Why MetaMove?Metamorphosis Movement is unique because it is infuses the grounding experience of Kemetic yoga with the striking force of Muay Thai (Thai Kickboxing using punches, kicks, elbows and knees). Allowing our community to experience the juxtaposition of yin and yang in one class experience.&nbsp;Our school is the only to combine these practices in one class experience. Our school is also deeply committed to our communities in Harlem and The Bronx. We are founded by a grassroots community organizer with over a decade of organizing experience. This gives our school a unique perspective on self-defense as existing&nbsp; beyond just ones personal protection but also toward community defense from institutional violence (socially, emotionally and mentally).Metamorphosis Movement is the only Black Women owned and completely Black Women operated Muay Thai school in NYC. Particularly with a younger head instructor that has been doing Muay Thai since childhood (Sifu Dee started at 13 years old and have been training for 18 years). Her relationship to Muay Thai is a life long love affair which gives her a very deep understanding and appreciation of the art that is unique and which she is passionate about sharing with her community but particularly with generations younger than her. Because she is the lead instructor, her school primarily attracts young Black and brown girls. This shows them that not only is it possible for them to pursue martial arts but also that there is a space specifically for them to do so, being lead by someone that looks like them and can relate to them. Our school provides an introduction for the self defense curious, allowing people that are usually excluded from the self-defense space to gain confidence in their ability to occupy this space, learn and grow their own personal practices.Sifu Dee is not only a martial artist but is also a carpenter by trade, which means she often find herself in spaces dominated by men. Thus, she understands the power, belonging and groundedness that comes from being in a space that centers the experiences of Black, Brown and POC women and femmes.Metamorphosis Movement has allowed Sifu Dee to utilize her personal creativity by allowing her to combine her experience as a grassroots organizer with her passion as a martial artist and community convener. Although she has been doing martial arts for most of her life, it was not until 2019 that she began to share that very important aspect of herself with her organizing community. With whom she has very close bonds, they are her chosen family. She began to ask herself why she had compartmentalized this aspect of her being away from such an important part of her identity, being an organizer. She first combined these passions by teaching a free Queer/Trans Self Defense course with a community group she was part of. By synthesizing her understandings and critiques of the organizing ethos she is part of and now re-introducing her entire self to the community work, from that experience onward she knew she had to create a martial arts school to create balance and fill gaps she saw in our movement. Gaps around self-worth, personal defense, being responsive vs reactive and minding our hyper stimulated nervous systems (nervous system regulations).

Why MetaMove?

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Cyclical Lessons Deck

The MetaMove Reset Series is an 8 Week Long Cardio High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) series which combines Kemetic yoga and Muay Thai (Thai Kickboxing) to offer women and queer folks in NYC a fun and exciting community in which to sweat and meet their fitness goals. As well as learn self-defense and mindfulness basics. This series will take place on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings for the duration of the 8 weeks. Alongside a YouTube video series of 10-20min videos that will include Kemetic yoga flows, guided meditations, at-home cardio kickboxing workouts and conversation &amp; reflections on wellness in my community.This opportunity will serve as an introduction course to our more in depth martial arts and self defense training offerings which combine Kemetic yoga, cardio and Muay Thai technique. Including, punches, kicks, knees, elbows, clinching, sparring and additional trainings. This series will take place in April to May of 2025 and will have both virtual and in-person offerings. This series will be the debut of our exclusively cardio focussed yoga infused cardio kickboxing series. This series will also invite in special guests that focus on different holistic wellness and self defense modalities to discuss with our community.

Step 2 • Our Project Proposal🫂💃🏿✨

In 2022 Sifu Dee began working in schools across New York City with a program called Togetherhood. More about Toghetherhood: “To enable consistently outstanding enrichment so that everyone (regardless of financial circumstances) has the opportunity to become who they aspire to.”

