Biography And Experience

My philosophy for massage is just enough pressure where you can still breathe and relax. Massage is a sacred calling, if you're considering a massage career I strongly recommend it to you. Most importantly however, both giving and receiving massages has brought me back into my body.While not many of us are always present, massage demands that you stay where you are and focus your energy toward the client or to the area of healing. Massage has also provided me with a platform to begin giving service to others. The joy of wishing wellness for another from the truth of my heart has been irreplaceably wonderful even when the desired results aren't granted or achieved or happening. If you choose to contact me for a massage I thank you for another opportunity to serve from my heart.

Yoga, right now, is my calling! How lucky am I to have found something I love to do that enriches my life and others. Pretty rare these days but they say to follow our joy, No? It surprised me when in my very first yoga class I thought "You know I could be good at this." Even in my first class I was thinking how I would have taught something differently from the teacher. I started practicing in 1997 and only had taken 30 - 40 classes when I went for 200 hour yoga teacher training in January 2001 at the Nosara Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. A definite watershed experience in my life. Honestly I didn't know much at all what yoga was about I just knew I liked it. So when I was introduced to yoga philosophies and chanting and meditating, my like turned to love, because I found a way to penetrate deeper into the heart and soul of the mystery of who and what we really are. (Who are you?) I eventually went back for more. It was the first place I had a really good look at myself in an atmosphere of self acceptance as is, as we are. I've had the great pleasure of attending some yoga journal conferences and was blessed to study with such great teachers as Shiva Rea, Gurmukh, Rod Stryker, Rodney Yee, the list goes on. With only 2 hour or all day classes I don't consider them my personal teachers but they are all my teachers. Each and every one of them will tell you what I'm about to tell you. I'm, really just a beginner. Even with a lifetime of yoga experience a good teacher remains a good student and still cultivates the beginners mind. I encourage us all to remain beginners and open to new ideas and concepts or even helping old ideas seem continuously new and fresh. The teacher I met at the yoga conferences that was most influential was John Friend. A brilliant beautiful man who designed his own yoga system called Anusara Yoga. Anusara means Flowing with Grace and Johns grace enchanted me to want to study more with him. I picked up the Anusara Yoga 101 CD and fell in love with this system that offers precise detailed alignment principles as well as a heart centered philosophy that seamlessly flows through the instruction. Since then I've studied with John for a week in Costa Rica in 2006 and a weekend in San Diego in 2007 and 2008. Locally, were all blessed to have such a highly trained and gracious teacher of Anusara Yoga in Sherry Shrek. In 2006 and 2007 I took the 3 Anusara Immersions with Sherry and am proud to call myself an Anusara Inspired Teacher. Thank you Sherry! I've also studied Kundalini Yoga, just a bit, with Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, founder of Golden Bridge Yoga in Los Angeles. I find Kundalini Yoga Fascinating and someday hope to have the time, money, courage and faith to attend a Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training. My yoga career has also been gifted with chanting, and singing. Please see the kirtan button. My love of yoga and philosophy keeps me continuously active in my own education always into different books or cd's or dvd's to experience new techniques, languaging and gifts to receive and share again with my students. Currently, my practice involves just trying to open more and more to what's right here and now.

“May we all be perpetual students and teachers”
Dennis Frate