My studies
Keep in mind, preceding my return to dance, I spent countless thousands of hours trying to “figure out” my depression, trauma, and chronic grief. Along the way, I studied a huge array of leaders in the field of psychotherapy, until I eventually found body-based psychotherapies and studied in person with some of the most forward-thinking humans in that field.
I read everything I could find in the psych section of our local college libraries. I wasn’t stuck in “self help” books. I wanted the real theory and actual results of studies.
I had tried to intellectually “solve” depression (which has given me a bedrock of knowledge that underlies all my movement work), but it wasn’t until I got into my body that anything really shifted.
Depression eats the very thing that is YOU … the very thing that can help you navigate whatever traumas etc. led to that depression.
And depression, of course, eats your desire to move. Paradoxically, moving in joy is one of the main things that can heal us, but to get to the place of being able to move can be a long and arduous journey.
I’m here to help you with that.
My most influential intensive was with the Butoh artist Maureen Fleming. I think of her as my core mentor. She is the most important American woman in Japanese Butoh and had studied many times in Japan with the originator of this movement art. She is my lineage.
My most recent training was at Heartfelt Yoga in Columbus, OH. I never felt the need to do a 200 hour yoga teacher training. Mostly because I’d never found one that didn’t just look like a bootcamp for the asanas. I’ve been studying yoga since my late 20s and that just wasn’t enough. But when I saw the inclusive approach they were taking at Heartfelt, I knew it was my chance.
My first trainings were in YogaDance and YogaDance for Special Populations with Megha Buttenheim. This is based in chakra energy work and community building. Special-populations studies were targeted toward people with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dementia, and post-cancer treatment.
I’ve spent serious time with Bessel van der Kolk. When his book “The Body Keeps the Score” came out, it was like reading his plans for the intensives I’d attended in person.
I’ve also spent time with Peter Levine (one of the originators of body-based psychotherapies), Bo Forbes (a psychotherapist and yoga teacher), and a variety of other somatic psychotherapy leaders.
I’ve studied biomechanics with Katy Bowman, and I was lucky lucky lucky enough to study in person with the amazing yoga teacher, Erich Schiffmann, one of the first Americans to study yoga in India with BKS Iyengar. Erich has developed what he calls “freedom yoga,” and his DVD with Ali MacGraw was my very first introduction to yoga and still remains my favorite.
I’ve been teaching now for 13 years, weekly and sometimes daily, and in a huge array of venues. A tiny sampling of my most significant experiences would include
Working with different groups focused on processing grief to eventually develop movement art processes to transmute the grief and build communities of support.
Developing and teaching movement art methods to children living in a residential therapy grade school and high school, focusing on creating tools for emotional regulation and helping them understand, allow, and provide safe intimacy in relationship.
Developing and creating classes for a Regional Cancer Center, focusing on relationship and healing.
Developing and teaching elder dance at Mercy Center for Aging.
Creating and running movement workshops with the Sisters of St. Joseph elders.
Teaching for a chiropractor where I focused on basic mobility and joint health.
Being the Keynote Speaker (with interactive movement demonstration) at the Annual Conference for the Pennsylvania State Association of Senior Centers, at PSU, State College in the Fall of 2013.
Being the Special Speaker at Alzheimer’s Association Conferences, May 2016 and again in 2017.
Developing, in 2019, Brain Grooves with the NWPA Alzheimer's Association, with the help of Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM).
Head over to populations I’ve worked with for more.
And of course, over all this time, I’ve put ALL THE THINGS into a GIANT compost bin and that is now named The Peony Method.