If it sounds very far-fetched to believe that rolling on a ball can enhance your well-being and help you sustain a healthy, vibrant, and stress-free body, just bear with me and let me explain.

Unlike other ball exercises, Yamuna Body Rolling goes far beyond random movement and stretch.

Based on anatomy and body logic these series of routines, created over 20 years ago by internationally-acclaimed therapist and Yoga instructor Yamuna Zake, allow you to work specific muscles in detail to create suppleness in tight areas, realign bones and joints, and optimize range of motion.

Over the years, the Yamuna Body Rolling practice has earned respect from chiropractors, physical therapists, Yoga, Pilates and Gyrotonic instructors, massage therapists, bodyworkers, fitness trainers and dance teachers.

Yamuna Body Rolling's basic principle is that pain, restrictions, and body problems in general come from a lack of space. Body parts are compressed (joints, vertebrae, organs) so they can't move or function like they're supposed to therefore you feel pain. The body gets locked into patterns due to habits, repetitious movements, traumas, etc. So we work to restore space in the body.

We use the 6 to 10-inch inflatable balls designed exclusively for Yamuna practice to replace the hands of a therapist and break those patterns. We work following the body's anatomical logic and order.

We start stimulating the bone, which initiates the release of the muscle since the bone and muscles are attached via tendons. In other words, it's sending a message to the muscles through the bone to "wake up" and start releasing. We'll then roll along the muscle, from origin to insertion, where the bone and muscle meet, so that the muscle understands in which direction it must release. The traction exerted by your own body weight on the ball stretches the muscle showing it how much space it has to expand into, dislodges tension and discomfort, increases blood-flow and promotes healing.

Working with the ball reveals to you how tightness in certain muscles prevents certain joints from moving easily. As you start to release the muscles, the joint automatically loosens up. As your muscles elongate, alleviating tightness and tension, your body doesn't have to work so hard. Everything becomes easier. Simple movements like walking, standing, sitting, twisting, bending become effortless.

YBR takes you everywhere you have muscle connecting from one place to the next : from the buttocks to the calf, from the tail bone up to the skull, from the abdomen up to the collar bone, from the collar bone out to the shoulder joint, and so on.

You just roll with it - using different-sized balls for different parts of your body. There are office routines that prevent headaches, back, neck, and shoulder tension; repetitive stress syndromes, such as carpal tunnel, that result from hours of sitting at your desk or computer.

No matter how old you are or what physical issues you have, all YBR routines can be modified, so that you can safely do them and still see dramatic improvements.

You'll feel better, more vibrant, more alive!

It's helping you stay in shape and lose weight. 

By working all the muscles of the body you are increasing your overall circulation, freeing up muscle restrictions, improving range of motion, flexibility and balance, and developing core strength and muscle tone.

Yamuna Body Rolling stimulates all the nerve roots along the spine. These nerve roots stimulate our vital organs and glands, which encourages lymphatic drainage and helps some people lose weight by increasing the metabolism. Though you might not lose weight, you will definitely lose inches. Elongating and freeing muscles improves your posture, so you have a longer, leaner look.

YBR is a great work out on its own but it can also be a perfect complement to any type of physical activity.

Whatever your fitness regimen may be, YBR is your workout's ally and best friend. It helps you perform better and therefore get much more from your workouts. Moreover, it both prevents and assists in the swift healing of injuries.

After a spin or step class, use a ball to roll throughout each of your leg muscle groups. Before or after weight-training sessions, use YBR to roll out all your muscles. Use YBR after any aerobic class to roll out your spine and other body parts you may have stressed.

It naturally complements your yoga practice being that they both share the same goals : to free the body of restrictions, eliminate stress and tension; create calm and balanced in your body.

Whatever your exercise or practice, YBR enhances the results.

PHILOSOPHY

If everyone knew how to take care of their body they could prevent many of the unnecessary structural problems that age us before our time.

When you have the knowledge and tools to keep your body pain-free and flexible throughout life, you don't experience the stiffness and restrictions associated with aging, intensive dance or sport practice, or even the stress of modern lifestyles.

Knowledge of how to do it should be widely available and my goal is to give everyone access to optimal health and wellness so you can move through each day with increased vitality and energy, renewed power and strength from your core.

