Playing with movement has been a part of my life since my parents enrolled me in dance classes as a kid. High school led me to theatre and acting, where I brought in my passion for dance and movement whenever I could, performing in mini musicals and all sorts of fun things. I started practicing yoga when I was 18, and this brought a whole new level to moving for me, by intensifying the connection to mind and body. I began getting very active with working out and loved the feeling of being strong and energized that came with it.

In my mid-20s I sadly became badly injured while working as a landscaper, and nearly tore my rotator cuff. It took a few years to feel like I had recovered and it reduced my ability to exercise significantly. I stuck with yoga and lower impact exercise thinking this would be best.

Yoga can hurt

I continued practicing yoga along with strength training and mountain biking, and started feeling much stronger. Unfortunately I got a little too wrapped up in power yoga, and the rush of feeling so strong and vibrant through that practice. As a result I started to suffer from bursitis in my shoulders. I knew something was wrong and I worked with my teacher to improve my technique, but the recurring pain stuck with me for years and I’d go through phases of immense pain and discomfort every 4-6 months that would last for weeks.

Yoga can heal

Fast forward to my early 30s when I decided to train as a yoga instructor and become more educated around this practice of movement with the dream of teaching others how they could heal through yoga. My training at Karma Teachers was life changing on a personal and professional level. I went on to mentor with Shannon Cluff through her Lead with Love mentorship program, and taught Hatha yoga for couple of years. I then began exploring fitness instruction, taking my Fitness Theory certification with the intention of being a group fitness instructor and start developing some hybrid classes that integrated yoga and strength training. The process of training and teaching more intensely caused me to once again have ongoing chronic bursitis and I felt pretty helpless with no real solution to get over it. I decided I needed to take a break from teaching because it just didn’t feel right while I couldn’t understand what was happening in my own body. It was a difficult time of acceptance and self healing that followed, but it was necessary.

Slow movement and somatics

I started with a fantastic new physiotherapist, who pointed out some muscles I wasn’t using correctly for shoulder movement. Something previous therapists hadn’t figured out. She also verified that my desk job was doing me no favours physically. I was able to improve my desk set up but overall the experience really got me thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. I eventually quit my job to focus on my other love – art and design, and started running JUNCO design. Something was missing, though. Now, jump to the COVID-19 outbreak where the world presses pause. This forced me really think about my true self and why I felt something was missing. A lot of journaling, meditation, and revisiting my past brought me full circle to the skills I need to share with the world: movement. This was obviously a bit of a progression, so let me explain. I had been taking classes in somatic yoga for the past year, and didn’t get another bursitis flare up, and still haven’t, ever since I started practicing this slow, mindful practice that reconnects your nervous system with the full range of your muscles and releases fascia. I started reading Thomas Hanna’s Somatics and Michaelle Edward’s YogAlign book, mostly out of personal interest. This completely reignited the fire in my soul – I knew this is what I had to do.

I registered to train as an Clinical Somatics Instructor, and Move Deeply was born. I have been exploring and experimenting with moving my body in new ways every day ever since, and am honoured to share this field of restorative movement with you.