Modalities
My Unique Approach
Kind Power is an approach that integrates multiple modalities. Each of these modalities are embodied practices that shape both what I do and who I am. I thank each of my teachers for bringing the practical wisdom of these practices to life. Their lifelong investment in acquiring the pearls of wisdom in these arts lives on in me.
Aikido
Aikido is a martial art that offers a choice - to use martial strategies to meet force effectively, without aggression, with a harmonious power. Created by Morihei Ueshiba, aikido is a non-competitive art that focuses on connection, self-development, and learning to embody core principles that are expressed through techniques. Aikido can be practiced safely at every age.
Aikido informs my work in many ways; developing a connection within your mind and body to improve structural strength, coordination and groundedness; reality-based principles to safely fall and receive force; strategies to develop a reliable calm core and to shift from stress reactions to calm responses; confidence to express personal power in response to physical, verbal and emotional forces. Aikido is the first movement practice where I experienced pure joy, freedom and flow.
I train aikido with Sensei Brad Schultz at the Abundant Peace Internal Martial Arts School in St. Albert. I received my black belt from the Aikido Schools of Ueshiba (ASU) organization in 2024.
Being in Movement
Being in Movement ™ was developed by Dr. Paul Linden at the Columbus Center for Movement Studies in 1982. It is a somatic learning method to support stress reduction, integration of mind and body towards the expression of compassionate power and peacemaking. Our body changes when we are stressed; in trauma these physical response patterns get locked in the body. We cannot move beyond the traumatic event and live in the present. Being in Movement uses learning methods drawn from aikido and the Feldenkrais method to open and balance your body and attention and to develop a physical and mental state of relaxation, expansiveness, calm alertness and compassionate power.
Being in Movement informs my Kind Power coaching and class work as a both gentle and powerful, body-based approach to reliably create a calm, expansive and more powerful self. By practicing expansive calm in different conditions, I help clients create a more reliable sense of their resourcefulness in the face of threats, challenges and conflict.
I trained with Dr. Paul Linden in 2015 and 2016.
Feldenkrais
Feldenkrais is a learning method that uses mindful movement exploration to improve our capacity for movement. Created by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, it taps our core capacity to learn by providing thinking, feeling, sensing and moving inputs to our brain, nervous system and body as a form of practical, positive neuroplasticity. The Feldenkrais method can be applied to improve movement in all of its forms - everyday functional movement, sports and physical activities, artistic movement and how we perform work.
Feldenkrais is a core foundation for my work in Move Freely and Recovery Discovery sessions and classes. I use its principles to support my clients to access and use their personal resources of attention, intention, imagination, sensation, emotions and movement to improve their movement and the quality of how they move through their life.
I trained with Jeff Haller, Candy Conino, Andrew Gibbons, Alice Friedman and Dwight Pargee at the Feldenkrais Training Academy from 2018 - 2022. I am a guild certified Feldenkrais Practitioner with the Feldenkrais Guild of North America
Integral Coaching Canada
Integral Coaching is a developmental coaching method that offers clients the opportunity to embody the change they seek in themselves and their lives. Based on Integral Theory by Ken Wilbur, integral coaching uses the integrally informed lenses to see differently. From new perspectives clients can create new ways of seeing, being and acting to open up new capabilities to function and embody new ways of operating for topics that matter deeply to them.
I use integrally informed lenses to ask powerful questions that open up areas for growth and development. I perceive insights on client’s ways of being and doing and offer possibilities that support them to embody the change they want to make.
I trained with Laura Divine and Joanne Hunt, founders of Integral Coaching Canada becoming an Integral Master Coach in 2012.
Internal Martial Arts
Internal Martial Arts refers to practices that bring attention and intention to work within and through the body in a way that changes how you move, alters habitual patterns of tension and over time generates a mind-body relationship that leads to a living intelligence. It is a form of training that opens up capacities to influence others through seemingly soft, gentle and powerful contact. The internal martial arts that I practice include Tai Chi and Nei Gong which cultivate the systems in the body such as fascia that serve as conduits for sensory information and energy.
With dedicated time and practice, internal martial arts are described as alchemical; changing physical tissues to reduce levels of tension, opening and freeing joints, improving circulation of oxygen, blood and other fluids. Tai Chi is recommended as a longevity supporting practice. Nei Gong based on Taoist philosophy uses these inner resources to refine the qualities of attention, energy and expansive connection to all living things. Both can be described as body-based forms of meditation.
I have trained Tai Chi with Brad Schultz at Abundant Peace Internal Martial Arts School since 2013. A form of Nei Gong is offered through our POISE class.