I’ve always had a fascination for people. A deep and constant curiosity for what is going on inside -  what motivates us, how we become who we are,  and how we express who we are through our bodies -  keeps me alive and interested in the work that I do. The very first time I used my hands to massage someone to help their pain I got the immediate sense that I was touching that person. Not that I was touching muscle, skin,  or bone, but actually touching the essential being of that person.

In fact I started early with massaging people, my mother has always had trouble with her back, and I would give her a five year old’s version of  a massage. She said she enjoyed the attention to the pain in her muscles and I enjoyed connecting with her through my hands.

For me, working with touch is a way of communicating directly with a person, I feel like I can ‘hear’ more clearly when I am touching them. All that we are is expressed through our physical being - our feelings, thoughts, spirit - if you think about it we have no other medium of expression.

I was born in South Africa, did my schooling in Johannesburg, and went to University in Cape Town where I received a Diploma in The Performing Arts. Immediately I finished university I got on a plane to London, where I’ve been ever since. Before I dropped acting as a possible career, I was involved in writing and performing a few plays and I got a scholarship to attend the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in London, which is where I realised I did not want to continue on this path.

After travelling a bit and teaching English as a foreign Language in Morocco, Russia and Uk, it one day dawned on me that I should train in massage, mainly because it was something I was naturally doing anyway with friends or family who had a bit of physical discomfort.

In 1997 I completed  a training in Therapeutic Massage at the London College of Massage and started  practicing from The Hale Clinic in London. This is where I met Dr Mosaraf Ali and I soon moved my practice to The Integrated Medical Centre in Marylebone, which he set up in 1998, where I stayed for 10 years. I am currently at Natureworks, just off Oxford Street in London, where I practice Hellerwork, Hakomi and Feldenkrais.

I very soon started to feel limited by just doing massage and wanted to do something that would address the whole person, movement, breath, emotions, and so I trained in Hellerwork, Structural Integration,  with Sol Petersen, Stuart Bell and Dan Bienenfeld,  and which I completed in 1999. 

Structural Integration has allowed me to work with people in a way that is supportive to them becoming who they want to be.

In the Structural Integration sessions we listen to the body, we work with it, there is laughter, there is some pain sometimes, we make new discoveries, there is always some change, and we work as a team, I accompany my clients on a process of re-discovery of who they naturally are. This is what I love.

In 2005 I completed a training in USA to become a Hellerwork Structural Integration Mentor with Joseph Heller, the founder of the method.

I was introduced to Hakomi during my original Hellerwork training as a way of addressing emotional responses. This lead me to take the Hakomi training with Donna Martin and Bob Milone in Sheffield, Uk. I have  been a Hakomi Practitioner since 2006 and am now also a Hakomi Trainer, teaching on the 3 year Hakomi Practitioner training in Sheffield.

In 2009 I qualified as a Feldenkrais practitioner, after completing a four year training lead by Jerry Karzen in Chiemsee in Germany.

My work now is combining all that I have learnt and experienced since I began my journey helping people to connect more with who they naturally are through the mediums of the body, mindfulness and movement.

I call the combination body-mind-movement therapy for now, until I come up with a better term. Please come along and and try it out, each person has their own definition for the experience.