Your Instructors
Dr. Shani OM - Founding/Guiding Teacher
HEWA Yoga & Mindfulness
Dr. Shani Ojukwu Mantenso – known to many as Dr. OM – is a somatic philosopher, embodied movement theorist, and holistic guide whose work unites mind, body, and spirit into an integrated path of liberation, awareness, and presence. Rooted in ancestral intelligence and informed by rigorous scholarship, her practice embodies the felt knowing of the body as a sacred vessel and the mind as a site of freedom.
At the core of her teaching is HEWA, a soul-rooted movement form she created as a reclamation of breath, body, and ritual for embodied healing. HEWA draws on ancient yogic traditions and wisdom practices while unapologetically centering Black women's liberation, intergenerational memory, and intuitive presence – crafting movement as medicine rather than performance.
A scholar, dancer, former elite athlete, and certified yoga instructor with training in yoga therapy, Dr. OM holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and brings decades of embodied research, cultural inquiry, and somatic leadership into everything she offers. Her background in performance and theory gives her a rare fluency in human expression, nuance, and transformation, allowing her to hold both deep interior work and expansive human systems with equal care.
Her approach to healing and movement transcends lineage boundaries while honoring rooted traditions. She meets individuals where they are, grounding practices in breath, ritual, movement, and mindful awareness that open the doorway to inner freedom. Dr. OM's work has been a refuge for those seeking to rediscover their bodies not as objects to manage, but as ancestral wisdom in motion.
In addition to leading Hadiya Mind & Movement, Dr. OM serves as co-director of Uhuru Sanctuary, stewarding holistic care models that integrate wellbeing, land awareness, and liberation paradigms into embodied living. She is also co-founder and contributing author at TRPL BLCK PRSS and principal movement specialist for The Uhuru Institute, spaces dedicated to cultural intelligence, somatic literacy, and collective flourishing.
In ceremonial contexts, Shani holds the energetic and somatic container—grounding sacred space through breath, presence, and gentle physical guidance. Her work ensures that ceremony is not just intellectually understood, but viscerally felt and remembered in the body.
Rev. Oni OM
Meditation & Philosophical Counseling
Rev. Oni Ojukwu Mantenso I is a shamanic guide, Zen–Taoist practitioner, and principal advisor whose work bridges spiritual intelligence, executive stewardship, and the subtle architecture of human systems.
Born of Baptist fire and formed in the traditions of call-and-response, moral courage, and communal responsibility, Oni’s earliest education was in the power of voice, presence, and Spirit made public. From a young age, she has been attuned to the liminal — the spaces between worlds, decisions, and thresholds — and her lifelong path of spiritual journeying, dreamwork, and intuitive perception has informed a grounded, disciplined practice rooted not in spectacle, but in listening, discernment, and ethical restraint.
Oni’s formation spans the contemplative, the performative, and the organizational. She holds degrees in Psychology/Biology and Philosophy, advanced training in classical performance, and doctoral-level study in organizational leadership. This uncommon range shapes her ability to hold space — whether ceremonial, executive, or relational — with clarity, emotional intelligence, and calm authority.
Her spiritual practice is most closely aligned with Zen Buddhism and Taoism, lineages that tempered the early fire into precision, humility, and flow, and that inform her approach to ceremony, counsel, and leadership: simple, spacious, and responsive to what is actually needed.
In ceremonial contexts, Oni designs and facilitates bespoke spiritual blessings and rites of passage that honor land, lineage, and lived belief — always with research, humility, and respect for traditions not her own. Her work is particularly sought in intimate, high-trust environments where discretion, depth, and symbolic fluency matter.
In parallel, Oni serves as a Chief-of-Staff–level advisor and estate strategist through Uhuru Sanctuary, supporting principals, families, and organizations at moments of transition, consolidation, and renewal. She is known for integrating intuition with structure, vision with execution, and meaning with operational clarity.
Across all her work, Oni embodies a rare synthesis: shamanic perception tempered by Zen discipline, Baptist fire refined into ethical courage, and spiritual leadership expressed through tangible stewardship. Her presence is quiet, stabilizing, and catalytic — restoring coherence where complexity once lived.