Your Inner Bitch
Around 10 years ago I was sitting a 7-day plant medicine ceremony in the jungle of Costa Rica. There were around 15 of us and completely randomly, two of the people were from my home town in Woodstock. We’re good friends to this day. After our second journey, I was...
How To Work With Lower Back Pain
The lower back is the most commonly injured area in the human body. About 80% of people will experience at least once incidence in their lifetime and nearly 10-20% live with chronic pain. The common understanding when we have low back pain is that we must “strengthen...
Tennis Elbow: What is it and what to do about it.
Tennis elbow, also known as lateral epicondylitis, can be a debilitating condition that limits your ability to play sports, shake hands, open doors or even lift a cup of coffee. Tennis elbow (TE) is a form of tendinitis. It causes inflammation and micro-tearing of...
How To Free Your Shoulders From Pain
Let's talk about the shoulders. First, the shoulder is one of the most complex joints in the human body. There are over 16 muscles that attach to the scapula and 8 that support the shoulder itself. The rotator cuff, which consists of 4 muscles, connects the joint...
Upper Crossed Syndrome
The Upper Cross Syndrome (UCS) is one of the more common postural misalignments we see. It is defined as an imbalance between the muscles of the neck, shoulders, chest and upper back. In UCS the pec minor, sub-occipitals, upper trapezius and levator scapula are...
The State of Flow
One of my favorite aspects of traveling around the world is the potential to meet amazing people that can change your life at any given moment. Back in 2000, my first year traveling through South East Asia, I met an Italian dude in northern Thailand. He was 15 years...
Men and Body Image
Around a year and half ago I was standing in an elevator in Bangkok and was amazed at what I saw before me. The doors were mirrors and as I stood there, I looked at myself. I had been in Bangkok for a month and we were somewhere around 5 months into the pandemic. ...
I Got Rejected
In the summer of 2017, I was on fire. 🔥 I was teaching the Applied Yoga Integration seminar across the US and international offers were starting to come in. Word was spreading and within a year I'd be teaching in the Netherlands, Taiwan, Japan and Thailand. I was...
Quadratus Lumborum aka the QL
The quadratus lumborum, commonly referred to as the QL, is a muscle of the back that is commonly involved in lower back pain. It originates on the iliac crest and the attaches to the 5 lumbar vertebrae as well as the 12th rib. As you can see in the picture on the...
I Finally Failed
So this thing happened... On December 4th of 2020, the 7 year battle I had to save my knee ended. I got a knee replacement. I was 42. 7 knee surgeries, the last 4 all attempts to fix what the surgeon for the 3rd one botched. They all failed. My knee was beyond...
Simple Meditation Instructions
I had a funny memory the other day... It was 2004 and I was on a meditation retreat in North Fork, California. It was a 10-day retreat in the Goenka tradition and it was probably my 4th time there. The hall is organized so the most experienced students sit in the...
Alignment Vs. Variability: An Exploration of Movement in Yoga
My background in yoga is vast. I started in my school gym at Florida State in 1998. In September, 2000 I found myself spending 4 months in India searching for a teacher. In 2001, when I began working at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, a new path was...
Practicing Yoga During the Corona Quarantine
These are very unique days. I've found myself going through 3 phases over the last month.. The Whoa Phase Restlessness and Anxiety Laziness and Boredom The Whoa phase brought about a thought, "WTF is going on right now? This is real. Let's hunker down and stay...
Hip Mobility Sequence
I recently made a post on Facebook about the needs of individual joints in the body and a term coined by Grey Cook, "The Joint-By-Joint-Approach." The post got a lot traction. You can read it HERE. I had seen a client who complained about severe back pain but after...
Sacroiliac Joint Sequence
Today, I want to talk to you about the sacroiliac joint, an area of the body I have quite a history with. Back in 2009 I played my first ever 4.5 tennis tournament. I was an unseeded entry in a field of 64 at Santa Clara University in California. I had been playing a...