JOURNEY

Hi, I'm Noel! My wellness career started in high school working at the Beaufort YMCA as a fitness attendant.  While there I learned the basics of running a health center. This included duties such as maintaining a friendly training environment while attending to the needs of visitors.  Soon after graduating I traveled down the potential career path of physical therapy by first becoming a personal trainer in 2005 and then a licensed massage therapist in 2007.  When I started getting to work with clients as a massage therapist I lost interest in becoming a physical therapist.  I found the immediate feedback from soft tissue releasing by the work of my hands to be very satisfying.  The experiences of my clients were also very rewarding to witness.  Every so often however I got the sense that I wasn't able to help my clients with deeper issues and I wasn't trained enough to even touch upon other influential factors such as mental health.  Knowing that the mind played a vital role for living a rich life I decided to study philosophy instead of exercise science.  I realized I the mind-centered approach wasn't the answer for me either.  I left my academic studies in philosophy after a year in a masters program feeling completely in my head and completely disembodied. 

I knew I had to regain my physical self which was too important for me to not include in my overall practice of living well.  It was at this time I began taking yoga more seriously as it seemed to combine both mind and body into one practice.  After completing my first yoga teacher training in 2013 I still felt something was missing.  I was at my wit's end feeling unable to find something that truly blended mind, body, and spirit.  I had no idea where I was going to take my health and wellness career.  It was then that I learned about Rolfing.  After the experience witnessing my own physical and mental transformation from my first 10 Series I knew I had to move to Boulder, Colorado in order to learn more about Structural Integration.  In 2016 I dove headfirst into an independent practice after becoming a Certified Rolfer from The Dr. Ida Rolf Institute of Structural Integration.  This practice gave me the space and freedom to utilize a wide variety of skills and experience I acquired from studying many different ways of promoting health and performance.  As my practice became more adaptable I began to truly appreciate the holistic effects of what I do.  This awareness continues to lead me towards further training and education around the human being.

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With each year that passes, and each person I help, there is palpable change in both my visitors as well as myself.   My purpose is to help continue sharing the benefits of structural integration and movement based therapies.  I believe this requires being always open to shifting my own perspective on how to help support optimal movement, radiant health, and purpose driven lives.

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- Noel L. Poff