Hayley Yokoyama

Hayley (LMBT #19480) is originally from Hillsborough, just a couple minutes down the road from Auroraflow. She spent a chunk of time in Roanoke, VA, while at Hollins University, so she has a soft spot for the Blue Ridge Mountains. She's a Leo and an INFJ, meaning she's a big-picture kind of gal with big homebody energy. She loves to do all things crafty, especially sewing, embroidery, and furniture redesign.

Her partner, Keita, and she are big foodies, so the weekends tend to be their time to explore new restaurants or concoct their own dishes. When they retire, they really want to open their own Japanese-Southern fusion restaurant.

Hayley has been dancing for almost 20 years now and wanted to translate all of the skills she had learned in the studio into something she could share with a wider range of people. Dance taught her how to improvise, how to be intuitive with others' minds and bodies, and how each body savors movement in a different way. After a pretty severe dance injury, it really shocked her that there was not an accessible system set up for post-physical therapy care for higher-performance athletes and artists.

She specializes in Ashiatsu, which means "foot pressure" in Japanese. It's a super slow, deep massage that feels almost like you're being enveloped in a warm, compressive wave. As a dancer, she wanted to take advantage of the knowledge that her body already possessed. Another pro is that Ashiatsu uses gravity to deliver deep pressure instead of pure muscle, which means that 5'2" Hayley can deliver 6' 2" pressure consistently.

While she thinks almost everyone can benefit from Ashiatsu, she would say two groups especially benefit: those who suffer from chronic pain conditions, because the deep structural pressure provides longer-lasting relief; and those who suffer from anxiety, insomnia, or depression, because the slow, deep pressure engages the parasympathetic "rest and digest" response, like a moving, weighted blanket.

Something that has always bothered her in healthcare has been the lack of support post-treatment. She wanted to participate in a space in which people could be honest with their difficulties and receive unconditionally positive care. Hayley was named Indy Week's Best Massage Therapist Runner-Up in both 2023 and 2024 and was awarded Best Massage Therapist in Durham in 2025.