I have been a progressive minded orthopedic manual therapist for 35 years. I was taught early in my career to think, be logical, use science but also to realize that people are all different. Look at each person as an individual vs following recipes of treatment and develop plans that are still evidence based. Seven years into my practice I decided I needed more in depth knowledge and skills so I completed my clinical Masters of Orthopedic Manual Therapy with the Ola Grimsby Institute - a 2 year Norwegian program. This took my practice up to a much higher level!
Because of my strong background, I was hired in 1997 by Cirque du Soleil to be a physical therapist for the performers. I worked with 3 different productions in Las Vegas over 8 years. Mystere, “O” and Zumanity, each one becoming like another family to me! I also filled in on a few of their tour shows in Antwerp, Toronto and spent time working at the main studios in Montreal.
I began practicing yoga in the early 1990s - Iyengar yoga to be specific. I knew right away that this was for me - it was like physical therapy in another language. The attention to detail and care for the physical as well as the emotional body fit right in with my strong physical therapy background. It wasn’t long before I started incorporating these concepts with my PT patients and found them to be very helpful for the right patient at the right time.
Once I wrapped up my time with Cirque du Soleil aka “Ran away and joined the circus” I decided it was time to travel to India and study at RIMYI - the Iyengar Institute. You have to be recommended by your teacher and it usually takes a few years to get a date. After my first trip of 6 weeks I came back and decided it was time to formally train. as an Iyengar teacher. I completed a 3 year Iyengar Teacher training program in 2008 and went on to achieve my formal certification. There were 2 other 6 week trips to study at RIMYI in India - truly life changing with the knowledge, wisdom and in depth practice! In the meantime - working with the general public again in my physical therapy practice I kept seeing patients of all ages with scoliosis and realized care for them was sorely lacking. I began to incorporate Iyengar yoga principles with these patients and had great results. Of course I wanted to learn more so I researched progressive physical therapy based methods for scoliosis and learned of the Schroth Method for Scoliosis from Germany and the SEAS Method for Scoliosis from Italy.
I am now certified in both of these methods and am thrilled to offer this type of care to my patients. The parallels with Iyengar yoga and these methods runs deep so I continue to draw on these backgrounds for maximum benefit. In addition to my private practice I also see patients at Sharp Healthcare. I like keeping one foot in mainstream healthcare and serving as a mentor for some of our newer staff. I developed our scoliosis and our yoga programs and I am relied by our MDs to see complex cases as well as to provide consultation. In my private practice I am focusing on building more workshops to incorporate my yoga and physical therapy background to help students gain as much of my knowledge as possible so they can be better caregivers for themselves.
My goal is to empower people with knowledge and wisdom.
