My Story
When I was little, I was often in the garden picking berries and making potions. I offered them up to my family and wondered why the blue-green pastes were trialled with caution. I was always a fighter, with a competitive spirit, trying to be the leader of my siblings and cousins, sometimes bossing them around. When I was fourteen in Singapore I started Taekwondo and practised for a year, and this was the beginning of my love for martial arts.
While at Monash University, I studied Japanese in my Arts degree and Business Management in my Business degree. I won a scholarship to study in Japan for a year, where I studied Karate at the Osaka University club while in the university’s cultural exchange program. A few years later after working in business and marketing I fell ill, and looking for a natural way to heal myself, I found naturopathy. Soon after I was enrolled in a bachelor of health science and then began studying part time while I was travelling around the world.
My travels took me to South America and Brazil, where I spent some months in the Amazon jungle learning about the plants and tropical fruits, and on the east coast of Brazil on an island where I started training capoeira, a Brazilian martial arts discipline. These experiences generated interest in movement and healing from yet another cultural perspective.
While back in Australia visiting my family, I found my first teacher in Kalari and Kalari martial arts - Kalaripayattu (pronounced Kalarippayatt). Soon I was practicing daily, and planning annual trips to India to meet one of my teachers and guru Sat Guru Hanuman Das, a great healer and martial artist from southern Kerala. I have travelled to the Dharmikam Ashram nearly every year to spend time training in Kalari healing and martial arts under the Gurukul system – where the student or disciple lives with the Guru and knowledge is passed directly from Guru to student via daily teachings and as an apprentice. This traditional way can be challenging involving hard work and discipline. This process also involves Seva, devotional work. I had finally found my path and calling in life.
Kalari Healing was formed in 2009 and since then, I completed my naturopathy degree and continue to learn about both traditional and modern forms of medicine and healing. In student clinic I also began seeing more clients with thyroid dysfunction, and I was drawn towards a specialization in developing different kind of thyroid health programs combining yoga, martial arts, detoxification, massage, and herbal and nutritional medicine.
During my travels I have treated and trained individuals and groups in India, South America, USA and Australia.
When I returned to Australia in 2014, I came across Alana Gregory in Adelaide, an advanced Kalaripayattu Instructor, and our union as training partners in Kalari began. This spurred a greater interest to share Kalari as much as possible in Australia and the world.
There are only a handful of us in Australia and in the world practicing Kalari and Kalaripayattu, and combining this with naturopathy and evidence based medicine is a special and unique way of healing.
I believe that by using these combined modalities and a mindset focused on prevention, along with regular rejuvenation practices, that our bodes and minds can be in harmony, even within our busy lives.
My Love for Thyroid Health
During my studies in Naturopathy in 2015, I finished a semester with a crash. I was anxious, lost my balance, my digestion was all over the place, my weight fluctuated and I was surviving on coffee. I wanted to be the best, do the best and be at the top. I felt ok in general, but my body was telling me something else. I slowly recovered from this crash, researching what had happened to me, and over the years worked out that it was my thyroid function and extremely low iodine levels that were heavily contributing to my physical/mental/emotional decline. I also ended the last years of my student clinical practice uncovering and treating thyroid diseases in quite a few patients. It was then that I decided I was going to focus on Thyroid health, educate and support my clients with an integrative health approach with Naturopathy, Ayurveda and Yoga.
Over the years I have been working with natural and integrative approaches to Thyroid health and I can see the positive results in my life, and those of my clients.
Qualifications and Experience
- Kalari Healing Practitioner/Martial Arts Instructor, Dharmikam Ashram, Kerala, India
- Bachelor of Health Science (Naturopathy), Endeavour College of Natural Health, Australia
- Thyroid Practitioner Training - with Tara Nelson
- Lucy Rose Clinic (Thyroid speciality clinic) - Naturopath (2019)
- Yoga Teacher, Qualified from World Peace Yoga School, Rishikesh, India
- Vipassana meditation practice and studies since 2007
- Cert IV Massage Therapy at Endeavour College of Natural Health, Australia
- Bachelor of Business Management at Monash University, Australia
- Bachelor of Arts (Japanese) at Monash University, Australia
- Current First Aid Qualification
- Working with Children Permit Victoria
Continued Professional Development
- Thyroid training (with Tara Nelson)
- Ayurvedic Lifestyle Consultancy - American Institute of Vedic Studies.
- Regular Meditation & Physical Training
- Intensive yearly Kalari training in India with masters
- Ongoing Thyroid health research
Get in touch
Have questions about Kalari training? Want to book a Thyroid consultation or Ayurvedic massage? Email us and we will get back to you within 48 hours. Alternatively email us directly on [email protected] or call us on +61.3.90880779
