Technically, I teach body mechanics, anatomy, Pilates and functional movement. I care about alignment, healthy movement patterns, quality breathing, core engagement, and promoting good postural habits. I help my clients heal from injury, avoid surgery, and recover from surgery. I care about improving people’s quality of life by helping them feel better in their bodies.

But what I teach goes so much deeper than this. The magic that happens in the studio is about embodiment.

It’s about feeling empowered and capable. It’s about accepting where our bodies are at, and learning to work with ourselves on so many levels, rather than pushing against ourselves. That’s where the real progress can be found.

Learning to move better, to literally support our bodies better, to advocate for ourselves in the context of movement serves as a way to practice these skills for our everyday lives as well.

So much of what I do in my studio is about helping people trust themselves. If we know ourselves physically and we have the tools we need to support our movement then we can rely on ourselves to go about our activities with confidence, knowing that we aren’t at risk for injury.

This skill set applies to our mental and emotional lives as well. Practicing self trust and discernment with our bodies in the studio helps us to have emotional and mental discernment, too. It helps us move more bravely through our lives, knowing that we can handle what comes our way and it won’t bowl us over.

I have a client who came to see me after she had both of her knees replaced. We’ve now worked together for almost 5 years, and she has gotten so much stronger in ways she never would have expected. Not only are her knees highly functional, she has so much more physical strength and confidence than when she started. She just went on a sailing adventure in Croatia, and a week later was preparing for another trip to Utah to meet up with a friend.

As she left the studio after her most recent lesson, I told her how excited I was for her, and that it’s a big deal to put yourself out there, to go on new adventures and try new things. She said to me, “You know, I feel like a lot of this confidence comes from our work together. I would never have trusted myself to do these things without having done so much work to strengthen myself and my relationship with body.”

This lit my heart up.

Yes, it’s really cool that she has had both her knees replaced and because of our work together she can play Pickle Ball, ride a bike, go for hikes, and keep up with her kids. But it’s really really cool that this confidence has carried over into so many other parts of her life, and makes her feel like she can engage with her life in new and fulfilling ways.

Yes, I care about body mechanics. And I love studying anatomy and teaching it. But what I really love is that this work creates a portal into everything else that makes us human. It’s all connected. The physical is the emotional, is the mental, is the psychological, is the spiritual.

Bodies are my obsession, what I understand, and the lens through which I see and experience the world, and I am so grateful that I can use this work as a method to help people, and myself, to engage with our lives in more meaningful and enriching ways.