Aarti Pandey – Transforming Lives with Folk Fitness
Aarti Pandey, the ‘Mind’ of Folk Fitness took inspiration from India’s rich cultural heritage and her love for fitness and channelled it further to launch a series of entrepreneurial ventures, Folk Fitness being one of them. The thought behind Folk Fitness, was to bring forth a fitness regimen which can be relatable to all age groups, which would eventually lead to a movement to make India a fitter country. Being a woman entrepreneur, Aarti perceives Folk Fitness as a strong platform for young girls, working women, home makers, fitness enthusiasts and aspiring fitness trainers irrespective of gender, age and region. Folk Fitness, now, has over 800+ fitness trainers across 18 tier I and tier II cities in India with presence in Australia. 85% of these trainers are women. Folk Fitness family is ecstatic to have incorporated 2 transgender trainers and 1 differently abled trainer. Aarti Pandey has been a pioneer in helping transform these trainers and fitness enthusiast mentally, physically and financially.
Though Folk Fitness is her baby, Aarti started her journey with Bharatnatyam, to gain knowledge of one of India’s most prominent classical dance form, which laid a solid foundation for Aarti to set up one of Pune’s premier Dance Academy, DDLL in 2010. This venture turned out to be extremely successful and prompted Aarti to launch Fiber Fitness Services Pvt. Ltd in 2013. Besides Bharatnatyam, Aarti has undertaken training on various other Indian folk dances under the expert guidance of Late Indumati Lele and has also represented Maharashtra and India at many national level and international dance competitions.
She has received various awards and recognitions like Leading Young Woman Entrepreneur at the 6th Annual Women Leaders in India & Awards; Entrepreneurial Success by National Start-up and Entrepreneurship Conclave; Pune International Dance Congress; Made By Her Star 2017 by Women At Work, Phoenix Leading Lady Awards 2018 are just few of her received awards and recognitions. She was recently recognised as a Champion Mentor at Sheroes, a women-only digital platform that aims to put 100 million women on the growth road map, where Aarti advices women on Health and Wellness, Confidence Building and Career Guidance.
Aarti also received training in Latin American dance styles post which she started training other dance enthusiasts and currently has over 20,000 + hours of dance fitness teaching experience. Her accomplishments do not end her. She has an MBA degree in Sales and Marketing, from the prestigious Welingkar Institute of Management with an experience of 6 years in the corporate world.
Aarti is a true example on striking the right balance between work and family life, being a successful entrepreneur and mother of two young children. She had to fight depression after her first pregnancy, which she did best with dance. She believes that support from family is a must for women to succeed in their endeavours and all women need to do is to ask for it. There is no shame in it, as a million opportunities open-up when there is support from family.
Aarti advices women to stop giving excuses and start working out daily. Every woman should take out 45 minutes of “Me”-time, for themselves to be able to handle all the mundane things they must focus. She strongly believes that “A fit woman in the house, makes the family a healthy and fit institution”.
