Imagine yourself at 90 years old. You can do the splits, dance, and maintain a high quality of life. Seems impossible, right? It’s not. Founder of Ageless Mobility Aliya M Brooks’ grandmother, Millie Cruzat, lived to be 94 years old and could do it all.
“I knew her as someone who truly believed that mobility was one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves as we age,” Brooks tells ESSENCE. Since the age of three, she remembers bonding with her grandmother and mother, Liza Cruzat, by sitting on the floor and stretching. Most recently, after starting Ageless Mobility with Millie in 2020 before she passed away in 2021, Brooks took her Ageless Mobility community on the brand’s very first wellness retreat, to Bali, dedicated to all things movement, healing, and community care.
Promoting longevity through movement, “[Ageless Mobility] started as a way to document and share my grandmother with the world while I still had the opportunity to learn from her,” she says. “I wanted people to see what healthy aging could look like.” Building a community of over 80,000 people online, she hosts classes twice a week in Atlanta with Saturday stretching sessions. But, she’s never hosted outside of the States. Until now.
Partnering with TrovaTrip, she invited women all across the country—with ages ranging from their twenties to seventies—to Bali for her first-ever 7-day wellness retreat. “It was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life,” she says.
Each day was full of immersive experiences. From stretching and mobility work, to yoga, breath work and herbal medicine workshops, the retreat embodied the longevity practices she’s been learning from her grandmother since childhood. “Some of the women who attended even knew Millie personally, which made the experience feel even more meaningful,” she says.
While her grandmother taught classes in Chicago, Brooks says Ageless Mobility is expanding her vision Stateside and now through her international retreats. Luckily, she has plenty of memories and footage to look back on. From doing splits in the middle of the grocery store to leading stretch classes at a local dance studio and even doctors asking her secret to healthy aging, her grandmother’s legacy lives through the bones, muscles, and lifeline of everyone Brooks teaches.
What started as a way to document her grandmother’s life evolved into a platform to help others live just as long—and well. “Ageless Mobility has evolved from a social media page into something that feels much bigger than me—it feels like a calling,” she says. While she’s still ironing out the details, “I’m already planning my next retreat for 2027.”
