yoga

Cultural Context for the practice of yoga

According to Vedic history, the subtle energy practices of Yoga were developed by the Indus-Saraswati civilization over 5000 years ago. The Vedic texts contained songs, mantras, and rituals to be used by Vedic priests, the Brahmans. Yoga was slowly refined and developed by the Brahmans and the mystic seers, the Rishis, who documented their practices and beliefs in the Upanishads, a huge body of work containing over 200 scriptures.

The most renowned of these being the Bhagavad-Gita, composed around 500 B.C.E. Many lineages came out of oral traditions in which the teachings were transmitted directly from teacher to student.

Yoga has roots on many continents, including India, Africa, and Asia, as well as in the world religions of Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism.

 The Indian sage Patanjali has been credited with the collation of this oral tradition into his classical work, the Yoga Sutras, a 2,000-year-old treatise on yogic philosophy. A collection of 195 statements, the Sutra provides a kind of philosophical guidebook for dealing with the challenges of being human.

In pre-modern India, āsana has always been one limb of yoga among many, of a complete psycho-physiological system of disciplined yoga practice, enjoined alongside other technologies including: ethical restraints and observances (yama and niyama), breath control (prāṇāyāma) and retention (kumbhaka), bodily seals (mudrā) and binds (bandha), and meditation techniques (dhyāna), among others.

Tantric Śaiva traditions developed an advanced bodily map of subtle psycho-energetic wheels (cakra), channels (nāḍi), life-force (prāṇa), winds (vāyu), and the notion of a serpent power (kuṇḍalinī-śakti), which rests dormant at the base of the spine. These powerful energies can be awakened and harnessed within the human body and can lead the practitioner toward advanced states of consciousness, and eventually toward the attainment of meditative absorption (samādhi) or liberation.

And it’s important to acknowledge that when India was colonized by British settlers, this practice – which was *thousands* of years old – was banned and intentionally eradicated, resulting in many lineages being broken. 

I hold and acknowledge this brutal truth of the impact of colonization and resist the violence of silence about the suffering of the people who created, curated and carry this life changing teaching that I have personally benefited from enormously and continue to benefit from.

I received my training from the lineage of Amrit Desai who came to the west in the 1960’s. You can learn more about his work and his descendents here: https://amrityoga.org/

With deep gratitude and utmost respect to the brilliant people of color whose work and understanding of the body, mind and spirit was so advanced that modern day western science is only just starting to catch up with it. 

Also, deep gratitude to Corinne Diachuk (www.sacredcenteryoga.com) , my mentor and friend, whose “Yoga Therapy for Sexual Wellness” e-book provided much of the wording and research behind this context piece. 

Weekly class schedule

gentle vinyasa //
slow flow yoga

@ Ananda Yoga Space |
every Sunday
11:00 - 12:30 pm
@ true north yoga |
every tuesday
9:30 - 10:30 am
@ Ananda Yoga Space |
every Thursday
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Befriend your body by coming to this weekly class that will be sure to enliven all aspects of your soma. You can expect to experience somatic breathwork, Pranayama, smooth flow transitions, gentle stretches that invite openings in whole body – with a sprinkling of sensual embodiment – in a brave and vulnerable container…you’ll leaving feeling more alive than when you entered. 

Sign up here: 
https://www.anandayogaspaceboise.com/our-classes
www.truenorthyoga.co/class-schedule/

yoga nidra //
Non-sleep deep rest

@ ananda yoga space
wednesday eve
7:00 - 8:15pm

We begin the class with Kundalini style breathwork and movement OR mobility excercise for the first half of the class, then we move into our deeply relaxing Yoga Nidra practice. 

Nidra is a Sanskrit word, meaning “sleep”. This practice is deeply restful and rejuvenating and involves reaching a place somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.

Sexual embodiment yoga


coming soon - online
monday & friday mornings
9:30 - 10:45 am
private lessons $125/hr

This practice is a fusion of my yoga training and my somatic sex education skills. Experience somatic exploration of those parts of the body that are often ignored or left out of everyday yoga classes as well as a deep dive into the sexual energetics of the body while being guided by a trauma-informed practitioner with regular experience facilitating tender and highly vulnerable intimacy containers.

We will do exercises to relax, stretch and awaken the pelvic floor. Breath work, self touch and vocalizations are commonly cued and encouraged in this practice. You can practice clothed or unclothed and you can receive hands-on assists depending on your comfort level and boundaries.  

In these sessions, you are repeatedly reminded to follow what’s pleasurable and to honor your body and yourself as your own true authority.

These sessions draw from many disciplines: Tantra Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, Shakti Temple Dance, Chinese Sexual Taoism, as well as native tradition.

These private sessions will get you out of your comfort zone but into your learning zone. Here you will have an opportunity to confront your deeply held conditionings, map parts of the body that are often ignored or numbed out, and connect with your solo sensual practice and pleasure body.

Sherika's approach as teacher

Sherika Tenaya is passionate about helping people reconnect to their deepest Self and their own personal inner knowing by gently guiding them to bring their conditioned beliefs and ways of being into the light of consciousness. She seeks to remind each of her students that they are the source of their own power and inner authority – in a world that constantly teaches us to forget our worth and to put our authority in the hands of external sources. 

As a member of the Southern Sierra Miwuk First Nations tribe, Ahwahneechee Grizzly Bear Clan, and the 3x great granddaughter of Chief Tenaya – whose name she carries as her surname to honor his powerful legacy of resistance and which means “to dream” in her Native language – she has seen firsthand how systems of oppression enforced by colonizer culture have greatly stolen the sovereignty of not just indigenous people, but now all of us who grow up in the aftermath of that system, built as it is upon undigested and unresolved oppressive energies. 

Like her grandfather’s name suggests, she desires to dream into existence a nation of people who remember the importance of tribe, who remember their place in the web of ancestral kinship with not only their human relations, but also their plant and animal relations, and most importantly, their interdependent relation with the Earth and Her sacred waters, air, soils and fires. This is the essence of what it means to decolonize one’s body|mind|spirit.

It is this process of decolonizing (still underway) that has allowed for the greatest spiritual growth in her life, informed and sustained by a deep connection to her indigenous roots, nourished by the wellspring of wisdom taught to her by her elders as well as the practice of somatic archeology, which is a process of unearthing and remembering the stories of wisdom stored in one’s own body. Her unique gift is to share this process with any who wish to learn from her.    

Sherika has been teaching at Boise’s top yoga studios for nearly a decade. She earned her 500-hour Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (500 ERYT) training through the Nosara Yoga Institute in Costa Rica and draws upon her experience as a soccer and track athlete growing up, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Qi Gong, Tantra Yoga, Somatic Sexology, and mobility-focused, functional fitness movement in her classes to help people awaken to their truth, discern illusion from reality, remember their tribe, and come home to their bodies.  

As a trauma-informed, Certified Somatic Sex Educator and Somatic Breathwork Facilitator, she helps her students heal at their deepest levels, holding their vulnerability with integrity and reverence.

She is known for sprinkling indigenous wisdom and trauma-informed sex education in her classes; crafting well-sequenced movement flows set to thoughtful musical playlists; utilizing breathwork and drumming to create body|mind|spirit cohesion, and for her uniquely soothing and grounding presence that allows for her skillful creation of safe-enough, “brave space” containers.