About me
Hi, my name is Rodrigo Souza (he/him), a short-term undecided and long-term optimism.
I have suffered a spinal cord injury (T3 complete) in 2014 after a fall accident and due to that, I am also paralyzed from the chest down and a full-time wheelchair user, but that’s not what defines me, but it is worth mentioning because it was since my injury that I started deepening my Yoga practice, I have been studying Mindfulness and Adaptive Yoga since then to help me deal with muscles spasticity, chronic nerve pain, anxiety, and many other secondary conditions that the injury has bought me.
Through direct personal experience with traumatic injury, chronic pain, and discovering the need to take charge of my recovery to optimize long-term wellbeing, I decided to become a Yoga teacher and teach from my own experience.
So I decided to create Allihopa Yoga, a project that aims to offer Adaptive Yoga combined with Mindfulness to everyone who has experienced trauma and disability.
I had the great privilege to study Adaptive Yoga with Matthew Sanford, founder of Mind Body Solutions, who is also a paraplegic and has taught me so much throughout his Adaptive Yoga classes and workshops.
Another teacher worth mentioning is Jivana Heyman, founder of Accessible Yoga Association.
Apart from 200YTT, Restorative, Yin Yoga & MBS Adaptive Yoga workshops, I have also taken the Accessible Yoga Training and Jivana has influenced me so much with his ideas of making the practice accessible for everyone.
Yoga somehow gives me a sense of responsibility and an opportunity to contribute to the well-being of others, which I feel immensely grateful to be able to do it so. It gives my life purpose and helping others, I am automatically helping myself.
So as a teacher, I am willing to offer all the knowledge and experiences I have acquired to folks who are going or have gone through the same challenges that I have. Through practicing and teaching yoga, I have come to appreciate both my physical abilities and limitations and I hope to inspire my students to love their bodies exactly as they are, and to find joy in movement and rest.
Yoga has helped me to fall in love with my broken body and to accept it as it is. It allowed me to be who I am and to accept what it is.
My Accessible Chair Yoga classes are mainly designed for wheelchair users and folks who are looking for a deep and gentle seated practice but everyone is welcome. Join me for grateful experiences for our body, mind, and soul.
About allihopa
Allihopa is my favorite Swedish word and it has several meanings; “everybody, all people, altogether, with each other, with one another”, and that’s is the core value of our project; to make Yoga accessible for everyone, for everybody, all together, with one another.
Allihopa Accessible & Adaptive yoga aims to teach you how to be in whatever body you have. To find comfort in your own body and mind.
Creating variations of Asanas (yoga poses) customized especially for us, in wheelchairs, we make the practice accessible to anyone, no matter their shape, mobility, weight, and energy level. This makes it perfect for people living with physical disabilities.
By adding yoga into their rehabilitation, patients can improve both their physical and mental well-being after spinal cord injury. Yoga is a non-pharmacologic and cost-effective intervention with minimal risk of side effects.
Yoga is also form of self-care, If you live more deeply in your body, in all its grace and all its flaws, you become more compassionate towards life, and we believe that the essence of yoga is the ability to remember and reconnect with ourselves. Not just a physical practice, Yoga is an excellent support system for western medicine, physical therapy, recovery from trauma, depression, anxiety, disability, and should be accessible to everyone, it should not be a privilege.
Virtual Yoga studio for folks with disabilities, and everybody else
If you use the wheelchair to get around, like in my case and my students, for example, you rely a lot on accessibility. not only structural accessibility such as an accessible yoga studio with ramps, elevators, wheelchair friendly bathrooms, and so on but also in attitudinal accessibility, the one where you can find a teacher/facilitator who is prepared and trained to work with diverse students and will use the correct language and approach while working with them.
Lastly comes the financial accessibility factor, as many disabled students live of benefits and cannot afford a yoga class, we will make sure that everyone is included, no one will be left out.
Allihopa Yoga will provide free-of-charge classes and scholarships for all disabled students in need and with that in mind, we created a Patreon Membership Page so anyone with a high disposable income and financial privilege can support our project and our students.
The classes are down-to-earth, accessible, and deeply nourishing, focusing on useful ways to move and breathe. A typical class will include body awareness, breathing techniques, preparing the joints, mindful slow flowing movements & postures, meditation, and relaxation.
Classes are designed for folks with disabilities and folks who take themselves around in a wheelchair, but everyone is welcome!
If you are looking for a gentle and meditative Accessible Chair Yoga Class, this may be for you too.
