*From Circus to Science to Yoga* My first ever movement practice was aerial dance trapeze, which is a low-hanging trapeze (about 5 feet off the ground) with ropes that come together at a single point, so that the bar can spin and also fly in a circle. When I was 7 years old, my best friend’s mom had found this cool-looking summer camp at this placed called ZUZI Move it Dance Company, School, and Theater, where we learned theater, costume design, modern dance, and dance trapeze. We made up our own dances and learned how to be creative and collaborative with our bodies. I fell totally in love with being upside-down and spinning in the air, and came back every year. By twelve, I was helping teach classes; I grew from the "youth company" to an apprentice for the adult company. I used to feel disappointed that I did not get a solid technical foundation as a kid by taking ballet or gymnastics or something. Now I feel so grateful that I got to have my creativity nurtured from such a young age. I may not have learned to be the most technical, but I never lost the spirit of my own unique essence. I was never pushed to be in any type of box. Eventually I would go on to take ballet, jazz, gymnastics, lyrical, belly dancing, silks, yoga, acroyoga, lyra, pole, and swing dancing lessons, but I’ve always loved unstructured, authentic movement the most (on any apparatus). *Early Injuries* My first serious injury came at age ten. I had started to experience ankle pain while running during soccer practice. A podiatrist diagnosed me with osteochondritis dissecans, which I understood to mean that my cartilage had dried up causing my bones to rub together and consequently fracture. A year later, I tore my ACL and meniscus during PE (physical education). We were doing the high jump, and I made it onto the mat just fine, but as I was getting off, SNAP. Then, about 5 months later, during PE again, I tore the other ACL + meniscus. We were playing basketball, and all I did was take a step backwards after shooting my shot. It’s very unusual for someone so young to have such a serious injuries, and twice in a row at that! The doctors hypothesized that maybe I had some issue with “proprioception,” which of course I didn’t understand in middle school. I had both ACLs reconstructed a year later when they deemed me old enough (you don’t want to have orthopedic surgeries before you’re done growing they told me). I could hardly stand to be still, so I got back to ZUZI as soon as possible - probably before I should have. My parents tried to get me to rest longer, but I refused. I had to move. Returning to dance before I had completely recovered caused my knees to be sort of “loose” and the surgery to be less effective. I think I might have been an athlete if I hadn’t had so many injuries so young, but I could feel the instability in my knees. I thought maybe I should try to keep my feet off the ground and stick with aerial arts, so that’s what I did. *Teen years* When I was 15, I had a big falling out with my friend who had introduced me to ZUZI, so around that time I was forced to find a new movement home. I had heard of acro and silks and searched ravenously trying to find some type of circus arts. And I found them! I started learning silks and found a vibrant acroyoga community. The circus community in Tucson is the best I’ve ever experienced. I miss that every day. Around the same time that I discovered circus arts, I also got the itch to try yoga. I had always felt a pull towards yoga and Buddhism - maybe it was growing up around hippies - I’m not sure exactly where the attraction came from. Around the time that I broke up with my old best friend, I made a new one, and she was also curious to try yoga. We found a dirt cheap 30-day trial with unlimited bikram yoga classes, so we gave it a shot. We hated every moment of every class, but we were determined to get our money’s worth so we were practicing all the time. Although we never did Bikram again, we did decide to try out a different yoga studio and fell totally in love with the practice and teachers there (Yoga Oasis). Then, around my senior year of high school, I found a YouTube video of Jenyne Butterfly pole dancing and was completely, totally, and utterly smitten. I found a pole dancing studio in college and started teaching acro classes there in exchange for pole classes. It was horrifyingly painful, but so beautiful to me. *Not Again* Unfortunately, after my first semester at Yale, over winter break at home in Tucson, I was doing acro with some friends and trying a very silly stack of people where I was the person on top, and as I was jumping out of it, I landed wrong and tore my ACL, again. I was devastated. I could not believe that this could happen to me a third time. I cried and cried. It would be a year before I could go back to doing any of the circus things that I loved, and this had become such a huge part of my identity. I thought to myself, “Are you still who you are if you can’t do what you do?” It was an identity crisis. Eventually I was able to get back to my practices, but this experience really made me realize how much I identified with my physical body. *A New Philosophy* As I was recovering from my injury and surgery, I took a religious studies class at Yale on Yoga in art, text, and history. My professor from that class connected me to a program where I could study Buddhism abroad in Nepal for college credit (all paid for by my scholarship). I learned from Tibetan monks who were translated live during class, and also a western professor of Buddhism. The course ended with a 10 day silent meditation retreat, which was profoundly insightful. I concluded my stay with a two-week trek through the Himalayas. I left Nepal with a whole new philosophy. I was all about non-attachement and was working actively to become less attached to my physical vessel. I cut my hair short for the first time ever, stopped shaving and I stopped wearing makeup. Throughout my life, I have gone back and forth between extremes regarding my style and relationship to my body. I have struggled with overeating, undereating, over exercising, obsessing over my food intake, my body proportions, you name it. On the other end, I have also worked tirelessly to become completely unidentified with my body. I’ve shaved my head, let all other body hair be free and wild, gone without makeup, worn baggy clothes, gained significant weight, and become completely androgynous. I did not find true or deep happiness or contentment in either of these extremes. *The breaking point* Then, like so many others, a perfect storm entered my life in 2020. Before the pandemic, I was teaching sexual health education to middle and high schoolers with a nonprofit in Tucson. My position was grant-funded, so when