Practice Becomes the Way

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

Mary Oliver “The Summer Day,” House of Light
Read the full poem →

Practice Becomes the Way

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

Mary Oliver

“The Summer Day,” House of Light

Read the full poem →

Movement has always been one of the ways I understand the world. I have spent much of my life moving between different practices: tennis, dance, yoga, skateboarding, rock climbing, surfing. On the surface, they can look unrelated. Over time, I have come to understand them as different expressions of something much more fundamental. They ask us to pay attention. To a ball arriving differently than we expected. To another person's timing. To a change in rhythm. To the ocean shifting beneath us. To our own bodies telling us when to push, soften, adjust, or try again. That attention turns movement into more than exercise. It becomes a practice.

Movement has always been one of the ways I understand the world. I have spent much of my life moving between different practices: tennis, dance, yoga, skateboarding, rock climbing, surfing. On the surface, they can look unrelated. Over time, I have come to understand them as different expressions of something much more fundamental. They ask us to pay attention. To a ball arriving differently than we expected. To another person's timing. To a change in rhythm. To the ocean shifting beneath us. To our own bodies telling us when to push, soften, adjust, or try again. That attention turns movement into more than exercise. It becomes a practice.

A life of practice

I think of practice not as the endless pursuit of perfection, but as a way of returning. We return to something because there is always more to notice, more to understand, and another way to experience it. Through repetition we develop skill, but we also develop awareness. We become more responsive, more adaptable, and sometimes more ourselves.

For me, there is something spiritual in that kind of attention. Not spirituality as a particular doctrine, but as a quality of presence and relationship. The feeling of being completely absorbed in a dance, of sharing a rally, of finding rhythm with another person, or of moving with an ocean that will never behave exactly the same way twice. Sometimes we call that flow. Sometimes it feels like connection, communion, beauty, or simply play. Whatever we call it, I think these experiences matter.

Learning through

relationship

This is also why I believe so strongly in learning by doing.

Technique matters. Strength matters. Knowledge matters. But none of them exists in isolation.

A tennis stroke has to respond to a real ball. A dancer listens and responds to music and another body. A surfer learns to read water, timing, position, and possibility. Training prepares the body not simply to become stronger in the gym, but to meet the changing demands of sport and everyday life.

I am interested in developing people who can perceive, decide, adapt, and participate, not simply reproduce instructions.

My role as a coach is therefore not to give someone every answer. It is to create the conditions in which they can explore, build skill and confidence, and gradually become more capable of finding answers for themselves.

What I profess

The conversation between Walker and Vervaeke goes much further into poetry, art, attention, beauty and the role these experiences play in human life. If these ideas resonate with you, I highly recommend watching the full episode, just click on the link: Poetry as a Spiritual Practice.

This is what I profess:

That curiosity is worth protecting.

That the body is not simply something to train, but something through which we experience the world.

That learning happens through attention, experimentation and experience.

That strength and skill can create freedom.

That play is not trivial.

That beauty matters.

That movement can connect us to ourselves, to other people, and to the places we inhabit. And that a practice does not have to lead anywhere grand to be worth returning to.

I recently listened to a conversation between Adam Walker and John Vervaeke called Poetry as a Spiritual Practice. In it, Walker reflects on the idea of a profession through the act of professing: openly standing for something you believe in.

I keep returning to that idea. It made me think about what sits underneath all the different things I teach and practice, and what, through my work, I am actually trying to stand for.

My background

My approach has been shaped by both study and years of practice. I studied kinesiology at the University of Toronto and trained as a yoga, tennis and wheelchair tennis instructor. For more than a decade, I have coached and taught across tennis, movement and dance, while continuing to be a student within my own practices.

I don't see those disciplines as separate boxes. Each has changed the way I understand the others.

Kinesiology taught me to ask how the body works. Yoga taught me to pay attention to it. Dance taught me to listen and respond. Tennis taught me to perceive, decide and adapt. Surfing continues to teach me humility, patience, and acceptance of what is: to meet conditions as they are, adapt to what they offer, and find room within them to play and grow.

Together, they continue to shape how I teach and how I live.

An invitation

This work is for people who are curious.

People who want to become stronger or more skilled, certainly, but who also enjoy learning, experimenting, noticing and discovering what their bodies can do.

You do not need to arrive already confident, athletic or experienced.

You only need to be willing to practice.