MetaMove x Togetherhood

Metamorphosis Movement is a movement, not a moment.Lovingly referred to as MetaMove,We teach Muay Thai, Kemetic Yoga and self-defense training toward community autonomy. Focused on understanding full body and spirit wellness as essential aspects of self-defense.

Metamorphosis Movement • Imagination Fund Proposal

Since November 2023, Metamorphosis Movement has been teaching adult, teen and children’s classes in Harlem.We have since started a collaboration with a local community owned bookstore in Harlem, Sister's Uptown Bookstore. Sister's Uptown bookstore celebrated its 24 year anniversary serving the local community this year and will be starting a collaboration with our school and our sister School, MEQ (Martial Energy Quotient) in October of 2024.More about Sister's Uptown Bookstore:"We provide resources for members of the community to nurture their minds, hearts and souls with present and past works of gifted African American authors and other great authors and intellectuals including masters of spoken word.&nbsp;We have successfully become a positive staple in the community of Washington Heights and recently celebrated 15 years of community service. We are not just a book store; we are a community resource center for the exchange of information and ideas. Our motto is “knowledge is key”. We provide an educational, emotional, spiritual and loving environment for our diverse community where all are welcomed."

MetaMove • Saturday Classes

In celebration of Black August, MetaMove collaborated with Bronx-based organizations, The Cypher and Uptown &amp; Boogie Healthy Project to produce a 4-part political education performance series about the history of Maroons in Jamaica. The series, 'Cyclical Lessons: Marronage , Liberation , and Co-Creation' took place underneath the Gun Hill Road train station in the Bronx, located in a historically diasporic Jamaican community.More about Cyclical Lessons:Started in 2019 as part of Gallery of the Streets', [b]reach: adventures in heterotopia Abolitionist Opera, 'Cyclical Lessons: Marronage , Liberation , and Co-Creation' is a 4-part participatory performance that will take us through the history of the Trelawny Maroons, Jamaican junkanoo and traditional dance forms, and incorporate elements of play in its Ancestor communion, world-building and remembrance. Through the legacy of the Haitian Revolution and Marronage, this project results in a transformative justice lesson through socially engaged art practice as a means to prototype skills and lifeworlds that uplift autonomy and liberation for soon-to-be liberated peoples.More about The Cypher:"We focus on transformation – creating and holding generous and joyful vegan space for Trans* &amp; Queer Black and Indigenous folks. We are a Black femme-focused and led QTBIPOC formation with the goal of forwarding Black Trans and Queer liberation with food, gender and environmental justice. This is an intergenerational, multi-experiential space that pushes past the status quo to embrace African ancestral ways of knowing from a diasporic lens. This formation holds Black space as sacred and necessary for survival – Black Trans* &amp; Queer space even more so."More about The Uptown &amp; Boogie Healthy Project:"The Uptown &amp; Boogie Healthy Project aims to increase access to locally grown farm fresh food, promote micro-mobility, and reduce waste through composting and textile recycling in Harlem and The Bronx. Through the creation of the Kids Club and additional community engagement strategies, interactive sessions will be held at local farmers' markets to encourage good nutrition as part of a growing movement towards a healthier, better-fed, and more educated community."

