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Embodied Practice

Exploration of movement and self

Hi. I'm Chris.

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About Me

I start from the assumption that we are our bodies and that our bodies are nuanced, beautiful, injured beings who have deep capacity for healing and connection. It is my aim in all of my practices to remember and uphold these assumptions and to help others recognize them. I am in awe of the variety of bodies that exist and create loving space for all shapes, sizes and needs.


My embodied practices include yoga and zazen, but also gardening, hiking, going on walks, rolling on the floor, kinhin (walking meditation) and physical therapy. I take inspiration from all of these practices as I guide myself and others toward more intimate relationship within our bodies. This results in a teaching style that focuses on curiosity, inner alignment, and finding support. Since these things take time, the classes will typically be relatively slow. I ask a lot of questions and encourage you to do so as well!


I have a chronic injury; as a result of a climbing accident in my early 20s, my tibia and talus are fused and I have extremely limited and painful movement through the joints of my ankle and foot on the right side. I practiced yoga for several years with this limitation and found yoga invaluable to helping me develop alternative pathways of strength and balance as my condition deteriorated. It also helped me stay in relationship with the injury even as the pain and limitations increased. Being able to contact myself and stay with the pain and grief of the injury has been invaluable and I am so grateful to the teachers who helped me learn these methods. I am also grateful for their creativity and openness in helping me develop alternatives to traditional shapes, so that I could continue to practice even without putting weight though the injury. This has been one of my greatest inspirations and one of the ways in which I hope to help others.


In January 2018, I was fitted for and started using an ExoSym device for my injury. This device is a semi-prosthesis: without amputation, it re-routes weight and movement around my injury so that I can have considerably more mobility with considerably less pain. This new device has been a new adventure all on its own! It’s been incredible to see what my body can do with less pain and also sometimes arduous to see these same shifts. It’s also created another opportunity for me to explore creativity in movement and embodied practice. I feel confident that I can bring this creativity and compassion to others with this device or similar prostheses or physical injury.


I am also cognizant of the great and varied kinds of suffering inflicted on bodies and communities of bodies and am committed to diligent work against the suffering caused by body and ability shaming; homo/queer/transphobia; racism; sexism; capitalism and imperialism. Another assumption I carry with me is that there is no liberation until all beings are liberated. One of the outlets for this commitment is through my podcast, Yoga for the Body Politic (link) that I work on with my dear friend and teacher, Devon Riley. Check it out, and come join us for our in-person version if you’re in the Portland area.


I am profoundly grateful to all of those who have made it possible for me to do this work. To my friends, teachers and supporters: a thousand gassho.


Dogen: “To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.”

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Projects

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An Honest Brave and Compassionate Human Being

Blog

Yoga for the Body Politic

Podcast

SOLA School Final Project

Coming Jan 2019

Rest
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Pricing

June - Dec 2018

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$35

1 hour private movement session

$60

1 hour group session (2-5 people)

$90

1 hour group session (6+ people)

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Connection

NE Portland, OR

971.373.4939

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