I was born in a bedroom community of New York City and grew up as a child in Venezuela living between multiple cultures – the different cultures of my parents on the home front, friendships with neighborhood children of different nationalities, a Venezuelan water polo community, and an international school community. As an adult, I have lived in different regions of the USA, in the Flemish part of Belgium and southern Japan, and traveled throughout Mexico, Costa Rica, Europe, and the Cape Region of South Africa. Spanish is my second language, and I also enjoy using my language skills in French and Dutch.
For more than 5 decades I worked as an educator in a wide array of disciplines. In 2008, after leaving full-time work in the world of K-16 formal education, I shifted my focus to helping others learn for their personal development and transformation. Over the years professional and personal life experiences have taught me that people have unique learning pathways and strengths, which wise teachers use as the basis for relationship with learners and teaching.
In 2009, I attended one of my first Argentinean tango workshops. Social Argentinean tango (not to be confused with choreographed performance tango) is not just a dance form; it is a metaphor for living. At the workshop I was introduced to Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais’ perspective of somatic education. In the workshop it was a tool the facilitators used to help us know ourselves more deeply as we learned a tango step. The result was dramatic improvement in my dance movement and an overwhelming sensation of astonishment – that an experience five to ten minutes in duration could completely transform me into moving more gracefully and in balance, and feeling utterly joyful.
After completing my Feldenkrais® Professional Training Program training in 2014 I learned that Mia Segal, Dr. Feldenkrais’ first assistant and collaborator, and Ruthy Alon, one of Dr. Feldenkrais first students, were facilitating advanced trainings on the west coast. I signed on to study with both of them. In 2016 I was introduced to Jeff Haller, a Feldenkrais trainer based in the Seattle area who had studied with Moshe Feldenkrais in the early 1980s. He too became a mentor.
In addition to my certification as a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner®, I hold certifications for Ruthy Alon’s Movement Intelligence Walk for Life and Solutions for Optimal Mobility programs and Jeff Haller’s Ideal Organization Profound Strength (IOPS) Program. Each of these avenues of study and mentorship has deepened my understanding of the Feldenkrais Method and somatic learning