Date
In loving memory · Yamuna Zake · 1954–2026
By Dianne Glass · June 2026
The year was 1990.
I found myself at a massage conference in Orlando, Florida — something I had never done in my nine-year Massage Therapy career at that point. I needed some last-minute continuing education credits and decided to go for a quick immersion.
Little did I know that weekend would put me on a life-changing path.
"There was an energy about her — alive, curious, unconventional. She wasn't teaching from a script. She was discovering."
A tall, striking woman with long salt-and-pepper hair and a presence that immediately stood out from every other presenter I’d encountered. That woman was Yamuna Zake.
She was introducing a method called Body Logic — her original bodywork method, years before Body Rolling existed. Yamuna had been a yoga master since her teens, and she possessed a depth of understanding that seemed to come from somewhere beyond formal training. She wasn’t teaching what she had learned from someone else. She was uncovering something entirely her own.
Not everyone got it. In fact, I remember hearing people criticize her work for not being “muscle-specific” enough. I laugh when I think about that now.
As she demonstrated her work on someone from the audience, I sat completely captivated. What I witnessed was unlike any bodywork I had ever seen. It wasn’t technique. It wasn’t manipulation. It was communication.
I immediately signed up for a private session. That session changed everything.
During that session, Yamuna traced, tractioned, and organized my entire body. She worked from my feet to my head and even inside my mouth — something I had never experienced before. What I felt afterward wasn’t simply relaxation. I was transformed.
I felt space where there had been compression. Energy where there had been stagnation. It was as if every part of my body had awakened and become connected to every other part.
The following year, I saw that Yamuna was teaching at a massage conference in Key West. So I went — and then I pretty much stalked her all weekend about coming to train with her.
That weekend we did classes using stretch bands and tiny pink balls under the feet. We danced, drank red wine, and talked for hours. Somewhere along the way, we discovered we shared something deeply personal. We were both widows, still in our thirties, each raising a young daughter on our own. There was an immediate understanding between us.
By the end of that weekend, I had made up my mind. I was going to Spain.
Not long after, I found myself in Sitges, Spain, where Yamuna was living at the time. There were only a handful of practitioners studying with her, and I was fortunate to learn one-on-one. And I arrived with a ball in tow.
I had attended a workshop where people rolled around on inflatable balls in a rather unstructured way. The experience had stayed with me, so I brought one along to show Yamuna. At the time, there was a spirit of exploration around everything she was doing. We were constantly experimenting with new ways to create space and awareness in the body.
One day, as Yamuna watched me work, she picked up the ball and placed it in her armpit. I watched her face change. Her eyes seemed to glaze over as she became completely absorbed in what she was feeling. Then she suddenly looked up and said:
"Oh, my God. I know how we can release the whole body with this ball."
Neither of us knew it at the time, but we were witnessing the birth of Yamuna Body Rolling.
After Spain, I continued studying Body Logic with Yamuna in New York City throughout the 1990s. Together, we studied posture, cranial bones, energetic releases, movement patterns, and the intricate relationships that connect the entire body. Those years shaped me in ways I couldn’t have imagined, and many of the friendships I made there remain among my most treasured today.
We started organizing introductory workshops in Florida so more people could experience the work. During those early workshops, we started experimenting with the balls in educational ways — we called it “Touch and Tell Anatomy.” One of my favorite exercises involved tracing the individual hamstring muscles from the sit bone to their attachments at the knee. Sound familiar?
Gradually, Yamuna began experimenting more and more with using the ball on herself. What emerged was a way for people to experience many of the same changes and insights of a Body Logic session on their own. That was the birth of Yamuna Body Rolling — a completely original way for people to work with their own bodies using a ball.
What began as a simple experiment evolved into a self-care practice embraced by thousands of people around the world. Specialized balls were eventually developed and manufactured. Later came Foot Fitness, Face Ball, and a global community of practitioners and students carrying the work forward.
Looking back now, it’s remarkable to realize that what thousands of people practice around the world today began with a woman willing to trust her observations, follow her curiosity, and listen deeply to the body’s own intelligence.
For me, what began as a last-minute continuing education weekend in Orlando became a 36-year journey. A journey of friendship. A journey of discovery. A journey that allowed me to witness the birth and evolution of a body of work that has touched countless lives worldwide.
My hope is to continue sharing what Yamuna taught us — preserving the depth and brilliance of her work, and helping future generations experience the same sense of possibility that I felt during that very first Body Logic session.
For that, and for her friendship, I will always be grateful.