MetaMove x The Cypher

Dalaeja Foreman aka Sifu Dee (she/they) is a world-builder, visionary, martial artist, curator, socially engaged artist, educator, wood-worker and first-generation Caribbean-New Yorker. She is passionate about holistic wellness for individuals and soon to be liberated communities and has been practicing and teaching Muay Thai for 18+ years. Radical pedagogy, reclaiming public space, and liberatory action are central to her curatorial and organizing practices; specifically with the goal of prototyping counter-hegemonic ideologies and actions, combating internalized misconceptions oppressed people have of ourselves, and emphasizing resistance through direct action and cultural production. In the last few years, Dalaeja has served on the board of the New York City Network of Worker Cooperatives (NYC NoWC) and is currently an Advocacy Council member of the organization. Working on policy and advocacy for the rights of worker cooperative businesses and worker-owners.Dalaeja is a certified group fitness instructor with the American Council on Excercise. While competing in amateur Muay Thai fights as a teen, she gained a 3-0-0 record. Holding the PKF World Title Champion, Women's Lightweight Muay Thai for 2009 and most recently the 2023 Grappling Industries Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Gold Medalist for the Light Feather weight Masters Division for White belt Gi in Brooklyn. As well as a Quarter Finalist in Women’s Health and Fitness magazines’ 2023 Ms Health and Fitness Competition. Dalaeja has been featured on New York’s Pix11 on a segment on Self-Defense in the subway. In early 2023 she became a certified Kemetic Yoga instructor under Master Yirser Ra Hotep.She holds an Associates of Applied Science in Visual Presentation and Exhibition Design and a Bachelors of Arts in Home Product Development from the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY.&nbsp;She is also a graduate of the MA Contemporary Art and Art Theory of Asia and Africa program at SOAS, University of London. Dalaeja is the founder of a mobile martial arts school named Metamorphosis Movement and is one of three founders of the woodworking cooperative, breadfruit.

About Sifu Dee!🐚✨

As a student and assistant coach with MEQ (Martial Energy Quotient), Sifu Dee competed in her first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Competition in the summer of 2023. She secured the gold medal in the Light Feather weight Masters Division for White belt Gi.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Tournament

In 2023, Sifu Dee became a quarter-finalist for the National Ms. Health &amp; Fitness 2023 competition, coming in 5th place against thousands of applicants.

Ms. Health & Fitness 2023

Developed in 2020, we are a community centered self-defense and holistic wellness studio operating out of Harlem, NY and The Bronx, NY. We have hosted self-defense trainings in collaboration with local community organizations ranging from grassroots organizations to birth work and doula worker-owned cooperatives. We've collaborated with the department of education and are furthering our relationships with school districts across the city.

Step 1 • Our Past Work🧘🏿‍♀️💖👊🏿

In 2023 MetaMove collaborated with The Birthing Place for Pre &amp; Post Natal Yoga &amp; Kickboxing classes for their community of birthing folks based in The Bronx and Harlem. We collaborated with a local POC Woman owned gym named Female Fight Club, the classes were greatly appreciated by the community.Please see more about The Birthing Place below:"We are <a href="https://thebirthingplace.co/about/#team" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a team</a> of exceptionally experienced maternal health professionals in NYC — midwives, doulas, educators, passionate community members, and engaged organizations — working together to help drive the mission of The Birthing Place forward. We are BIPOC-led, multilingual and serving our community with the desire to create a maternity care system that centers the marginalized. This results in an improved experience for all.Our goal is to create a sanctuary that offers personalized loving support for the planning, expectant, and newly-blossomed family. Our work saves and substantially improves lives, creating future birth stories of hope and empowerment. Maintaining our clear vision to open a birth center, we move through key phases: (1) education, (2) wellness, (3) birth.Until we can build a brick and mortar birth center, <a href="https://thebirthingplace.co/womb-bus" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Womb Bus</a>, our wellness hub on wheels, functions as a vehicle through which we can reach our community with critical services more immediately, providing perinatal support, preconception education, reproductive counseling, and increased access to nutrition counseling, mental health support, and supplementary bodywork modalities.We are proud to be a trusted resource for families to connect to and uplift reproductive health. We have provided education to thousands of families, extended wellness via Womb Bus to shift the narrative in Bronx neighborhoods statistically known to suffer the greatest maternal and infant mortality and morbidity, and now, we’re driving our mission forward, as we enter a transition phase to provide direct reproductive, well-person and clinical care to the families we serve. Launching a medical practice is a key step that fuels our plans to build a birth center on land allocated for the future existence of The Birthing Place."

Metamorphosis Movement • Imagination Fund Proposal🐚✨

Metamorphosis Movement • Imagination Fund Proposal🐚✨

Metamorphosis Movement • Imagination Fund Proposal

Metamorphosis Movement • Imagination Fund Proposal