What were you hoping to shift while working with Ruth?

In working with Ruth, what I was hoping to shift was my relationship with my body. I treated my body— for lack of a better way to put it—like it was the enemy.

I always acted as if my body was against me, that the way it looked, the way it felt, was something that needed to be cured or changed and that it was me trying to control it and I always felt distant and hostile towards it and that never felt right.

I didn’t really know why. I didn’t really understand that, that’s what I had done, that I had created this, this “othering” of my own body. But I knew it, it felt like I was living in hostile territory.

What had you tried before and how was Ruth’s work different?

Before working with Ruth, I had tried a lot of things successfully. But my latest iterations and a really major pattern of my behavior is to push through the pain or to engage head on with discomfort, whether it’s physical or emotional, but in a very masculine, combative way.

That works for a little while. It works on a lot of the first blocks, at least for me. And it worked on a lot of those, those big pains. But all of the really deep seated subtleties still remain.

Ruth’s work offered a different way through that process that didn’t feel like war. That didn’t emphasize all or nothing mentality in my body and what I was experiencing was actually respected, acknowledged.

It was surprising how easily my body gave way to ease when it was honored. That was surprising.

What did you learn about yourself from working with Ruth?

This one’s actually kind of easy to answer surprisingly. I think I was most surprised about how quickly my body responded to my own engagement. It’s almost like its natural state was ease and disease was sort of just this learned response. and as soon as I started finding that path of ease, my body just naturally sort of slid into it every time I went back and it became easier and easier. And that was surprising. I thought this would be like learning a new language, but it was more like riding a bike again.

How is your life/sport/body different now?

The biggest shift in my life is that it feels more grounded that, I’m in a relationship, a partnership with my body, and that sounds foreign to say that that concept, you know, like why wouldn’t I be in a relationship? Why wouldn’t I be in a partnership with my body? But it’s a new feeling, and that’s pretty amazing.