And just as much as I want my dancing to appear graceful and effortless, I want to help you put the glide back into your gait.

Yamuna Body Rolling teaches you how to “work on yourself ” anytime, anywhere, forever.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF YAMUNA BODY ROLLING™?

• Leaner and stronger muscles  
• Increased range of motion
• Improved posture and musculoskeletal alignment
• Increased overall circulation
• Better balance and equilibrium as core strength develops
• Healthier spine
• Nerve roots stimulation
• Organs stimulation  
• Increased metabolism  
• Nervous system relaxation
• Increased lung capacity and fuller use of the breath
• Better body awareness  
• Learning to know and understand the body's anatomy and how to prevent and heal injuries

PRESS

Your Body: Tools of the Trade

Rollers and balls get you through class--and the day.

Dancing professionally should come with a warning label: Beware of aches and pains, muscle fatigue and cramping, joint discomfort, and crackly popping sounds. To manage pain and keep moving, dancers often turn to foot rollers, foam rollers, and balls. These handy self-massage tools can relieve aching muscles during class or rehearsal [...] 

“Rolling is great for lengthening and pulling apart fascial tissue, especially plantar fascia on the bottom of feet, and the iliotibial band (IT) along the side of the thigh,” says Julie O’Connell, director of Performing Arts Rehabilitation at AthletiCo in Chicago. Fascia, a soft connective layer between skin and muscle that helps support the body’s structural integrity, tends to tighten and get more rigid from use. O’Connell recommends spending 3 to 5 minutes rolling during breaks in a long rehearsal day to feel some relief, until there’s a decrease in tension and an increase in pliability. “Don’t try to remove all of the fascial tension because your body needs that for postural support,” she says.

Erika Kalkan, faculty member at Harkness Center for Dance Injuries, suggests rolling once muscles are warm after class to reap the most benefit. However, if the muscle is irritatingly tight beforehand, the dancer may want to roll to loosen it up before she starts to work. “As you roll out, focus, breathe, and try to relax into it,” she says. [...] 

Balls can soften knots or muscular adhesions in the back, chest, hamstrings, glutes, and feet. For ballet dancers, O’Connell notes that calves and external rotators—specifically the piriformis, in the gluteal region—most often require release.

To release the piriformis, says O’Connell, sit on a ball placed under one hip, with knee bent in a relaxed turnout, and roll around on the ball. Kalkan also tells dancers to keep the ball in one spot for 30 seconds and imagine relaxing the muscles over the ball, then move to a different spot and repeat. “A relaxed muscle allows the fibers to lengthen, brings circulation to the area, and causes a release on a neuro-physical level.”  

There are more specific ball-rolling techniques, including Yamuna Body Rolling, that safely increase relief. Yamuna uses 6- to 10-inch balls of various densities to roll out the entire body in an anatomically correct manner, starting at the origin of a specific muscle and rolling to the point where the muscle inserts into the bone. Once learned, the technique can aid a dancer’s post-class body maintenance [...]

Tools like these may help you con­tinue dancing, but Kalkan believes in investigating the cause of pain, discovering why some areas are always tight, then striving towards a solution. Working on alignment and proper muscle recruitment can lead to long-term relief.

Jen Peters - Dance Magazine, January 2010

(Jen Peters writes for several dance publications and dances with Jennifer Muller/The Works.)

Rolling rocker

Rock star Sting is so serious about body work that he travels with his own Pilates machines. When he and his band, The Police, spent three days in Seattle last month on their reunion tour, his aides called around town to find a professional to help him through his workout. Martine Dedek, co-owner of Seattle's Studio Evolve, wound up getting the call and spending parts of three days working with him.

The first session was at a workout room set aside for him at Key Arena, right before the band's first show in town, and involved Pilates. When Dedek saw him the next day, she asked what kind of work he wanted to do and he said, "Whatever your intuition tells you."

Her intuition led her to suggest Yamuna Body Rolling, which is a bit like rolfing in its aim of releasing the connective tissue surrounding the muscles and organs to improve movement and circulation. She says Sting talked about the imbalances of his body after decades of playing bass. One shoulder holds the weight of the instrument, while the other droops to allow him to work the strings.

