• Somatic Coaching

• Men’s Coaching

• Gender & Sexuality Exploration Coaching

• Restoration & Accountability Coaching (after a consent violation)

About my methodology:

While the primary methodology I use in coaching is somatics as taught to me by the Strozzi Institute, I incorporate a variety of influences. These include:

1. Somatics — The “Arc of Embodied Transformation,” exploring how patterns (reactions, tendencies) live in our bodies, and how we can transform from these long-held patterns into a “new shape” that serves your goals.

2. Role Play — I draw on my experience with Theater of the Oppressed, as well as general principles of psychodrama, and find that combining the content of a role play with Somatic Awareness practices can be very potent and supportive for clients.

3. Nonviolent Communication (NVC) — I have taught workshops on NVC skills, such as the Observations-Feelings-Needs-Requests approach to Conflict Resolution; Paraphrasing for Feelings and Needs; and Asking Unassuming Questions. I often find that clients feel that learning the basics of NVC supports clarity and effective communication in their relationships.

4. Restorative Justice — My work with clients seeking to restore relationships after there has been hurt, especially from a consent violation, draws on my years of work in restorative justice; acknoweldging that everyone in the process be treated with dignity during repair.

5. Internal Family Systems (IFS) — I find that the IFS framework flows easily with somatics, where we can think of Conditioned Tendencies or “Shapes” as Parts. For clients who find this supportive, we often name and describe these Parts and speak with them.

6. Attachment Theory — Insecure-Anxious and Insecure-Avoidant attachment styles show up in the body. While we can address them with somatic practices, understanding the theory can support clients in awareness and acceptance and avoid shaming and blaming.

7. Gender Joy — I support clients in feeling authentic, aligned, and joyful in their gender expressions through learning, experimentation, and embodied exercises.

8. Ritual — As a long-time summer camp person, as well as someone who does Men’s Work, and is a Circle Keeper, and spiritual being, I love to collaborate with clients (who show interest) in co-designing rituals to support their embodied transformation process.

About me:

I am an experienced educator, facilitator, curriculum developer, nonprofit entrepreneur, and somatic coach, I am a gender-fluid bisexual man of Ashkenazi (eastern European) Jewish heritage. Below are some snapshots about me:

• Academic — I have a M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of the Pacific via BATTI (Bay Area Teacher Training Institute), as well as a Multiple Subject teaching credential and Physical Education teaching credential. I have a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in Urban Studies. I am a graduate of the Strozzi Institute’s Somatic Coaching program. I have presented at the University of Virginia Curry School of Education’s “Youth Nex” conference on the game-based pedagogy I designed for Camp Common Ground’s curriculum: Using Simulations and Games to Teach Dialogue, Morality, and Social Justice.

• Restorative Justice Facilitator & Teacher — I taught middle schoolers for 6 years in public, charter, and private (all-girls) schools. I taught math (in a bilingual setting), P.E. English, and social-emotional skills. I was trained by Oakland Unified School District in Restorative Justice (RJ), which is nationally reknowned for its RJ program. I have led 100+ RJ circles, including Tier I (Community Building), Tier II (Conflict Resolution), and Tier III (Re-Entry). As a Dean of Students at a large Oakland public middle school, I became Restorative Justice Lead, and trained 40+ staff members in Tier I circles, and mentored several staff members in holding Tier II circles.

• Education Entrepreneur — I wrote a paper my sophomore year of college about starting a summer camp, modeled on Seeds of Peace, to bridge the racial and economic divides in cities, like I saw in Philadelphia, where I was in school. My professor said it would never happen. I spent several years developing my business acumen as a management consultant at Bain & Company, and then at an education start up, while visiting diversity and dialogue related summer camps. I left my desk job to follow this, and met my co-founder working at a day camp together. We worked together from 2015-2020, founding Camp Common Ground, fundraising ~$35K annually, acquiring 501(c)3 status, designing the website, hiring staff, and traveling around the Bay Area to convince ~30 families to send their middle schoolers for 2 weeks overnight. We developed 40+ hours of original curriculum, focusing on empathy (communication, listening), intercultural understanding (identity, privilege), and leadership (collaboration), in addition to unforgettable songs, chants, games, and camp traditions. Though I moved on in 2020, the camp continues to this day, and I am in touch with the current Executive Director, as well as families and young leaders from camp, some of whom profoundly changed me.

