My first elevator speech was that I wanted to Study Yoga in an Authentic Indian Tradition and then Learn to Apply it to the Western Body.  So I took teacher training for two years with Aadil Palkhivala, who had grown up with legendary Yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar. His teaching was rigorous, thorough, and imbued with a deep sense of the tradition of Hatha Yoga as a vehicle to prepare the body for resilience, compassion and spiritual growth. Back in Portland, I took classes with Physical Therapist and author of Yoga Journal's Anatomy articles, Julie Gudmestad. After a few years, I found that I wanted a more tangible sense of the human body's movement and potential, and worked my way through the 500 hour program at East West College to become a Licensed Massage Therapist.  

Ten years into teaching, I was injured in a climbing fall that broke my spine and heel. The process of more than full recovery was scary, painful - and my biggest learning opportunity. I feel stronger, deeper, calmer, more open now than ever before in my life.  I celebrated that recovery with a solo hike along the John Muir Trail, 200 miles along the Sierra Nevada crest, and publishing the story as Poems for the Journey. I teach now to share the tools and the experience of self healing.

Co-leading a Mazamas trip to circumnavigate Mount Kailash, I got to visit the bleak and stunning landscape in Tibet where Krishnamacharya, the grandfather of modern yoga, hiked into in the 1920s and spent years living in a cave above Lake Mansarovar and studying with authentic Tibetan yogis. Such stories had felt like myths to me. Being there in person brought a reality and a humanity to all the study I had done earlier.

Becoming a tango dancer, as a non-dance guy with two left feet, was an incredibly humbling re-entry at the sub-basement level of a long learning journey! It called me into a whole new level of awareness of alignment and presence. In that journey, I have become a student of Alexander Technique, moving me away from learning new outer postures, and instead deepening my kinesthetic understanding of the human body.

Being moved, heart-broken and inspired by the journeys and challenges and successes of my students over the decades.