With her depth of knowledge and many years of experience, Jyoti Jo Manuel is recognised by many as one of the world's leading authorities on therapeutic yoga for children. Her personal yoga journey started in 1974 and she began teaching in 1989. 

In 2002 Jyoti founded Special Yoga, a global organisation established to provide and develop sustainable and accessible yoga programmes for children with special and additional needs. 

Special Yoga's work reaches across education, therapeutic settings and within the home. Jyoti has travelled extensively implementing Special Yoga programmes in orphanages, social care, education and health care and for paediatric therapists and psychologists.

As founder, lead and spiritual head of Special Yoga she has trained senior practitioners to support the effective and impactful delivery of Special Yoga into local councils, academies and individual special schools and specialist provisions to provide training in therapeutic yoga for children with special needs.

Within the UK, she has worked within education for the NHS.  She co-leads the pillar on education for The APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group for yoga in Society.  

She has collaborated with Breath Body Mind Foundation on therapeutic programmes for the N.I. NHS Rise team and Barnados in Ireland, and more recently she is supporting the training of psychologists for the traumatised children in the Ukraine. 

She ran a successful pilot programme for children with additional needs at risk of exclusion from school in North Norfolk and led on a research study with ADAPT in Mumbai on the value of therapeutic yoga for adolescents with cerebral palsy. 

She is a published author with The Spiritual Teachings of Yoga, with a further book in 2024.