My Story

I’ll be honest here, typing this makes me queasy. BUT, that - “oh shit I might be about to vomit and die” feeling can sometimes be an indicator of a productive edge space around here. So in that spirit, here’s my story.

I have always loved to move. I started dancing at the age of three, and was an inveterate woods-stomper, pond swimmer, and mud-tromper my entire childhood. I love dancing so much that I performed competitively in high school, went to college for dance, and have danced professionally ever since. Along the way, I discovered aerial arts and circus and fell in love with movement in a whole new way, leading to a career as a professional circus artist and coach. I truly think of movement as embodied philosophy - a concrete way of being in deep conversation with my own body, its needs, structures, and capacities - and also with physics. It is my point of contact to myself and to the world.

With all the embodiment, capacity, and connectedness being a lifelong mover has given me, I was not spared from the dark side of being a careerist in a form that values body aesthetic as heavily and brutally as dance and circus. I struggled with eating disorders and body dysmorphia so seriously that I could not look in a mirror without having a panic attack for over five years, and my body still bears the ill effects of ED.

Even though the spangles and the vaseline teeth and the drawn-on abs of competitive performance led me to these difficult experiences, in my own journey movement was also the solution. I would not have the mental health, physical recovery, or joy that I have today without dance, circus, and somatics. In dancing, I am able to be in deep reciprocal conversation with my body. In circus, I am able to explore my capacity - there are few ways to banish your negative thoughts to the pit from whence they came more effective than an objectively sexy skill you could not do before, like being able to easily get to the top of a 30 foot rope.

My healing also lead me to investigate many somatic and recovery modalities, such as Feldenkrais and Pilates (yes! Pilates is a healing form! more on that another time), that gave me a well-rounded, clear-eyed and non-punishing sense of where my body was and what it needed. The toxic structures in fitness and performance haven’t gone away, but my view of myself and my practices changed. It was no longer me VS my body - because my body and my brain are a dynamic, interconnected, and reciprocal system.

Fitness has been there for me all along - from a tool to enhance performance goals, to - yes - a form of self-punishment and overwrought anxiety, to a skillful tool of healing and one of my most effective support structures I use for things like anxiety reduction and better sleep. It’s why I take the approach that I do. Fitness can be so many powerful things.

We’re all still living in the lion’s mouth. Whether you are someone who operates in a field focused on body-aesthetic, or someone who is marginalized from body privilege and lives with a defiant/deviant body, I know that living inside your own skin is a daily practice, and that it is not easy. I also know that it is our greatest power. I am still working on these things, every day. I still struggle with mirrors, photos, and bad body days. And I know the beauty of being able to fully inhabit myself. The only way out is through.

Is it a bit lofty to claim that your fitness can be a tool for personal liberation and reclaiming your body’s sovereignty? Probably. But I also think the body is the site of all of our experiences, and building strength, resilience, and peace with ourselves is a worthy project.

And shit, some days you just want to put on some loud music and sweat it out. I’m here for that too.