My Origin Story
The journey to becoming the body worker, movement specialist, and meditation mentor I am today began with the martial arts. Specifically Kali-Silat which is a stick and bladed weapon system developed in the Philippines. If you watched The Bourne Identity, then you saw Kali. It was more than a practice, it was my identity. I lived, breathed, and dreamed it. I devoted my entirety to it. As Mr. Miyagi was to Daniel-san, Master Bais was to me. I had to learn it all. How is it possible to move that way. So fast, so graceful, so mysteriously strong and serpent like. A whirling blur of power and grace. How did that seemingly small tap on my forearm cause such pain? Wait . . what? Now just how did I end up on the floor? Practice done, hundreds of repetitions later and I am aching mess. There is no way I can get up and do it all over again in the morning. But wait . . . the magic never seems to end. How is it possible the same person causing so much hurt a few hours ago is now ameliorating said hurts? An impossibly warm touch to the base of my skull, a sudden jolting pull and slowly . . . whoa my arms and shoulders can lift over my head again! How did my thoughts so full of defeat and frustration, pain, and sweat suddenly fade and meld into the background of my breath once the physical part was over? Defeat? Frustration? Where did they go? I’m calm now. Wait! I get it! I understand what I’ve been practicing for weeks now. Until I don’t. These epiphanies, these revelations, these paradoxes, the juxtaposition of body and mind changing and knowing it; these experiences hooked me and set me on the path. Oh and one more thing did as well.
I got hit by a car. A very fast car.
A car going 50-ish miles an hour. A car that flung my body over 60 feet away and my spirt about a hundred feet straight into the air. You read that right. The I of me literally got thrown out of my body. Talk about a shift in perspective! I didn’t see a light beckoning me away, but I did see my crumpled body surrounded by people and firetrucks and ambulances. Stranger still, I saw myself seeing myself watching my body lying in the street. Like a mirror reflecting all the way into infinity. Then a swirling vortex spins, condenses, and compresses me right back into my body. Oh man did it hurt! To an elven year old, though, all that other stuff was cool and all but the only thing I could think of at the time was how mad my mother would be!
Miraculously, I had no broken bones. I did look like something forced through a meat grinder and tenderized by an ogre with a hammer. I was left with a hematoma the size of a softball on my forehead of which I still have the scar to this day. It would take another 29 years for me to realize just how much that event shaped my life.
I heal from the accident and time moves inexorably on and the event fades into the background of the past. Fast forward 7 years and now its time for the college sophomore to decide a major. Ugh. I am eighteen years old and in my second year of “independence”. I had no clue what I wanted to study! I was still in shock form not being in high school. All I knew was that I liked to skate, teach and practice martial arts, and well . . . I guess that was it. What would a lifelong student of the human body and movement as it pertained to unlocking the mystery of the great martial arts masters choose? Enter kinesiology. In the late 90’s, kinesiology departments were just getting started. Indeed, many of my professors had no inkling of it as a subject let alone a major. I only found out about it from a random thumbing through the course catalogue in my act of mentally willing a major into place for me. Like the bright light of epiphany serendipity often uses, an unfamiliar word jumps out of the pulpy newsprint page. Kinesiology. Kinesiology: the study of human movement. “In this degree plan the student will learn the science and study of the human body in motion. The rest took care of itself. Courses like biomechanics, exercise physiology, advanced exercise testing and prescription, gymnastics, I mean wow! I was salivating at the potential of it all. This major was made for me! What better way to discover the secrets of the marital arts and the magic of the human body than through the scientific reductionist method viewed through the lens of objective materialism? That last sentence was supposed to convey irony and sarcasm! I thought I just found the perfect way to learn the marital arts in a much deeper way, but instead I was about to embark on a systematic dismantling of all the techniques, exercises, and methods I was currently employing. According to the courses, everything I learned in martial arts practice was unsafe and “contraindicated.” Apparently my entire knowledge base gained from the marital arts was contraindicated and unfounded according to the dictates of exercise science. As journeys go however, this decision did lead me to a greater understanding of the secrets and wonders of human potential, just not in the linear path I was anticipating.
I would go through the next two decades slowly configuring my belief system to fit within the facts of the reductionist material worldview. I went on two pursue two master’s degrees. One in anatomy and physiology and the other in health sciences. Slowly over the next two decades, the magic and resilience of the human body and the spirit that gives birth to its existence was reduced down to electrochemical consequences. All experience and evidence to the contrary were filed away and categorized as subjective anomalies unprovable by majority academic standards and therefore not “real.” According to the dogma, the human body is a decaying entropic collection of flesh unable survive without our constant attention and micromanagement. Little did I realize just how flimsy and subjective these objectively taught “facts” actually were.
Well there is nothing quite like another near-death experience to shake off even the most stubbornly held hubristic beliefs. Long story short, I hit the bottom of the ocean with my head after wiping out on a sizable wave at my favorite surf break at the foot of Diamond head. (I guess you could say I hit bottom as well in an existential way, but that’s another entry.) I heard a loud crack and was astonished that I could still move, and everything appeared to be working. I paddled back to shore, had a brief moment of panic, and then went home. For the next several days, I just did not feel “right.” I could find no answers in the tomes of knowledge I spent the years pouring through. Neither could my primary care physician. Finally, a close friend tired of seeing my blundering suffering insisted I see her osteopath. All my studies up to this point told me there was no validity in those kinds of treatments, but I was desperate. I had no clue of the colossal usurping my belief system was just about to go through. As the proverbial house of cards is want to do, it blew over in wink of a moment. I never experienced body work before, nor did I have an interest, because “I KNEW” it was all a bunch of nonsense. (Mind you by this time I had forgotten all about the body work I received from my martial arts master during all those years of training. Oh, how easy one can forget such things when the experience simply doesn’t fit neatly into your current “knowns.”) Dr. Denney gave me a cranial-sacral treatment along with an energetic healing. However remarkable the treatment was, and it was remarkable, it was something else that blew me away. Imagine the exquisite feeling of muscles finally releasing after holding tight for days. Imagine the sweet but forgotten feel of relief wash over your body and then out of a seeming nowhere --- “Ah there it is . . . you got mangled pretty bad as a kid and died for a bit.” Umm what?! “Yes, you’re still carrying that injury . . . here.” Snap, snap ,crackle, thunk! Whoa what was that? Then the memories come rushing back at once. All of them, but with the benefit of hindsight. The I of me looking at me seeing me again. Finally after a millennia lasting only a minute, “There, feel better?” Boy did I ever!
If you have read this far, THANK YOU! This being my first ever blog post, I know a little late and considering the 21stcentury and all, I wanted to introduce myself and give you a brief backstory of me. It helps in getting to know a person’s motivations and gives you a feel of how they will treat you either professionally, or personally, or both. Stay tuned for the next post. I plan on delving deeper into the mind body connection and the techniques you can use to achieve it. It’s going to be a fun ride!