Jun 14, 2020
Scott talks to Wambui Njuguna-Räisänen on her life in
yoga.
An up and coming wellness advocate, Wambui has a blend of formal
Ashtanga yoga training, Chavutti Thirumal (massage by foot press)
and life experience that gives her a unique ability to see and hear
those around her in a way that is tender, gentle and real.
Wambui started practicing Ashtanga yoga in 2008 and began
assisting Petri Räisänen, who is also her husband, in 2010. She
received her Chavutti Thirumal massage training in 2013 from Helen
Noakes and Indian head massage training from Terry Thomas in 2019.
Wambui combines various healing modalities into her treatments,
such as Finnish jäsenkorjaus (bone setting), fascial release,
breath work to create customised and highly individualised healing
sessions for the client.
She aspires to be as human as possible in her teachings and both
works and lives from a place of compassion and authenticity. As
such, she strives to create spaces in the wellness and spiritual
culture where tough, tender conversations can be had with brave
truth-telling and equanimity. Where topics such as racism and
cultural appropriation can be addressed without resorting to
spiritual bypass and denial.
It is her greatest aspiration that liberation and awakening can
be embodied not only on the individual level but on the collective
plane as well; so that we may work to furthering a world based on
the tenets of justice, safety and love for all.
You can find more about Wambui’s work here.
Wambui also shares widely on her Instagram page here.
_____________
Reclaiming Joy Through Heartbreak - Wambui
Njuguna-Räisänen
Scott and Wambui have a deeply open
and honest conversation on diversity in the yoga
world. Scott and Wambui met when Wambui emailed Scott
about his work with Amāyu. Since then they have shared
conversations on diversity and how the Ashtanga yoga world can
become more open to wider voices. Wambui also shares her
evolution from yoga practitioner to teacher to
activist.
In this intimate conversation Wambui shares:
- How yoga has always been a contemplative practice for her,
right from the beginning, in a deeply embodied somatic
way
- Her background in dance, and the experience of taking her first
Hatha yoga class while having a tough year training in modern dance
at university
- That yoga let her discover a deep intuitive knowing that she
was enough, just as she is, and that the body is not something to
be conquered
- Her experience of practicing yoga during her time at grad
school in Chicago, and how she didn’t feel comfortable identifying
herself as a yogi during that time as a result of the monocultural
white yoga culture
- How she found community with black and brown people through
Capoeira, Samba, and Afro-Brazillian dancing, a culture that wasn’t
present in yoga spaces.
- Her experience of moving to the UAE as an English teacher, and
hitting rock bottom while she was there.
- How she had her first experience of Ashtanga yoga while working
in Abu Dhabi, and how empowering she found her gradual immersion
into the practice
- How in 2009 she studied Ashtanga intensively, travelling to
Purple Valley in February to study with Nancy Gilgoff and her
now-partnerPetri Räisänen, then to Mysore in July to study with
Saraswati, and then practicing with Sharath in Helsinki in
August.
- Her experience moving to Helsinki in January 2010
- Her calling to teach, which developed into teaching yoga with
her partner Petri
- Her experience navigating yoga spaces as a multiracial black
woman
- How yoga spaces operate on assumed white norms
- How she had to silence parts of herself in the past, and how
she will not be silent any more
- How in 2015 her friend Rosalie bought her This Bridge
Called My Back (Rosario Moraleas) and Sister Outsider
(Audre Lorde), which led her to really consider who is on her
bookshelf, and make a conscious effort to seek out community with
people of colour in Helsinki.
- How the tools we develop in yoga practice can be valuable as
self care when navigating difficult topics
- The work that the Ashtanga world needs to do in terms of
understanding and countering cultural appropriation, and the need
for nuanced discussion with South Asian voices leading
- Spiritual bypassing within the yoga community, when kindness
becomes weaponised
- The fragmentary effect of Colonialism in separating people from
themselves and their history, and how and why it is important for
everyone to learn where they come from
- Ahimsa as an ongoing process rather than a fixed goal
- How privilege doesn’t need to be something to be ashamed of,
but does need to be leveraged effectively
- How she came to study Buddhism with black African teachers such
as Lama Rod Owens
- Her resonance with Bodhisattva aspiration of collective
liberation, and why the prevalent emphasis on samadhi as
self-realisation is incomplete
- Karen Rain’s 2017 statement on decades of systemic abuse within
the Ashtanga Yoga community, and how unprepared the community was
to address it in a productive way due to dynamics of power and
privilege
- The limits and dangers of the authority model of teaching and
how it is healthier to think on collective level
- The need for a trauma informed approach to teaching yoga
- The importance of accountability
- How yoga isn’t separate from the patriarchy and its harmful
traits of toxic masculinity, victim blaming and rape
culture.
- How an element of joy is important when undertaking the
difficult work of decolonising one's own mind
- Her hope that that white people can begin to unpack things for
themselves, because black people are exhausted
- That for her, living a contemplative life means making space
for her heart to break, making space for discomfort and pain
without pushing it away or making it bigger, but being open to what
it can teach about being a human in this here and now.
- The importance of friendship across lines of difference so that
people can feel held, seen, cared for and trusted.
'In all the Stillpoints conversations I really love seeing
our guests open up. But Wambui's honesty and vulnerability really
inspired me. I loved this deeply profound and meaningful
conversation and think it's an essential listening for everyone
interested in equality in yoga.'
Scott Johnson - June 2020
If you enjoyed this podcast then you might also
enjoy Scott’s conversations with
Deepika Mehtaand
Jess Glenny.