Qoya is a women’s wellness movement that incorporates yoga, traditional dance, and the exploration of movement. The word Qoya means Queen in Quechuan and translates into the idea that movement can influence different emotions and feelings. The practitioners suggest that movement is tied into the connection to the mind and the body’s wisdom.

The three core components of Qoya are wisdom, being wild, and being free. The website explains that:

• Wise: the wisdom of yoga
• Wild: the creative expression in dance
• Free: expanding our capacity to enjoy our bodies through sensual movement

Each class is themed to support femininity and uniqueness which allows students to tap into their memory, heart, mind, and spirit.

What exactly does “sensual movement” mean for a student?

“Sensual movement is movement that feels good in your body in the moment,” says Revanna Powell, an instructor of Qoya classes.  Qoya requires you to “slow down enough to notice what feels good.” Like yogic practices, Qoya reinforces the notion that we should pay attention to what is happening to our movement and to explore those movements in various motions. Instead of focusing on how one looks, the classes encourage to simply feel and move. This idea can be translated into more sexually experiences, in the bedroom, where performance and how we appear to our partner can sometimes dominate our mind and influence pleasure.

For beginners, a Qoya class can be imagined without a mirror, candles, oracle cards, and a set of movements that last for the entire duration of a song. The class will begin with opening the heart, opening the hips, and then moving into sun salutations. Sounds familiar, right? Yoga is definitely a huge influence of Qoya, however, the movement goes beyond the floor and into another state of flow. The movement includes a shadow dance, where students find their shadow and face their movements privately. A choreographed component of the class includes more of a cohesive moment, while the class typically ends by free-styling around the studio. Students are encouraged to move as they wish, vast or modest, rapid or gradual, while still remembering to connect to their body.

How does connectedness work?

By setting yourself free, you are able to connect. The “13 pillars of a Qoya class each offer the opportunity to tap in to your body in the moment and reconnect to aspects that you may have forgotten or been conditioned to disregard,” says Powell. These pillars include the steps above which detail what a Qoya class is all about. Ritual, salutations, finding space, and strengthening the mind and body, are all at the core of how to accomplish a connection to freedom.

Just like Qoya can connect you to your body, it also connects you to those around you. Powell says that Qoya offers empowerment by “bringing them home to their truth and helping them remember the essence of who they are, by giving them the space to express.” Outside relationships, with a partner or friend, can be positively impacted as a result.

What happens after a Qoya class?

So, you’ve finished your class, what should you expect to feel? Qoya has a saying that they utilize that encapsulates the sensual movement classes: “Come as you are, and leave as more of who you are.” While everyone has a varied experience, ranging from different emotions, Qoya hopes to spark a feeling of freedom in women.

Qoya offers free fifteen to twenty minutes videos of sensual movements for viewers and interested students. The beautiful form of dance features long, concentrated, but unrestrained gestures which can be done anywhere, in any location. Finding a trueness to your body, hips bending and flowing, eyes closed or open, Qoya is sure to offer and feminine sensation for students who yearn to feel wise, wild, and free.

By S. Nicole Lane on October 12, 2017
Nicole is a women's health journalist living in Chicago. Her sex and art column, "Intimate Justice" can be found on Sixty Inches from Center. She also contributes to The Establishment, HelloGiggles, GO Magazine, and elsewhere. In addition to writing she is an artist who works with assemblage and sculpture. She tweets at @snicolelane.