Bollywood’s fitness instructor extraordinaire, Yasmin Karachiwala talks about her latest book

Yasmin Karachiwala’s fitness journey began with a nudge from a close friend—a seemingly simple invitation that transformed her life. “When you are 18 you generally get peer pressured into doing things. My best friend said, ‘If you’re my friend you will work out with me.’ So that’s how I joined a health club,” says the 53-year-old. However, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows at first. “I hated doing anything that required me to move a muscle, or an arm. Even in school, I would never go for athletic training; I would opt for things like shot put or javelin because that requires strength, and not movement. I went into the dance studio, which was actually an aerobics class, and I realised that I was completely uncoordinated. If the class was going right, I was going left; I was just stamping on people’s toes,” she laughs. However, rather than throwing in the towel, she decided to confront her weaknesses head-on. “At the end of the class, I felt like I had made a complete fool of myself, and I was a total klutz. But instead of giving up, I signed up for the class again the next day.” Her perseverance paid off and she started to notice gradual improvements. Her movements became more synchronised, and her confidence grew with each passing day. The once unfamiliar and daunting dance studio transformed into a place of personal growth and empowerment.

Every now and then, life presents us with unexpected opportunities that can transform our path, and so it happened with Yasmin. One day the regular instructor was absent and Yasmin was offered the opportunity to teach. “I realised I love telling people what to do. I enjoyed being in the spotlight.” Initially, it was just a way to earn some extra pocket money. But it was a trip to the United States for a summer camp that led to a significant turning point. She decided to do a certification course after being motivated by the same instructor again. In those days, fitness certification was virtually unheard of in India. Undeterred, Yasmin embarked on the journey to become a certified group fitness instructor in 1991. The experience was no cakewalk, as she recalls, “It was the toughest thing I had ever done in my life.” The rigorous course required her to understand intricate details of the human body. For someone without a science background, the challenge was even greater. However, she persevered, pushing through the obstacles that stood in her way.

Over the years Yasmin’s career has grown by leaps and bounds. Today she is known as the ‘trainer to the stars’ as she has guided the likes of Katrina Kaif, Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt in their fitness journeys. During the Covid-19 pandemic Yasmin came up with a new fitness approach. “During Covid, I realised that everyone was sitting at home— myself included. I didn’t realise that if I was teaching online from nine in the morning till one in the afternoon, in four hours I would not move at all. I was just sitting in one place and looking at the computer and telling people how to move.” This fact brought forth the importance of just moving 10 minutes in a day to be fit, shares Yasmin. “I started setting an alarm on my phone every 60 minutes to walk for five minutes. And at the end of eight hours of training online, I had worked out for 40 minutes, just like that!”

Yasmin’s new book—The Perfect 10—which will be out in mid August is about making your fitness journey easy. “I wanted to make workouts really simple to do. Often books tell you how to do five exercises, but we just don’t get it right. I wanted to spoon-feed people as far as possible.” Yasmin says that with her book by their side, people have no excuse not to exercise. “My book has QR codes which upon scanning show you a 10-minute workout video. I break it down and show you how to do every exercise. With just the help of a mat, you can do it anywhere.” These are the stacks to success “I call them stacks, if you have 10 minutes, you do one stack. If you have 20 minutes, you do two stacks. I have further divided them into upper body, lower body, full body, abdominal, and cardio.”