The Story Behind the Name
There’s a lot of things that have influenced me and my work, so here’s the story that gave birth to the name Bone Yoga.
This is the short version.
Five Element Acupuncture
I qualified as an Acupuncturist in 1985, from the College of Five Element Acupuncture, UK. The style of acupuncture focused holistically on the body mind and spirit, with an emphasis on emotional/spirit body rather than the physicality/symptoms of the person. The founder of this system JR Worsley was an incredible gifted healer, this way of working is profound on many levels, easy in many ways to learn and yet challenging to practice. This formed the foundation of my connection with people and to this day still blows me away how incredible the system is.
One of the things that did frustrate me, a little, was not having the skills to touch and feel what was going on physically with my clients. It felt like there was something missing for me. I contemplated studying osteopathy, but couldn’t see myself committing to another long training.
My father, Leslie, a senior university lecturer of mathematics, took an early retirement at the age of 56, and became an acupuncturist, a year before I did. This stated to form a new a deepening relationship that continued till he passed away in 2018.
Fritz Smith and Zero Balancing
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My father, Leslie, a senior university lecturer of mathematics, took an early retirement at the age of 56, and became an acupuncturist, a year before I did. This stated to form a new a deepening relationship that continued till he passed away in 2018.
During his training my father met Fritz Smith, an Osteopathic MD, another amazing gifted healer and communicator of touch, who was also studying acupuncture at the Five Element School in the UK. Fritz was fascinated by structure and the bones, his father was chiropractor, practicing in his early 90’s, and he attributes much of his hands on skills to the way he was touch by his father.
During Fritz’s training as an acupuncturist, Fritz wrote a thesis focusing on teaching acupuncturists to feel energy within the skeletal system. This was the inception of an incredible body work system that was eventually called Zero Balancing.
My father qualified as a Zero Balancer and was on the first Zero Balancing teachers training programme.
Curious, but not really knowing what this was all about I went on my first Zero Balancing course. Little did I know that this would give me the access that I longed for, being able to touch and engage people via their physicality.
And little did I know at the time that I would become engrossed in the world of Zero Balancing and that it would become the major focus of my work and explorations. I felt in many ways that II had come home.
I qualified as Zero Balancer in 1992 and as a teacher in 1996, and continued in many advanced trainings and created a number of specialised courses with the Zero Balancing curriculum.
Zero Balancing focuses on the skeleton, the bones, the ligaments and the relationship that these tissues have on our body/mind/spirit relationship. So very much akin to my work and focus with Five Element Acupuncture.