Women in business: Jessie Lipkowitz – aUM Yoga and Polarity

In honor of Women’s History Month, The Michigan Daily’s business beat spent the month speaking with women business owners throughout Ann Arbor about their journey, their connection to the community and their legacy. Read the other stories here.

Jessie Lipkowitz has a journey full of twists and turns that led her to become the owner of aUM Yoga and Polarity, a yoga and pole studio located on South University Avenue in Ann Arbor. 

Born in Las Vegas, Lipkowitz has called Ann Arbor home for over a decade, after graduating from the University of Michigan in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in Classical Art and Archeology. She went on to get her master’s degree the next year in Heritage and Museum Management at Cambridge University with aspirations of pursuing a joint J.D. and Ph.D. program in the future and a career in illicit art trade and property law. But before she went back to school, she wanted to work and looking for a job in 2012 amidst a national recession was no easy feat, Lipkowitz told The Daily.

“I put up something crazy, like 600 job applications, and got somewhere around like a 3% response rate,” Lipkowitz said. “Life just pushed me in a slightly different direction.”

While she was looking to make a career change, Lipkowitz happened to befriend U-M Engineering professor Jasprit Singh who ran a local yoga studio, The Rope Yoga Collective. Not long after attending her first yoga class at Singh’s studio, Lipkowitz enrolled in a course to become a yoga teacher and rediscovered her passion for movement and exercise, which she said goes back to her time as a competitive dancer in her youth. 

“I (went) to a yoga class on lunch break one day, it was hot and sweaty and I got kicked in the face — I absolutely hated it,” Lipkowitz said. “Fast forward two weeks later, I was enrolled in their yoga teacher training program. I was getting my hair done on North University (Avenue) and I heard the words ‘I want to open up a yoga studio’ come out of my mouth.”  

Less than a week later, Lipkowitz had signed a one-year lease for an 800-square-foot basement space next to the Panera Bread on North University Avenue and opened her first studio, aUM Yoga in 2013. But that space wasn’t big enough for long, Lipkowitz said. In 2017, she moved her studio to where it stands today on South University Avenue.

That same year, she opened a sister business to aUM Yoga in the same building, a pole studio named Polarity. The COVID-19 pandemic forced Lipkowitz to temporarily shift both businesses online, but the studios were able to reopen in May 2021. Today, the studios continue to offer traditional yoga classes as well as longer retreats and events as well as training courses for new pole and yoga instructors. 

In part, Lipkowitz said she credits the women in her family for her success as an entrepreneur. 

“My mom was very actively involved in my sisters and my life and really pushed us to be the best versions of ourselves,” Lipkowitz said.

Lipkowitz also said she wanted her businesses to create a safe space and sense of community for women throughout the Ann Arbor area. Having survived an abusive relationship, Lipkowitz said having a place to destress with other women through yoga was an important part of her personal healing process.

“One of the catalysts behind opening the studio, originally, (was) I found myself in a pretty abusive relationship,” Lipkowitz said. “One of the main motivating factors was to create a community for not only myself but also provide a safe space and having a space where women can come and feel seen and return to (themselves) on their mat. Finding that flow state is just so important and there will be days where I’m like, ‘what’s wrong?’ and the answer is always (that) I haven’t made it to my mat today.” 

Lipkowitz said yoga has been a transformative practice for her and she hopes it has been for the other people who step into her studio as well. 

“Yoga saved my life,” Lipkowitz said. “In no way am I saying that yoga is a cure, but it is definitely a tool and a tool I’m very passionate about sharing.”  

In her time as a business owner, Lipkowitz said she’s learned that it doesn’t help to obsess over perfection, as failure can be a valuable source of growth.

“We can really obsess over things being perfect and that was a lesson for me as a business owner, it didn’t have to be perfect but I had to try (or) it’s wasted energy,” Lipkowitz said. “Running a business and success is never linear … and the ways in which I’ve failed have provided me with more education than I could have ever learned otherwise.” 

Daily Staff Reporter Emma Spring can be reached at sprinemm@umich.edu.