My Story

I was born on July 24th 1998 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Growing up my movement journey started pretty young, at the age of about 3 I was enrolled into gymnastics. I don't remember it much, other than the occasional somersault but I'm sure it helped cement the foundation that would carry me into a life full of movement. Shortly after gymnastics I started playing soccer, and little did I know I would continue with it for about 10 years. I enjoyed soccer because it was a sport built on speed and finesse, both of which I was quite proficient in. I was a smaller kid but I was damn fast, so soccer suited me pretty well. Within that 10 years I also trained karate for about a year. It was cool to learn how to strike and kick but we didn't do much more than practice katas(routines) and I found myself getting bored with it. I also took up snowboarding to help get through those Canadian winters, plus it's a blast. At about the age of 15 I stopped playing soccer, and for the first time in my life I wasn't very active. That went on for about a year until I found the GYM. Being 16 at the time and a bit of a late bloomer, I was a pretty small dude. So naturally I wanted to put on some muscle, plus I was definitely craving some physical activity. So a couple friends and I started hitting the ol' school gym during our spare blocks. It didn't take me long to fall in love with it. The endorphins, comradery, and the physical changes I was seeing was enough to get me hooked. I continued pretty consistently through the last few months of my grade 11 year. In grade 12 I took it even more seriously. I was training every school day during 4th block spare. The training looked about how you'd expect a bunch of high-school boys working out to look like. Arm day drop sets till the sun went down, and a few too many skipped leg days. Good times. I graduated high-school in 2016 so it was off into the real world with me, and into a real gym. So the boys and I being broke newly grads grabbed ourselves some fit4less memberships and were good to go. That summer was filled with more Pokémon Go and 1 a.m. gym sessions than I'd like to admit but I wouldn't take back any of it. I continued on training and started taking it more and more seriously. I started taking my nutrition more seriously and began meal prepping. I also started taking my programming and strength training more seriously, and it worked. Over the span of about 7 years I got jacked and pretty damn strong. So much so that I thought I might as well try out a bodybuilding competition. Even though I wasn't really into the sport, I thought it would be a cool experience. So I started prepping for my first bodybuilding competition. Something was missing though and I could feel it. I had built this physique and gained all this strength but I wasn't really using it for anything but continuing to lift weights in a gym. So being your typical Joe Rogan listener, I started training BJJ. I loved it. As soon as I left that first class I knew it would be something I would do for a while. There was something that just felt so right, like a primal urge I didn't know I had. I competed in my first bodybuilding competition on November 6 2021. I competed in men's classic physique in junior and open class. I placed 2nd in juniors and 5th in the open. It was a very difficult but fun experience. I respect all the hard work that goes into bodybuilding but it just wasn't for me. I didn't like the idea of being judged strictly on the appearance of my body and not the functionality of it. It's an experience I wouldn't take back but I don't know if I'll ever do it again. My ideas of fitness and training were beginning to shift. I understood now that there was much more to human movement and capabilities than lifting weights in the gym. BJJ also made me realize that the muscles and strength I had put on in the gym didn't necessarily transfer well to real life scenarios like fighting. I realized the importance of being mobile and strong in deeper, more compromised ranges of motion. It was also at about this time that I started looking into Ido Portal and his movement culture and approach to a movement practice. What Ido and his students were able to do with their bodies was incredible. Strong yet soft, supple yet explosive, completely tuned in to their bodies and environment. It made me realize the short comings of my own practice and what was possible with consistent effort. Our society promotes and rewards a hyper specialized approach to fitness and life in general. Devote all your time and become extraordinary at this one thing and you can go to the top and receive all this glory and money. But there's so much missing, so much to experience, so much more the human body is capable of. So I began taking a more generalized approach to my training. Using what I've learned from years of bodybuilding/powerlifting training, but incorporating gymnastics, calisthenics, hand balancing, dance, fighting, climbing and some soft acrobatics. I was worried I'd lose my muscle and strength if I stopped training how I was, but to my surprise I've only continued to put on size and strength while being a much better mover than I was. When I'm writing this on January 8th 2024, I continue to push and dig deeper into human movement. I train full time and hope to open my own facility one day where I can teach my own brand of movement how I want to. This is what I hope to achieve with myself and my clients. To not only make them look better and be stronger, but to feel more confident and free in their own bodies. To realize what they are capable of, and have a deeper connection and experience with their bodies.