My life until I was 18, revolved around the wilderness of Auroville, a visionary but as yet undeveloped international township in southern India.  As a group of unapologetically unruly children, we raced ponies bareback under a relentless sun to swim with them in the crashing surf of the Bay of Bengal.  We bicycled like water through the rushing fractal chaos of Indian city streets, or folded compliantly into local buses, fitting into the spaces between countless bodies pressed together.  Careening through space and time, humid air thick with masala spice and distortion volume Bollywood, often it seemed the swaying blaring dodging vehicles clung to that pockmarked road and avoided collision by some form of liquidless surface tension or divine intervention, challenging certainty, demanding wonderment, demonstrating miracle.  We played and climbed through the canopies and aerial roots of majestic banyan trees, and over every surface of sweeping experimental architecture, scaled canyons of dark red clay eroded by torrential monsoons, lived by candlelight in palm thatch huts co-habiting with the snakes and scorpions and other forest dwellers who took up residence in those woven roofs, spent full moon nights enraptured by firelight by the sea, in forest, in mountaintop caves, and were exposed early on to the most complete and comprehensive exposition of yoga I have encountered to date, the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. 

 

 

My travels took me to the great Pacific Northwest of the USA, where I completed university studies in classical music performance. I studied intensively for 5 years with Cam Cameron, a revolutionary and visionary teacher of Tai Chi and the psychosomatic ramifications of postural transformation, and over the next 15 years I continued personal movement research through dedicated training with Senseis Bert Bennett, Koichi Barrish and Phil Relnick in modern and classical Japanese martial arts, and through my continued fascination and exploration of the powerful link between breath and relaxed movement as developed in the Russian martial art Systema.  During several years of return visits to India from 2000 onward, I explored the subcontinent by foot, bicycle, motorcycle, local bus and train, and immersed in studying the basics of Kalaripayattu, the south Indian forerunner to kung fu. 

 

 In addition to studying Thai and Ayurvedic massage practices in Southeast Asia, I became certified in Western therapeutic massage techniques, continued to work as a massage therapist during my travels, and soon began teaching practitioners the arts of healing touch.  In 1999, I encountered the practice of aquatic bodywork and discovered that I could apply my postural and movement awareness from martial arts to this unique therapeutic dance in warm water.  Extensive training with Alexander George, one of the founding authorities in this field, led me to certify in 2005 as one of a small group of Healing Dance teachers worldwide, and since then I continue to enjoy and grow immensely leading annual intensives in the United States, Spain, India, Hungary, Israel and France.

 

In addition to becoming certified as a Circular Strength Training and TacFit Instructor under Scott Sonnon, other adventures followed, including 5 years working as a climbing arborist in the tall trees of Hawaii, an environment where I was able to pressure-test daily my breathing, posture and conditioning practices, as well as undergo subjective study of the psychology of fear and presence applied under mostly grueling conditions.

 

Today I live with my partner in Seville, Spain, raising a young son, teaching, studying and continuing to deepen my experience in intelligent conditioning and several other diverse fields of interest.