"I thought the intensity of Yamuna Body Rolling would appeal to him," she says. "And it did. He felt the difference after working one side ... and really liked working his shins. He has some Achilles tendonitis from jumping on stage in boots, so releasing his shins and getting more movement in his ankles will help with that."

With the procedure, often referred to as YBR, you methodically and gently roll parts of your body over a 9-inch ball, a bit denser than a volleyball. You use tension to work the fascia, the fibrous connective tissue that binds muscles. It is self-massage and can elongate your frame, or at least your posture.

It should be done first with the guidance of someone who understands its principles. Stay away from rolling over ribs or directly on bone. As with any new regimen, you should start easy, see how it feels, get proper instruction and continue only if it seems safe and helpful. I often use a foam roller, which is a hard surface to stretch and massage my back, neck and legs, but Yamuna balls, which come in various densities, allow for a more versatile round of kneading.

Regardless of the method, working the tension you build up during the day benefits not just the body, but the mind as well. It's one reason that yoga is so popular. Cedric Bryant, chief science officer for the American Council on Exercise, says body rolling, like rolfing, can be a valuable tool in an exercise regimen and a good counter to heavy exertion.

Some practitioners just tackle tight spots, but often "the spot" is not the source of the problem. The pain may be a result of aggravations elsewhere on the kinetic chain. And forget the old "no pain, no gain" mantra. Body rolling should not hurt. You should do it slowly because the body responds best with slow movement and deep breathing. In fact, you should stop if you feel sharp pain. The trick with body rolling is that you control the intensity.

Essentially, you put the ball where a muscle's tendon meets bone, then sink your weight onto the ball. The pressure that results activates circulation and, as the theory goes, the tendon becomes more elastic. People with chronic back pain might find value in it because tight hamstrings and hip flexors could be the culprits.

[...]

On the last day Sting was in Seattle, Dedek gave him some of the Yamuna balls and contacts for YBR instructors along the tour.

Sting left his own gift, a written celebrity thumbs-up: "Extraordinary, revolutionary, revelatory and ultimately freeing. Highly recommend five stars. *****" — Sting. 

          Richard Seven, Seattle Times staff reporter

          Originally published July 1, 2007

"The beauty of Yamuna Body Rolling is that it takes you from the origin of the muscle at the tendon, elongating the muscle while stimulating the bone and soft tissue. Working with the body's own gravity, the exercises ease movement in the muscles to the point of relaxation, offering one of the finest weight-bearing exercises, with the benefits of a deep self-massage." 

"The idea behind Body Rolling is that tension starts where the muscle originates-in the dense fibrous tendons that anchor them to bone. It's this precise attention to stretching muscles from tendon to tendon that makes the exercise unique…After 15 minutes of doing the exercises on both legs, I can bend over and place my palms flat against the floor, a move I can usually only execute at the end of a two-hour yoga class."

          --Catherine Guthrie

          Health Magazine

TESTIMONIALS

"I had my first Yamuna Body Rolling session shortly after sustaining a back injury. Without YBR techniques, I would not have made it through Houston ballet's six-city, two-week bus tour of Spain. 

Throughout my career, I have worked with chiropractors, massage therapists, acupuncturists and physical therapists, but nothing compares to Yamuna Body Rolling."

          Barbara Bears-Gadbois

          Former Principal Dancer - Houston Ballet

MEET STEVE SHAPIRO

This ex-athlete credits Body Rolling with saving him from a knee replacement. Journalist Art Carey, writing in the Health & Science section of The Philadelphia Inquirer (August 23, 2002) has this to say about the one-time jock:

"Steve, a general contractor, is a big boy. He's 6-foot-2 and weights 265. In high school he played football and lacrosse. In college, he put the shot and threw the discus. After college, he played basketball and racquetball. He also creamed his knees, erasing the cartilage. "It's bone on bone," he says.

Enter Body Rolling. The goals: to restore normal biomechanical function, to correct misalignments, to open muscles so they can freely absorb nutrients, to improve the relationship between muscle and bone, and to reduce arthritis by creating more space in impacted joints.

After his first Body Rolling session, Steve felt an immediate drop in knee pain. After his third session, he was able to cast aside his brace, Lazarus-like. He hasn't worn it since."