This 65-year-old woman entrepreneur is helping people heal through a unique body therapy

Sixty-five-year-old Yamuna is a Chicago born internationally acclaimed body practitioner. At the age of 14, she started practising Hatha Yoga. Later, she set up a yoga and healing arts centre, Serenity while she was completing her graduate studies at Bank Street College of Education in New York City. 

Today, she has taken her understanding of the body and created new body sustainability practices and therapy that help the body heal. Forty years ago, she developed her hands-on therapy called ‘Body Logic’ to treat and heal injuries.

With her venture, Yamuna Body Rolling, she takes the practice to different parts of the world. So far, she has conducted trainings in over 38 countries and there are over 450 certified Yamuna practitioners across the world, with an impressive client list that also includes top athletes. She is invited by many studios around the world to teach classes and train people in “body work”.

Embracing the technology wave, she even offers these practices through videos that people can buy and practice from the comfort of their homes.

Converting the body therapy into a business

Yamuna calls herself a body sustainability practitioner. Body sustainability, she cautions, should not be confused with fitness.

“I believe over time most fitness systems cause injuries. Every physical exercise has a positive and negative side to it. Understanding the potential break down can allow you to choose ways to prevent it from happening and so help you work out more responsibly. This is what Body Sustainability is all about.” 

Her job as a body practitioner entails educating people on how to work safely and correctly with their bodies. She is trained to help people understand their alignment, gait and their injuries and the processes of correcting them. Her technique, Body Rolling helps people to work on their bodies using various size balls. It uses the practice and theory of her body logic therapy. She claims that the technique is a system of self-therapy and healing. 

The technique, she says, has shown to help improve alignment and circulation. “When all the body parts are well aligned the body functions better. The muscles work more efficiently and the range of motion throughout the body improves.”

ALSO READ

International Yoga Day: Meet 7 women entrepreneurs who have turned their passion into a career

“It helps people perform their daily activities with greater ease. The posture improves, the body and mind both become relaxed and yet energised. Old injuries get healed and all the systems of the body improve,” she adds.

Due to the benefits, people kept approaching her for her help. Several people who had healed their injuries wanted to learn from her to help other people. Even though she didn’t plan to turn this into a business, it grew organically. Apart from teaching and training sessions, she has expanded the business to sell products that go along with the practice such as the Yamuna balls, foot props, videos, downloads and wellness essential oil products.

Her practice sees a flurry of people from millennials women to those in their mid-sixties who are looking to stay healthier through their ageing process. She admits that the number of men who come to the practice are very low compared to women. Most of the men that do visit her practice are top athletes who find her work very effective. 

Challenges and future plans

When asked if she too faced challenges due to her gender, Yamuna says, “ I have absolutely faced difficulties as a woman entrepreneur. In the beginning, I could not get bank loans or lines of credit because I was a woman.”

She describes how people would often laugh at her practice and theories. She Introduced techniques like direct bone stimulation, the use of traction and the reorganisation of the body way before they became popular. Her practices were surely way ahead of the time. 

Though she is based in New York, Yamuna believes Yamuna Body Rolling is a world company. “I simply put every penny I ever made back into the business to keep it growing. At this point, it grows on its own and I no longer need to put additional monies into it."

Other than the practice, Yamuna is currently working on a book, which will be published in January 2021. She is also in the process of launching a new product this year, and expand to new countries every year.  

(Edited by Rekha Balakrishnan)