I have been thinking for some time about something to do to volunteer my time and give back to my community. I wanted it to be something I was genuinely excited and passionate about.

Growing up in a dysfunctional family and a broken home, my love for sports was a saving grace. Playing soccer in the summers and ice hockey in the winters was what gave me moments of peace and helped me escape into another reality of joy and excitement. Spending every free hour practicing, I had the dream of one day becoming a professional athlete.

When I was 16 years old I had the crushing realization that my dream was not to be. My dad inspired me to start weight training so I’d have another athletic activity to enjoy the exercise of body and peace of mind. Weight training helped me, not only build confidence and muscles, but it also inspired me to further investigate the function, potential, and performance of the human body and mind. This led me on a path to find my profession.
Today after 36 years of practice in holistic sports medicine and sports performance, I might never have been the great athlete I aspired to be, but now I am helping world-class athletes stay in the game and perform better.

In my studying and searching for a better way to heal pain and improve performance, I found the Ancient Chinese “Way”; forgotten secrets on how to live and perform in Excellence. I studied thousands of athletes and witnessed first-hand the cause and effect of their behavior and beliefs in victory and defeat. I found that the athlete’s beliefs and patterns of behavior explained the outcome of their performance as well as the cause and recovery of their injuries. This led to the writing of my second book; “Athlete’s Way of Excellence”.

In my clinic, I also see many elementary and high school athletes that are suffering from injuries. I have found that often their injuries are not healing because of ongoing stress. Overtraining, pressure from expectations, lack of sleep, lack of nutrition and one sport specialization. Overburdened from expectations, pain, and fatigue with declining performance, making it NO FUN to play anymore. Many youth athletes are getting burned out.

Before I knew better, as a parent of a daughter that played competitive soccer on a state champion team, I too got caught up in the madness of trying to push her to perform better. You can’t change the past, just learn from it and share with others in the hope they will not make the same mistake. You can want your child to train harder or more, BUT you can’t make him or her WANT to do it. The desire to work out more or harder has to come from the athlete themselves. If it is not, the outcome will never be good. In contrast, I have observed how professional athlete patients of mine like Joe Pavelski, Patrick Marleau, and Joe Thornton encouraged, but never pressured their children in their athletic pursuit.

I wish I would have had the knowledge I now have when I was a young aspiring athlete as well as when my daughter was playing soccer. My love for sports and athletics and the desire to share all the things I learned made my mission clear; – to give back to youth sports in my community.

I will give free seminars teaching this ancient wisdom to youth athletes AND their parents on how to master their sport and maximize athletic performance while having fun playing the game. It is my desire that these seminars will provide knowledge and wisdom to young aspiring athletes that most athletes never learn, or learn too late when they are no longer participating in their sport.

If you are part of a youth sports organization or team and would like for me to teach this seminar to your group, please contact my office.