After starting semi-weekly classes at Silent River Kung Fu in 1994, my life has been built continually around the instruction I received, whether or not I was conscious of it or not. I still feel Sifu Brinker’s words echoing in my head sometimes. My business is now an extension of that training, although I’ve acquired a lot of different knowledge, which is the basis of the business, that extra knowledge was built on my Kung Fu training.

I’ve always wanted to figure out a way to help people develop self-awareness because once I started to understand myself better through Kung Fu, many of the misunderstandings that caused me problems disappeared. Most notably it started with meditative Qigong because of the inward focus on the practice. It opened me to a whole other world that I had too many questions for.

The questions I had about the internal awareness and practices I couldn’t really think about clearly because I didn’t understand what was going on. No matter who I spoke with locally, I couldn’t find any suitable answers, possibly my ego, or possibly I just wasn’t finding the right people, or both. So I decided to head to Wudangshan, a famous Taoist mountain with some legendary tales, to find the answers. What I found out was the theory is too complicated to understand without practice and I needed to really dedicate myself to practicing. And really, the theory is overwhelming! It made sense, but in an ethereal, intangible way.

I spent a year studying Wudang Internal Kung Fu with Sifu Yuan Xiu Gang which included a much more physical Qigong than what I had previously learned. After a year I could finally start to feel like I was getting somewhere with healing my body physically through internal Kung Fu, and some ability to practice the art of stillness through seated and standing meditations.

After Wudangshan, I spent a 18 out of 21 months in Kathmandu, Nepal studying Ancient Massage System of Doctor Jivaka Kumarabhacca. The whole system takes quite a bit of time to learn but I managed to get some of it understood well enough to teach it. Typically the massage portion is referred to as Nuad Phaen Boran, Nuad Boran, Traditional Thai Massage, or Thai Yoga. The physical self-care aspect is a combined system of Active, Ashtanga, and Hatha yoga developed specifically for developing the practitioners of the massage. The energy aspect was a combination of meditations (for raising energy, developing sensitivity and acute sensory awareness, and grounding excess/disturbing energy), hands-on sequences for general energy balancing, and voice activated energy hands-on sequences for in-depth energy balancing.

After all my training I needed to put it into action to understand it better, which is what led me to start Calming the Ocean. I hope to help people ease their pain and suffering through the Ancient Thai Massage and get to the root of the problems that have no physical cause with the Ancient Healing; for the development of the mind and body together, intensive training, and continuing education I will be teaching the Ancient Massage System of Doctor Jivaka Kumarabhacca as well as Wudang Qigong and internal Kung Fu.

Upon returning to Canada it took me quite a bit of time to figure out what direction I needed to go with starting the business; but after some guidance and good ol’ stumbling in the right direction, I have started my business within Healing Connections in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where there are several great therapists and instructors offering complementary services.