Personal Bio
Since my young days I was always a quiet one, generally an introvert caught up in my own imaginations.
I was most attracted to the hero icon, the doer of good, a wandering monk, the noble swordsman, or the
centered ascetic. Amazing vistas always stilled me, not just for their beauty, but for their ability to
be a gateway to the vastness, a universal connection.
My journey down the mind-body path began in my late teens as I took up long distance running by
happenstance. I was never one to listen to music while running, maybe partially because the portable
technology was fledgling, but mostly because I felt it was a distraction from my experience. It was not
until years later, when my learning was formalized, that I realized running had been a moving meditation
for me, my first experience in the power of breath, external and internal energies, and the mind in
stillness.
In 1991, my college roommate convinced me to come with him to martial arts. It was a BIG deal for me.
After so many years of absorbing stories about heroic icons I was excited about the idea of developing
my own "heroic self"... but I was also simply scared about the unknown. By the close of my first class
that unknown was something I only wanted more of. Over the next few years, my martial arts path took me
through multiple systems (beginning to teach after just two years) until I found resonance with a
handful of Chinese styles; the Ma Family system of gongfu (kung fu) or Bayingquan, Taijiquan, Yiquan
and Baguazhang. These styles amplified my education and work with Daoism, qigong, Daoist yoga,
meditation and philosophy. As time passed I was more drawn to the internal or neijing aspects (qi and
our spiritual nature) of my practice and for a period of more than eight years I kept a daily baguazhang
circle walking and meditation practice without fail. During this period I completed my collegiate
efforts with a B.S. in Biology, minoring in Biochemistry and English.
My time in martial arts saw my teaching strengths grow and in 1998 I co-founded 5 Element Martial Arts
in the Pacific Beach community of San Diego, California. The school allowed me to expand my education
beyond local teaching circles into various iterations on methods of practice and internal energy
cultivation (chi kung or qigong) and delved deeper into multiple styles of Taijiquan, Yiquan, and
Baguazhang with several adept masters (notably, Grandmaster Jerry Cook, Dr. Jian Lin, and Master Weidong
Zhao). After 7 years I parted paths with the school, and eventually took residence with Master Weidong
Zhao for nearly two years, studying the Zhaobao style of taijiquan, xingyiquan, baguazhang, and Taoist
yoga. Master Zhao is nothing short of a purist fighter and energetic master, and his teachings echoed
with that complexity.
It was during this period that I reflected on my practice and where I was being drawn. In this
open-mind space in the summer of 2004, my then-girlfriend-now-wife brought me along to her hatha yoga
class and within minutes I saw the essential similarities between yoga asana and martial arts.
Somewhere, sometime in the past, great masters of different traditions sat together and swapped secrets.
Needless to say, within months I had added a regular yoga practice to my ritual, and was excited to
begin to play with weaving hatha yoga atop my neijia martial arts foundation.
My early hatha yoga practice (including approaches from Ashtanga, Iyengar, and Amrit depending how you
want to draw your lines) was refined under the instruction of many teachers, but most notably Bonnie
Jones and Sara Deakin (both primarily Ashtanga teachers). To name but a few for perspective, I've taken
trainings in the approaches of Ashtanga, Iyengar, Tibetan Heart, Power Vinyasa, Sivananda, White Lotus,
Tripsichore, Yoga Tune Up®, and Smart Flow® yoga;
studying under known luminaries such as Yogiraj Ganga White and Tracey Rich, Bryan Kest, Edward Clarke,
Sarahjoy Marsh, and Annie Carpenter; as well as unjustifiably lesser known teachers that I
have great respect for: Jano Galindo, Liza Digaetano, Mari Shani and Brandy Davis, Sven Holcomb, Jo
Leffingwell, and Liz Doyle.
In 2012 I suffered a crazy motorcycle accident. Crazy because I probably should have died, and crazy
because it was my practice and embodied quality that probably saved me. Though my injuries were a
physical set-back, the experience has been nothing short of en-lightening. The healing process deepened
my understanding of my body's physical and energetic relationships, and gave me a magnified empathy for
the suffering of others. This experience caused me to pursue the rehabilitative and self-massage/fascial
therapy methods of the Yoga Tune Up® system, and after
completing training with Jill Miller, I am now a YTU certified and licensed instructor. All of which has
magnified my teaching and diagnostic abilities several fold.
Accenting my therapy and mobility practices, I've studied Thai Yoga Massage with
Phoebe Diftler, and meridian-based therapeutics of resistance
stretching with Genius of Flexibility's Bob Cooley.
My desire to see uplifting social change and use my ability and knowledge for direct community influence
drove me to become a certified teacher for Yoga Behind Bars,
where I teach in a specialized circumstance. I'm also a graduate of
Off the Mat, Into the World's leadership program,
training with Seane Corn, Hala Khouri, and Suzanne Sterling, and I am working to put that experience to
personal and public effect.
I currently spend most of my study time with Master Harrison Moretz and Joseph Pau of Seattle's
Taoist Studies Institute, and "tea monk" Old Po,
Paul Rosenburg of Heaven's Tea studying Cha Dao and the energetics
of sacred Chinese teas.
To this day I continue to pursue both Indic/Hatha yoga and Internal/Daoist martial arts knowledge and
philosophical insight. I see no difference between the centering goals of eithers' physiological,
philosophical, or spiritual practices and am happy now to freely combine them on my Path and in my
teaching transmissions and therapeutic offerings.
Proverbial or not, there are many paths to the mountain top.
