About

Founder of Dharmarts

I got my first teaching job in 1998 at the age of 18 when I started teaching adult/kids snowboarding lessons and coaching a Buddy Warner snowboarding team on the weekends at Sierra Ski resort. I learned that teaching was sharing what you loved to do and is a very fulfilling path. 

 Around the same time I met Cory Escobar, who was a world-class kickboxing champion at that point in his life. He held a black belt under his dad Joey Escobar, who himself was belted under Chuck Norris. Cory later opened Escobar Training Grounds, where I have been currently training and teaching for the past 13 years and where I received my black belt in Tang Soo Do. I have many years of experience teaching kids classes 5 and up, adult karate, adult kickboxing, self-defense and sparring techniques. 

Through personal study of the history and philosophy of Tang Soo Do, I started to notice the entanglement of fibers of these practices — in the way of the warrior concentration, the meditative state for battle. The Samurai called it Mushin, and was considered that training of the mind was just as important as for the body. After many classes, retreats, and countless hours of practice, I developed a pretty solid breath practice in Vipassana/Samatha and Pranayama Meditation. With my meditation practice, I quickly fell into yoga as it went hand in hand as just a moving meditation in itself. As a martial arts teacher and a practicing yogi, I started to research the beneficial poses where marital artists carry the most stress. I received my yoga certification through Tahoe Yoga Shala in South Lake Tahoe via an in-depth study of Ashtanga yoga primary series. 

I am very much a student in both arts and always eager to learn more to teach more to my students, may my cup be never full.