the schools shut down, the money was there for my position, but the work became nearly nonexistent. I had also gone through a huge breakup with someone I had been with for 5 years just 2 months before the shutdown. A month prior to that I had totalled my car. How did I cope? In the same way that I always had: through my body. But this time, I made a conscious decision that I would not try to hold back at all. I would not try to approach things in healthy, balanced, or mature way. I would let myself go as hard as I wanted to. I was curious; how far could I push myself? I started training circus arts, strength, and flexibility 3-5 hours a day in this wonderful circus warehouse. I was over training and undereating and ended up the strongest and the skinniest that I had ever been. Unsurprisingly, this came with a whole lot of unfavorable consequences. I injured my wrist, my ankle, and my shoulder, but I could not stop. I was obsessed. All I wanted was to be able train. I literally dreamed about being able to train 24/7 for the rest of eternity with no injuries, no pain, just endless time and energy to train. It’s all I wanted. But the more I pushed, the more injured I became, the more pain I was in, the less I was able to execute the tricks of my dreams. I started to seek help. *The Diagnosis* I cannot tell you the number of orthopedic doctors, surgeons, and physical therapists I have seen over the course of my life. I could not count the number of times that I’ve been put through physical therapy. But I can tell you that I have been deeply, painfully disappointed my almost every single one of them. To the doctors, I feel like a lab rat. A problem to solve. A mechanical system with a mechanical solution. To the physical therapists, I feel like an alien. They don’t have the foggiest clue how to do anything that I do and they best they can offer me is a cookie-cutter solution to put me on the path towards being able to walk, run, or throw things. When I would describe my circus practices, they would be confused and sometimes suggest that maybe I just shouldn’t do those sorts of things. That was not a workable solution for me. I have left many a doctor’s office in tears for the lack of understanding demonstrated regarding what my body means to me. None of them could ever address the root cause, which ultimately boiled down to my relationship with myself. I am the type of person who can push myself beyond pain. I can feel pain - even a lot of pain - and keep going. For a long time. Again and again. I have learned that this is not true for everyone. Maybe this is from my family, maybe the culture, maybe my Aries Moon or having Mars conjunct the IC, but wherever it came from, I felt like this ability to push past pain, ignore my limitations, and ultimately neglect myself was like a badge of honor. Something to be proud of. If there was emotional pain, I would transmute it into physical pain that I would inflict upon myself. If you push your body hard enough, you’ll be too distracted to feel anything else. I don’t think this is entirely pathological. There is a fine line between pleasure and pain. The love of stretching and strengthening the body can be extremely healthy and helpful. It’s the intensity of the sensation that is so enticing and problematic. But I’ve learned that if your nervous system is not equipped to handle the level of intensity your subject it to, then you will get hurt. The cortisone shot didn’t help, the physical therapy wasn’t enough, and I couldn’t stop myself my exercising. I had had surgeries before and I wished that I hadn’t, because the results were lackluster, and I knew outcomes were in more bleak for shoulder injuries. I felt out of options. Eventually things got bad enough to the point where my ass was properly sat down. I had to stop. I fell into a pit of despair from a confluence of influences. *The Solution* It was around this time that I discovered yoga nidra. If you’re not familiar, this is a supine, guided meditation where the practitioner is guided ito the state of “mind-awake, body-asleep.” I started working with my dreams and tapping into my subconscious mind. I was fascinated by this liminal space and decided to take Ally Boothroyd’s teacher training course. I was practicing yoga nidra nearly every day. I was excavating my subconscious patterning and the stories I had been telling myself. I was rewiring my brain. And it *worked.* I learned how to amplify my own healing abilities, how to focus energy and blood flow into specific regions of my body. How to not just listen to my body (which was already huge) but also respond to its needs with compassion. I learned how to *rest.* I connected to my primary san kulpa: “I am healing.” After 3 years of consistent practice, my mind had changed, and my life started to change. I decided to go to India and become a fully certified yoga teacher. I came back and dove head first into the practice and business of being a yoga teacher. Now I have taught hundreds of students and had the opportunity to witness more intimately the transformations that result from a more personalized and targeted approach with my private yoga clients. *Conclusion* In all my years of training and coaching, of all the teachers I’ve had, doctors, physical therapists, etc., I remember one gymnastics teacher that I met in Portland, Oregon who stands out to me as the only person I had ever met who really understood what I was going through who I felt like could probably ACTUALLY help me with what I was going through. Unfortunately I only knew him for one day, but I hope that I can be that for others now. Someone who understands the passion you have for your body, who understands what your body really means to you, who has walked the walk of passion and athleticism and finally knows how to help. I love digging through literature reviews of exercise science, learning about what the scientists say is the most effective way to stretch and strengthen body to heal and prevent injuries. I love trying different exercises and learning about how to work with bodies in them most effective way possible. I love learning how to unlock people’s physical limitations and help them to find joy and freedom in their bodies. If you decide to work with me, I will work tirelessly to investigate how I can best serve you with a program that is unique to your needs, that makes sense to you in your body, given your specific goals. I truly believe that however you want to move, whatever you want to do, it is possible for you. Even if the doctors say its over. If you, too, have felt disappointed by the medical system and know that what is happening to your body is of profound importance, I want you to know that I see you. And there are solutions. You can heal. And I’m here to help.