My Story

Joshua J berry

I have always been interested in movement, music, art and the spiritual world ever since I can remember. When I was younger I concentrated on expressing myself through visual art, writing and music. I mainly practiced illustration, painting, guitar and kept my body active with skateboarding.

In my mid twenties life hit me hard, as it does many of us. I experienced some serious depression and experiences that pushed me to look at my life and ask myself what I was contributing to this world. I was working in construction and trying to figure out how to become an artist and a musician. I also was very close to my oldest brother, Duncan who's grasp on this world rapidly descended into schizophrenia and eventual suicide. This was a time where I realized I needed to understand how to be healthy in a more balanced way. I knew there was more of a connection between my emotional body, spirit, mental patterns and my physical being than I had previously known. I started actively studying: Capoeira, Yoga, Qi Gong, Meditation, Dance and Eastern Philosophy. It awoke, or really I remembered, a love I had long since denied.

I was initially introduced to yoga with my grandmother when I was about 6 years old. I would do some simple asanas and lion's breath with her early in the mornings when no one else was up. I rediscovered it with a Baron Baptiste video tape many years later and went onto practice various Hatha Yoga styles such as Bikram, Jivamukti, Sivananda, Forrest and Iyengar styles. I never really found what I was looking for, but I continued to practice in whatever classes I could find for years.

I trained Regional Capoeira with Mestre Efraim Silva in New Haven, Connecticut for a few years alongside Contra Mestre Pinga Fogo (now a Mestre here in Austin) and Profesor Fabiano Lucas. I got to train with many wonderful teachers such as Mestre Lobao, Mestre Jo and many others. Capoeira was and is something I found to be incredibly fun, but I never really had any money back then and stopped training because I didn't have the $80 a month fee to keep training! This was also when I realized my brother was really not well and a lot of my emotional energy and time was spent on that. I eventually discovered something I felt was deeper and more resonant in Qi Gong and the large umbrella of Taoist and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

I started my Qi Gong studies with Mantak Chia's book Awaken Healing Light of the Tao and practiced out of that book for years before I found a teacher that was nearby. I studied his Universal Healing Tao System intently with Jampa Mackenzie Stewart here in Austin for about 3 years until he moved away. I also studied the 24 Yang Tai Ji short form with Jampa and one of his students while I was in massage school here in Austin. This was when I finally got to study Chi Nei Tsang with Jampa and Shanti Dechen. I eventually met Master Yun Xiang Tseng in Houston after being urged to do so by a friend for several years. He helped me to understand a greater depth of healing weaving the deep knowledge and practices of Taoism into a more cohesive whole. I continue to study with him.

I continued my yoga studies all along practicing Patthabi Jois's system of Ashtanga Yoga with several teachers in Austin and California. I am indebted to Ayelet Even Knur for showing me that Ashtanga can be fun and rewarding. I'm grateful to have practiced for a few years with Christina Sell when she lived in Austin and find her teaching and way of being to be the most grounded and useful approach to Asana I have come across. I went onto study some of Ashtanga's variants such as the Rocket and I also have recently studied with Dharma Mittra and his more classical approach to yoga asana, pranayama, yoga nidra and meditation.

As much as I really appreciate all of these styles and methods I continue to practice something which doesn't fit into any of these. We all have to find our balance within life. That is going to look different for everyone. I am more concerned about really being present with life, with my body with my energy and finding what really works for me and what doesn't.

These days I don't abide to any Yoga or Qi Gong or Taoist system strictly, though I practice them with respect to the traditions they come from. I incorporate whatever works in there, because I feel like all these practices are beneficial to me. After years of practicing you have to find what works for you and I consistently find that most public yoga classes can only go so deep. The real work happens in your own practice and time. When you go deep into your own practice you will discover your own mysteries that cannot be taught by a teacher.

I have always been drawn to Indigenous healing practices since I was a child and especially since my brother's internal battles which I always felt could have benefitted from this type of healing. This is what led me to Malidoma Some, and my work with Amazonian Plant medicines and teachers such as Dara Freire and Pai Adolfo of the Templo de Umbanda Sao Sebastiao in Sao Paulo, Brazil. These practices deal with ancestral healing, the forces of nature and spirit communication on a very direct level. They have radically shifted my life in more ways than I can recount. I recently traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil in February of 2020 for a 5 day retreat right before Covid 19 forced us all to renegotiate how we live and move in the world. It was long overdue and I have found these last few years to be one of the strongest catalysts for profound growth in my life.

I realized that I was lost in the morass of "right" practice, where I had put too many rules upon myself and had created too rigid a scope of being. I answered the call to slow down and be with myself and nature. I let go to a great extent many ideas of how to be and just became. I have recently moved to a place where I feel a deep connection to the land and what it has to communicate to us. From this place has blossomed a new way of being, of listening of practicing. I look for the call to reside and listen now.

For the last 15 years I have practiced bodywork full time, the last 7 years in my own practice. My focus is now about guiding people back into themselves so they can reconnect with themselves, with the earth and answer the call of their spirit to be in this world from a radically different place than many of us have been residing. That is what lights me up.

©2021-23 Joshua J Berry Healing Arts. Austin, TX (203) 606 1954. All rights reserved.

