{"id":11324,"date":"2023-02-14T00:09:26","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T00:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yogajournal.com\/?p=109086"},"modified":"2023-02-14T00:09:26","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T00:09:26","slug":"why-rihannas-halftime-performance-was-actually-yoga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/14\/why-rihannas-halftime-performance-was-actually-yoga\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Rihanna\u2019s Halftime Performance Was Actually Yoga"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Among the hundreds, if not thousands, of recaps written about Rihanna\u2019s halftime performance at Super Bowl LVII<\/a>, there is one that is different. It includes no mention of her being a fashionista or her net value in dollars or how long her fans have been waiting for her next release. Instead, the Instagram post penned by a yoga and meditation teacher quietly emphasizes the simplicity and power that we witnessed in Rihanna on the world stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was watching it and I found that I felt really calm. I was noticing how it landed in my body, and I thought, \u2018Why am I feeling this?\u201d says mother, wife, rest coach, and obvious Rihanna fan Octavia Raheem. \u201cShe looked so comfortable in her own skin that I felt that same way looking at her. She just seemed alright with herself. Very authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that moment when Rihanna sat down? Raheem says, \u201cI was like, \u2018Wow. I am here for this.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rihanna
(Photo: Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hours later, Raheem kept thinking about it. As she was reading different accounts of the performance the next morning, she noticed many of them asserted Rihanna didn\u2019t do enough. \u201c\u2018I was like, \u2018What?!\u2019 And I thought, \u2018This is everything that is the problem.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Then she read the comment, \u201cI wanted to see her shake her ass, not sit on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Raheem felt compelled to write her interpretation. \u201cI thought that she did something kind of legendary for women and mothers and Black women,\u201d she says. \u201cI know it was on purpose. I know to show up with ease, there is effort. And she was saying, \u2018This the Rihanna you gonna get.’\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Raheem\u2019s primary teachings is that \u201cyoga takes us back to who we were before the world tells us who you were supposed to be.\u201d What Rihanna expressed, says Raheem, is \u201c\u2018I will not be told who I am. You cannot tell me or contain me. I will be me.\u2019 In my mind, her standing in her authenticity is her embodying what yoga is teaching, which is how do we remember and access who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sentiment is exactly what can be felt upon reading Raheem\u2019s Instagram post.<\/a> There\u2019s yoga here.<\/p>\n

There was an ease in Rihanna\u2019s presence and performance last night. This is what I want for all women and people who have been underestimated and marginalized. Especially you, me, and us.\u2060<\/em>
\u2060<\/em>
In Rihanna\u2019s presence, I saw a Black Woman and Mother sit down when she wanted and needed to. I also saw a Black Woman and Mother soar above the ground, sing, and be free with a kind of grace and comfort that made me take a fuller breath.\u2060<\/em>
\u2060<\/em>
I also saw a Black Woman and Mother be surrounded by, protected, supported up and down, fully seen, and at times concealed by others when she needed to gather herself. We deserve this.\u2060<\/em>
\u2060<\/em>
In Rihanna\u2019s simplicity, there was a pure genius. Rihanna disregarded Black Excellence and instead rested and poured out from an overflow of her authentic Black Genius. \u2060<\/em>
\u2060<\/em>
She did not \u201cdo it all.\u201d She left room for every single choice, move, turn, hip circle, bounce, and note to be experienced without the distraction of razzle, dazzle, this, that, and the other. \u2060<\/em><\/p>\n

She held our gaze and sang in our ears. She did not rely on distractions to deliver her voice or \u201celevate\u201d her message.\u2060<\/em>
\u2060\u2060<\/em>
What I am deeply deeply inspired by in Rihanna\u2019s presence and performance though is this:\u2060<\/em>
There was the clearest statement of \u201cas I am, I am enough\u201d in Rihanna\u2019s decision to be the sole act. \u2060<\/em>
\u2060<\/em>
My goodness.\u2060<\/em><\/p>\n

The choice to say, \u2060<\/em>
Here I am, and I am enough.\u2060<\/em>
This.\u2060<\/em>
This.\u2060<\/em>
\u2060<\/em>
This is what I pray to be restored in each and every one of us.\u2060<\/em>
The knowing that<\/em>
As we are, we are enough.\u2060<\/em>
Then we will have more ease.\u2060<\/em>
Then we will rest.\u2060<\/em><\/p>\n

\"A
(Photo: Octavia Raheem)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2060<\/em>
About Our Contributors<\/strong><\/p>\n

Octavia Raheem<\/a> is a wife, mother, and author of <\/em>Pause, Rest, Be<\/a> and<\/em> Gather. She is a rest coach and experienced yoga and meditation teacher and activist. She began practicing yoga in 1999 and has been teaching since 2007. With 10,000+ hours of training and teaching experience, she shares her wisdom and knowledge from a place of embodiment. She is a real, relatable, and visionary leader in the field of rest, wellness, and yoga. As a teacher, author, and coach, Octavia has a distinctive approach and voice. One that is warm, down to earth, and also cosmic. Her teaching is grounded in her roots and real-life experience as a woman learning to love herself as well as center her well-being, transformation, and liberation via storytelling, yoga, rest, meditation, and Yoga Nidra. Follow her at @octaviaraheem<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Renee Marie Schettler<\/a> is a senior editor at Yoga Journal and has worked as an editor at <\/em>The Washington Post,Real Simple magazine, and online media. She started studying yoga nearly 20 years ago with teachers in New York City who emphasized the challenging of finding precise alignment in a posture. Her understanding of yoga changed when she began learning from teachers who believe the practice is less about how we execute the posture and more about whether we can surrender into the stillness of it. She finds that editing, writing, and practicing yoga are each about becoming more aware of truth. She has been teaching yoga since 2017. Follow her at @reneemarieschettler<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Why<\/figure>\n

The mother of two expressed, “Here I am, and I am enough.”<\/p>\n

The post Why Rihanna’s Halftime Performance Was Actually Yoga<\/a> appeared first on Yoga Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[37,35,36],"class_list":["post-11324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ayurveda","tag-blogs","tag-yoga","tag-yogacourseware"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogacourseware.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}