I was born in Canada but spent most of my adult life living and working in Australia. In 2003 I moved to the UK when my wife took up an appointment at the University of Nottingham. We returned to Australia towards the end of 2023.
Among other things, all this moving around has left me with a somewhat confusing accent, or so I’m told.
Like many therapists, I became interested in bodywork through trying to find solutions for my own problems. In my case this was chronic neck and shoulder pain and I spent years experimenting with physiotherapy, acupuncture, chiropractic and a few more. In the end what really did it for me was a particular form of deep tissue massage called Rolfing. I can’t say I was “cured” by Rolfing but the deep touch made me aware of my body and how I was using it more than anything else I’d tried. The massage helped – a lot – and my practitioner showed me ways I could manage my painful symptoms myself so I could start living the life I wanted again. I was hooked.
Rolfing training wasn’t available in Australia back then and my initial studies were into Remedial and Sports Massage at the South Australian Health Education Centre in Adelaide (now part of the Endeavour Group).
While at SAHEC, I had the great good fortune to be introduced to Bowen Therapy by Russell Sturgess, founder of Fascial Kinetics. Bowen couldn’t be more different from deep tissue massage but the results I saw from this deceptively light technique were just so impressive. After receiving my Diploma in Remedial Massage, I went on to gain practitioner qualifications in Bowen from two other internationally recognised schools.
In addition to my clinical practice, I have run workshops in massage and Bowen Therapy for several years and from 2007 was the UK and Europe instructor for Smart Bowen, an Australian training academy. While in the UK I went "back to school" to complete a post graduate qualification in adult education and training so I am better able to help people learn more about the fascinating world of manual therapy.