

Interrupting the Chronically UnderTouched Trauma Story

This session is specifically for people of color & people of the global majority to support each other in community.

Being chronically underTouched/and under heard is not a coincidence. Together, we will work toward dismantling hurts and trauma stories around belonging, vulnerability and hearing each other right where we are. The trauma of America does not have to shape how WE interact.

We’re seeking tender connection and openness for conversations that is hard to have in today’s mainstream culture. During our our time together, we will take on many questions, such as:

⁃ Where can you be tender?
⁃ What does it mean to be close and supported?
⁃ Where do we go to grieve?

Session 1 is specifically for people of the global majority / people of color. White folks should join the weekend starting with Session 2 the Song Circle.

Tuition:  Free.  Pre-registration not needed.

Session 2: Saturday 3 – 5 pm

Sound of Rest: Song Circle

Everyone is welcome!! This workshop is an anti-racist, black-led space to reclaim our community and our voices as singers. The song circle is partly comprised of improv singing, learning traditional African heritage songs, beatboxing, and sounding with our voices. Noticing where we can bring music back into our homes and community. All singers have a choice when it feels good to sing, and they can also observe.

This space is African Heritage-led.  All are encouraged and welcome to attend.

This is for:

• People interested in building community
• People interested in how our bodies process emotions
• People who have been told they can’t sing
• Children are welcome at the song circle, but the event is not geared toward kids.

Tuition:  $5 – $25

Session 3: Sunday 2 – 5 pm

Stay Looking: Deep Dive Oriented Toward White Folks to Practice Antiracism

Stay Looking is a deep dive exploring social justice and healing from oppressive systems. This workshop will have content around Black oppression and lynching, with tools to stay present with what arises.

Our event begins in our personal journey of silence and song — with tools to be in relationship with the mind, body, and heart — and progresses into the collective awareness of Black oppression and lynching.

Practices offered will support you in sitting with what arises in this deep contemplation, like anger, grief, rage, sadness, discomfort, and hope. The practice is to stay present in our bodies, nature, and community.

Please come with an understanding that our deep contemplation on unrested labor, lynching, and dismantling oppression in America is a big topic that we will open the door to our ability to stay looking.

Sunday’s program will be held in-person at our Berkeley studio.  Zoom will also be an option. This session is geared towards white-identified and white-skinned people.  AND, all racial identities are welcome.

Tuition:  $50 – $150

ABOUT OUR EVENTS WITH HOLISTIC RESISTANCE:

What You Can Expect:

• Collaborative, innovative, and participatory group work and conversation.
• Intimate, deep, and thoughtful work in pairs/dyads.
• Active listening exercises as tools to take with you after the workshop
• Breathwork and meditation to ground and center us.

Holistic Resistance has been bringing practice and action together in communities across the country. With an emphasis on personal relationship and closeness, we aim to build life-long connections and transformation. Our approach in these workshops combines deeply honoring the healing power of yoga and disrupting the unconscious patterns of racism in our communities and individual selves.

Oppression affects people of color on all levels of life. Holistic Resistance is drawn to practices that support all levels of life such as yoga. Yoga practitioners have a felt-sense in their bodies of what it can be like to sit with discomfort, to commit to a practice, to explore the yamas and niyamas on a deeply personal level.  This weekend is an opportunity for us to gather and explore how we can use our existing tools to benefit ourselves and our community.

Who is this for?

This workshop is for anyone who is interested in the intersection of yoga and social justice. It is for people who are already in the yoga community and for folks who have not had as much exposure to yoga yet.  Aaron is committed to making all sessions accessible, trauma-informed, and effective for all levels of students.

Sunday’s workshop is geared towards white-identified and white-skinned people.  AND, all racial identities are welcome. People of the Global Majority (PGM) and people of color are at the center of our care in spaces where white people are working on undoing their racism. This is one of the many ways we model how to resist holistically. Aaron invites every person of color to attend the Saturday session and/or have a one-on-one conversation with him prior to the workshop to make sure they are being thought about the entire time they are present in our workshops.

“Yoga is firstly for individual growth, but through individual growth, society and community develop.”
– B.K.S. Iyengar

Pricing

Session 1: Free

Specifically for people of color / people of global majority

Session 2: Saturday 3 – 5 ” Song Circle”

In person

Sliding sale $5 – $15 – $25

Session 3 – Sunday 2 – 5 – “Stay Looking” 

In person or via zoom

Sliding scale $50 – $100 – $150.

All are encouraged to attend regardless of ability to pay. Need help registering?  Email us directly to support@adelineyoga.com.