My Journey (So Far)
Livre | Freedom Lives in the Body is the culmination of decades of travel, performance, injury, learning, and community. I began my athletic career at age 2 when my dad taught me how to swim. My budding athleticism developed until I was a state-ranked swimmer, track athlete, and soccer player by the age of 17. However, constant injuries, tension, discomfort in my body, and mental health problems drove me to look for other ways of motion. My mother, an avid yoga practitioner, introduced me as a child, and I turned back to this practice to understand myself better - a journey that took me to India at age 17 to study at the prestigious United World College with students from all over the world and explore alternative ways of living. It was this exposure to other cultures and their practices of dance, art, and awareness that set me on the path to study movement arts, and eventually to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in choreography.
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My time in college with intensive dancing increased my awareness and skill, but I continued to have chronic injuries until I discovered the Feldenkrais Method®. Within a few session, I had decreased pain and increased mobility - something that a dozen of other doctors, physical therapists, osteopaths, massage therapists, and shamans had failed to deliver. Living in Seattle, I worked with practitioner Carrie Lafferty almost weekly for four years, transforming my sense of movement and not only reducing my pain, but excelling my dance and acrobatics career to new heights.
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Continued practice in the Feldenkrais Method® kept me free of major injuries until I had a freak accident and broke my talus working for Disney on Ice. The talus is a small but essential weight-bearing bone in the ankle/foot responsible for flexing and pointing the foot. After 3 months of no walking, and then 9 more months of rehab, I arrived back to full condition. Or, I arrived to even better condition than I was in before the injury, resuming my professional dancing, ice skating, and acrobatics. I credit my recovery largely to my study and support of the Feldenkrais Method®. This experience showed me that injuries can often be opportunities for us to learn and improve, and that terrible situations can sometimes be transformed into amazing possibilities.
The journey I have walked so far has been inspired by my passion for motion and for life: I am here to share my experiences and insight with others so they can achieve their passions and dreams. I am now a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Partitioner and can use my knowledge to help others on their journey for freedom in their own bodies.
My Teaching Influences
Drawing on two decades of teaching experience, I guides clients toward improved performance, pain relief, and a deeper connection to their bodies. My unique approach blends the gentle, mindful methodology of the Feldenkrais Method® with insights from elite physical performance gained over a multi-decade career as a professional athlete, dancer, martial artist, circus performer, ice skater, and actor. I am also a certified yoga teacher and a longtime student of Sat Nam Rasayan® healing, studying under the late Guru Dev Singh. As a teenager, I lived in India for two years and took advantage of many cultural opportunities, such as the Gurukul Fellowship where I studied Tibetan Buddhism at the Namgyal Monastery and had an audience with H.H. the Dalai Lama. My time in India inspired an undergraduate degree in religious studies and a life-long pursuit of philosophy, helping to give me the tools to better understand the human mind/body. My travels to Brazil, Japan, Ecuador, the UK, France, and more helped give me inspiration from diverse movement traditions, philosophies, and somatic practices around the world. Whether in private sessions or group classes, I aim to help people unlock their body’s natural intelligence and achieve lasting transformation through movement.