I’m 32, and am sitting on at the computer typing this up while my three children (Ayiana – 3, Shamani – 6, Joaquin – watch What Now on TV. My wife’s just gotten up, and everyone’s in various stages of getting into the morning (Time is 8:05am). Running through my headphones is Fibonacci Sequence, a breaks/trance track on Sasha’s Ibiza (Global Underground) album. Music helps to blank out the television so that I can focus on what I’m doing here. It’s also a good stimulant to get me going in the morning.

I work for Otago Polytechnic full time as the programme coordinator of the massage therapy programme in Dunedin, New Zealand. Much of my time is taken up by the responsiblities involved with this role at this point in my life. I recently redeveloped the programme from a 18 month classroom-based programme to a 2 year blended delivery programme. I now have the responsibility for much of the online teaching.

My personal interests include the body, rock-climbing, meditation and tai-chi. I’m training for rock-climbing at present, and would like to reduce my position at polytech to 0.8 next year or the year after so that I can really concentrate on pushing my climbing grade. I’m also getting back into tai-chi, and am interested at the moment on the therapeutic interface between doing & being. In massage therapy it’s common practice to prescribe some exercises following treatment. I’ve been reflecting on how most of the major therapeutic shifts in my body have come about through improved body awareness, and energetic opening rather than as a focussed intentional effort. e.g. my right arch was collapsed & spontaneously corrected during my 6 months of tai-chi practice in Auckland. So I’m interested in methods of improving body-awareness as a therapeutic intervention.