I grew up in the 1960's and 70's in the suburbs of New York City. Casey O'Brien was our neighborhood ringleader. He inspired a rag-tag band of kids to make an igloo, a miniature golf course, a battlefield for army men, a candy store on wheels and a haunted house. I wrote a whole story about him and his influence on my life in my memoir—A Fire Somewhere. I'll show it to you if you want.  

By about ten years old, my life revolved around sports. It wasn't spring, summer, fall...it was baseball, basketball, football. As a teen, I became interested in theater and even made a movie while still in high school. When I got to college, I majored in theater and minored in frisbee and juggling. Circus, I discovered, was the perfect marriage of theater and sport. I enjoyed the collaboration and cooperation. 

After college, I moved to NYC and found a small suitcase in the garbage outside my apartment in Soho. I filled it with juggling props and toured the world with the first of many incarnations of my show Circus Minimus: The One-Man Circus in-a-Suitcase. Travel weary and back in NY, my friend Diana Cohn suggested I teach circus in the afterschool program at Little Red Schoolhouse in the Village. That program quickly grew to a dozen schools and fifteen teachers. Meanwhile, I worked for the Big Apple Circus and in Newark, NJ teaching inner-city kids circus skills. 

Being a New Yorker and professional multi-tasker, I wanted to find a system of movement that would include my mind and spirit. Yoga knocked on my door in my twenties. I thank whatever grace and mystery keeps the door open. After many years in professional theater and television I found nothing could compare to the feeling of leaving a town after a circus residency and seeing the profound effect of this work on whole families. I gradually let my acting career taper off and Circus Minimus began to flourish.

I met Erin Maile at a dance party in my living room while in my late thirties. We had a conversation about feelings, learning and circles. We didn't know it at the time, but it was the beginning of CircusYoga. More than anything, I love the principles underlying this work—courage, trust, expansion and community.

I want to keep growing and use my participation in this circle to inspire others to pick up a feather and follow their dreams.