• Basketball Player & Coach — I love basketball. I played at the high school level, intramurals in college, and at the Pro-Am and semi-pro level (ABA), as well as in the National Gay Basketball Association (NGBA). I have coached 3 middle school boy’s basketball teams, as well as at summer camps, and provide 1:1 personal basketball training for adults. I have played pick up basketball in outdoor courts in Philadelphia, Boston, Brooklyn, Las Vegas, Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley, Prague, and nearly everywhere I travel. It is also a mission of mine to “queer the court,” addressing the humiliation-orientation of many court cultures. In 2023, I represented San Francisco at the Gay Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, and sometimes can be seen wearing a purple choker, while being a voice for positivity, collaboration, and beautiful basketball. I am also a Contact Improv dancer, and consider basketball to be a form of dance as well.

• Gender & Men’s Work — I created a “Gender Norms” curriculum for Camp Common Ground, and created (at the suggestion of an amazing young leader) a “Genderqueer Circle” for youth who didn’t want to be in a Boy’s or Girl’s circle. Several years later, I was hired by Oakland Unified to lead their first ever “Gender Splendor” group for trans/non-binary middle schoolers. I led a middle school Boy’s Group for 2 years via the Ever Forward Club. I have participated in men’s retreats with the Mankind Project and Sacred Sons, as well as multiple men’s groups, including those specifically for white men, and those based in nonviolent communication. In fall of 2023, I founded and co-facilitated the “New Moon Men’s Circle",” a 4-month men’s group that infused somatics with Men’s Work, as well as the Hebrew Calendar. I have delivered workshops for men on gender norms (“The Gender Box”) at various retreats in the Bay Area, including the first annual Camp Tawonga Men’s Weekend. I am a huge believer that men deserve empathy and that call-out culture doesn’t allow men to heal or grow. To that end, I founded Real Men Share, a (nascent) site for men to share anonmyous vulnerable stories about their experiences of being men, from kink-shame, porn-addiction, and grey-area consent, to eating disorders, violent fantasies, and complex male friendships.

• Writer & Performer — I have always used writing as a way to process confusing feelings. I have written essays on gender, sexuality, kink, and porn that have appeared in online publications like Salon.com and The Atlantic. I have published articles and multimedia photo and video essays about Occupy Wall Street, and student debt movements in New York and in Quebec that appeared in online outlets like Alternet, Truth-Out, and The Nation. In 2013, I co-founded an online magazine for young artists and activist. I also love to perform and spent 4 years of college in a stand-up comedy group. I have performed stand-up in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Boston, and the Bay Area, including shows for audiences of ~250 and was selected to represent my university in Rooftop Comedy’s College Competition in 2010. More recently, I have performed in interactive sketch comedy “shticks” at a series of immersive theater festivals and Bay Area sex-positive events. I was a writer and actor “selling polyamory relationship insurance” and an art director of a project about ecosexual witches. I have written a feature-length screenplay that received a Semi-Finalist placement in the Scriptation Showcase Script Competition, and am crafting 2 new scripts I am so excited about.

• Somatic Practioner & Spiritual Being — After I was introduced to daily somatic practices at the Strozzi Institute, I completed 5 repretitions of a Centering Practice and the 31 Jo-Kata each day for 730 days (2 years). Since then, I vary my daily somatic practice depending on what my body asks for — sometimes an Extension Practice, sometimes Rowing, sometimes a Grab, and sometimes I invent new ones. I appreciate the Internal Family Systems (IFS) framework, and in each of the 5 “reps,” I embody a different one of my Parts and speak my Declaration that day from that Part. I have had a consistent daily meditation practice since the beginning of 2022, and largely follow the Vipassana technique, which I learned in a 10-day silent meditation retreat based in the teaching of S.N. Goenka. I view embodiment and sensation as deeply spiritual as well. I am Jewish, but also follow Buddhism, and many elements of Hinduism, and I think Christ said many beautiful things. Ram Dass is my beloved spiritual guide, and I listen to or read his words nearly every day. Recently, I combined these passions by offering a series of Somatic Shabbats at my home, as part of my work as a Moishe House Without Walls fellow.