About Dave
PhD, RYT, TIYT, PDC, CPT(t)
Hi! I'm Dave, founder of Holos Therapeutics. I strive to live the theory and values behind my work, and what I offer has grown organically from the soil of my own diverse life experience. Here are some of the highlights of my experience, education, and training:
I love to move, I love to think, and I'm fascinated by the intelligence, strength, and abilities of the human being. Throughout my life, I've engaged and studied the many forms of human experience and how they swirl together: mind, body, spirit.
In school, I was active in sports (baseball, football, track, soccer, and gymnastics) as well as music and art. I began college as a music major, then transferred schools and earned a degree in psychology instead. From there, I found myself at Syracuse University, where I was awarded a Doctoral Research Fellowship in the School of Education. My PhD dissertation explores the currently-developing paradigm shift in the life-mind sciences, and I focused my research on embodied cognition, ecological psychology, autopoietic biology, mindfulness, quantum neurophilosophy, and dynamic systems theory.
Through my research, I returned to what I've always known: the body possesses immense strength, resilience, diverse capabilities, intelligence, and even wisdom. Our best sciences have affirmed what people have intuitively known forever: the body simply is the mind. There is no essential difference between something abstractly called "mind" and something abstractly called "body" that are somehow connected. Rather, human cognition is a multidimensional phenomenon inclusive of a wide range of experiential dynamics that exceed what these two simplistic concepts can accurately name.
Taking this idea seriously, I extended the knowledge I gained in graduate school by quite literally embodying this perspective on the embodied level! I became a registered yoga teacher; trained in trauma-informed yoga therapy and trauma-sensitive mindfulness; and I'm now completing the Certified Personal Trainer course through the National Academy of Sports Medicine. I am also conducting independent research into the new paradigm of living anatomy, which departs from the obsolete theories of biomechanics, and which is grounded in biotensegrity and the past few decades of groundbreaking research on fascia.
Ultimately, I practice what I preach, and if the proof is in the pudding, I have a feast of proof for you to savor! In other words, my life experience demonstrates that when we understand our holistic mind-body systems, we can develop the strength and abilities necessary to remain healthy and well in the face of the significant demands life throws at us. I have worked many physically demanding jobs, including masonry, construction, landscaping, trail building, farming, heavy equipment operation, and as a guide for high ropes courses and backpacking. Through all these experiences, I've never had a significant injury; just some aches and pains. And, I've maintained an active lifestyle in a variety of activities including urban cycling, mountain biking, rock climbing, slacklining, backpacking/hiking, yoga, and working out.
I've also learned just how much we are capable of through the unique experience of a vision fast in the wilderness of Utah's canyonlands. During a 12-day backpacking trip, I solo fasted for four and a half days. This was a challenge, to be sure! But I was astounded at how much strength I still had, even after being so depleted for so long. This experience taught me so much, but the key insight was simply that we are capable of so much more than we typically believe - and, to tap into this potential, we must learn to align all our different energy systems, which is to say integrate "body" and "mind." When we do this, we are unstoppable.
Today, I keep myself moving through many forms of physical activity and I also continue to research as much as I can in the realms of embodied cognition, fascial conditioning, fitness, natural healing, biotensegrity/living anatomy, and diet/nutrition.