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About

Joshua J Berry

Joshua was always interested in movement, music, art and the spiritual world ever since he can remember. When he was younger he concentrated on visual art and music, mainly in the form of illustration, painting, guitar and kept his body active with skateboarding. In his mid twenties he experienced some trying times that pushed him to look at his life and what he was contributing to this world. His oldest brother was also diagnosed with Schizophrenia during this time and eventually committed suicide after years of frequent hospitalizations and medications.
This was also a time where he realized he needed to understand how to be healthy in a more balanced way. He started actively studying: Capoeira, Yoga, Qi Gong, Meditation, dance and eastern philosophy. It awoke in him a love he had long since denied.  He knew there was more of a connection between his emotional body, spirit, mental patterns and his physical being than he had previously known. He decided to make a change and start on a healing path by attending Massage Therapy School.

For the last 17 years he has studied Qi Gong, Yoga, Taoist Internal Arts and looked deeper into Eastern and Indigenous practices in addition to his bodywork studies. He is interested in healing in all its myriad forms. As he got deeper into the Taoist arts he took his studies further into the art of Tai Ji, Yi Jing (also spelled I Ching) and the shamanic roots of China. His Yogic studies, Taoist studies, Bodywork, Energy work and Shamanic studies all inform each other. He is interested in the common themes and the crossover of various traditions. He has also continues to study the communal Indigenous practices such as the elemental, ancestral, ritual and divination traditions inspired by the Dagara people from Burkina Faso, as well as the various plant medicine traditions of the Amazon of Brazil.

Trainings and Certifications

Bodywork
2019 Currently studying SFMA (Selective Movement Functional Movement Assessment)  Prerequisite for level 1 online

2019 CranioSacral Level 1 w/ Kim Painter (Upledger) 25 Hours

2018 Advanced Zero Balancing: Secrets of the Skull with Judith Sullivan 25 Hours

2016 Dermoneuromodulation and Integrated Methods w/ Jeff Rockwell D.C. 12 Hours

2016 Myoskeletal Therapist Certification (Erik Dalton/Freedom From Pain) 80 Hours

2010 Positional Release and the Bowstring with Ed Buresh 18 Hours

2008 Core Zero Balancing 1 &2 w/ David Lauterstein 50 Hours

2008 Advanced Zero Balancing: Alchemy of Touch with Fritz Smith 25 Hours

2007 Chi Nei Tsang level 1& Review w/Jampa Stewart and Shanti Dechen 90 Hours

2006-2007 Lauterstein Conway Massage School 550 Hours



Taoist/Traditional Chinese Medicine/Tai Ji/Qi Gong

2018 Advanced Yi Jing training with Master Yun Xiang Tseng

2012 External Qi Healing (EQH) & Advanced EQH with Master Yun Xiang Tseng 200 Hours

2012 Wu Dang Tai Ji Certification with Master Yun Xiang Tseng

2012 Yi Jing training with Master Yun Xiang Tseng

2011-Present Various Qi Gong and Tai Ji trainings with Master Yun Xiang Tseng

2007- 2010 Various Qi Gong Forms, Traditional Chinese Medicine Theory, Yang StyleTai Ji 24 form, Instructor Certification for The Inner Smile and 6 Healing Sounds w/Jampa Stewart

2009/2010 Tui Na with Yang Xing Fan @ AOMA 12 Hours

Yoga and Movement Training

2019 Lighthouse Yoga Immersion/Asana, Mantra, Meditation, Kriya and Yogic Philosophy w/ Jared Mcann and Henry Winslow (www.lighhouseyogaschool.com) 30 Hours

2019 Dharma and Rocket Yoga Master Classes with Yancy Scot Schwartz       12 Hours

2019 Journey Through From w/ Christina Sell 12 Hours

2018/19 Sacred Geometry Vinyasa and Functional Movement w/ Benjamin Sears 12 Hours

2016-2018 various shorter trainings with  Ambra Vallo (www.ambrasana.com), Gil Perez (Rocket Yoga), Jared Mcann (www.lighhouseyogaschool.com), Rose Erin Vaughan (www.scienceofselfytt.com)

2014- Pranayama and Meditation with Chase Bossart (www.yogawell.com) 32 hours

2013-2015 Yoga Yoga Hatha Yoga Teacher Training 200 Hours

2014 Beginning and Intermediate Sequencing Yoga Asana with Christina Sell 30 Hours

2013 Anatomy Trains for Movement Therapists with Carrie Gaynor 18 Hours

African Spirit Medicine (Dagara Tradition of Burkina Faso)

2013-2015 Introduction to African Spirit Technologies with Malidoma Patrice Some:
A 2.5 year program focusing on elemental, ancestral, ritual, divination and talismanic medicine under the guidance of Dagara Elder Malidoma Patrice Some.

What Our Clients Are Saying

"I've been seeing Joshua for a couple of years now. He provides a safe container, and a surprisingly broad frame of reference. He says just what I need to hear and responds to the changes in my physical experience with uncanny skill. His calm presence and devotion to his practice are complemented by the way (beyond my comprehension) he is able to "read" energy with his hands. My levels of pain and anxiety are reduced considerably and often entirely in these sessions." Pamela L

©2021-23 Joshua J Berry Healing Arts. Austin, TX (203) 606 1954. All rights reserved.

Joshua J berry

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