I began as a Physiotherapist in the early 1980’s, working predominantly in New Zealand and Australia. During my career I worked in rehabilitation and acute care hospitals and even in the spinal care unit and ICU of a large teaching hospital.

When I went into private practice I worked with a wide range of conditions in all situations and grew increasingly interested in movement disorders and chronic problems. I felt frustrated that although most people improved and most problems resolved there were still many who didn’t progress beyond a certain point or recover completely, or progress at all

Many people said that they just wanted to get back to square one, or to the way they were before their problem or injury had occurred. I thought about this problem and eventually realised that ‘square one’ was not necessarily a good place to aim for!

in 1988, when I was 28 I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphblastic Leukaemia and the next few years were tumultuous. After chemo and radio therapy and 2 bone marrow transplants and all the joys such treatment entails I achieved a lasting remission. Since then I have been “..enjoying the side effects” and getting on with life, but not from square one.

I fought hard to get back to my normal life, square one, and to return to work but another acute relapse of the leukaemia sent my world tumbling again. I realised that I hadn’t been happy, well or satisfied with my life previously and yet I’d fought to get back to the same place! Looking back, it seemed crazy.

One side effect of all the treatment was avascular necrosis of my femoral heads. The balls of my hip joints crumbled away over a three month period when the blood supply to the bones stopped. I had both hips replaced 30 years ago and yet I still teach movement, walking and core stability today.

One thing I realised as I was recovering after the operation, was that I didn’t know enough about my own rehabilitation to be completely satisfied. And nor did my partners, colleagues or the specialists I consulted.

After studying all the movement and core stability courses I could find, including Pilates, Feldenkrais and yoga, I finally returned to square one! But this time I looked at square one as the way I’d unconsciously been moving and standing since a very young age. The closer I looked at the way I moved, and the way other people moved the more I realised that our individual ‘square one’ has little to do with quality or balanced movement and more to do with function.

This is where Postural Patterning began. Today, I am a healthy, active man whose journey of learning about the systemic link between postural patterns and chronic problems has also been my own journey to regaining health and vitality.

I live in a Paraparaumu Beach, an hour out of Wellington, New Zealand with my partner Sally Dutton, a Network Spinal Analysis practitioner. We have recently opened ‘The Wellness Studio’ in Raumati as home base for helping people on their journey to wellness.

I have a passion for “creating space for people to heal in”, and seek to teach other people, both health professionals and anyone else who owns a body, about how to use their body well, how to understand the way they use their body in normal everyday tasks and the problems that this ‘normality’ can cause.