Char Grossman, Director and Founder of YogaReach®LLC is a compassionate, highly trained, nationally certified psychologist and certified yoga therapist (C-IAYT). Char has invested decades teaching special education and working as a post masters school psychologist. Her individualized and specialized education has aided Char in creating a state-of-the art program to help those facing a variety of neurological and neuromuscular challenges.

 

Char developed her adaptive therapeutic yoga program in the fall of 2004, after experiencing and recovering from her own life-threatening medical incident. Many years ago, Char developed bleeding in the brain (AVM). During 6-hour brain surgery reconstruction, she had an extensive stroke. The right side of her body had hemi-paralysis which made her unable to move her shoulder, arm, fingers and leg. She also experienced memory loss, emotional lability and aphasia which restricted her ability to read, write and communicate effectively. With all of these symptoms, Char never lost her receptive abilities. After aggressive rehabilitation, recovery was still uncertain. Not ready to give up, and understanding the challenges of people identified with disabilities, Char researched alternative ways to learn how to function better than the way she once applied herself. Her answer became YOGA, which was a new discovery.

 

Yoga as a complementary consistent therapeutic practice helped Char strengthen and restore her body, retrain her mind, and most importantly develop an optimistic mindful lifestyle. Yoga taught her how to reconnect her mind to her body and return to being the professional, wife and mother she wanted to be.  Char's amazing story inspired her to give back and bring adaptive therapeutic yoga to others going through their own challenges and recoveries. 

 

Grossman has authored a diverse collection of blog posts, a Professional Training Manual,has been a panelist for Curetalks (a medical trends program), interviewed twice by the Huffington Post about her YogaReach programs, which included the development of a Parkinson's disease-specific YogaReach Mindful Movement program. Char has been offering nation-wide professional training for Mindful Movement for Parkinson's which teaches professionals how to create adaptive therapeutic yoga classes to those with PD in their communities. Char recently presented an abstract to SYR-IAYT on how people with PD progress positively during a pandemic, with mind and body exercises. She is honored  be presenting her Creating Mindful Movement for Parkinson's Professional Training, July 26-28, 2024 at Omega Institute.