EDUCATION & CREDENTIALS
DOCTORATE DEGREE: PHYSICAL THERAPY
BACHELOR'S DEGREE: ATHLETIC TRAINING
BOARD CERTIFIED ORTHOPEDIC SPECIALIST
Current LICENSEs: PT & ATC
I’ve been a physical therapist since 2012, and have always gravitated towards very nontraditional settings: I started out in working outpatient sports and in academia, teaching in DPT programs and doing research on low back pain. Once I discovered aerial arts, I moved to San Francisco to train at the Circus Center with Elena Panova…and that’s where Cirque Physio was born! After hearing the same injury story from all of the circus students there (I hurt my shoulder, “normal” physio’s have no idea what to do with me, plz help!) I decided to bite the bullet and open up a small physio practice. The lovely folks at Circus Center agreed that if I cleaned out an old storage room (it had a window!) I could rent it and use it as my treatment space.
After working there for a few years, I got a job offer I couldn’t refuse: move to China for a year and work with their olympic teams in preparation for the Rio 2016 olympics. I was totally in love with my life in San Francisco, but I couldn’t pass up that opportunity. So, three weeks later, I packed up my life and was on a plane to Beijing. Nothing could have prepared me for the experience that WAS China - that’s a story for another time - but (among things) it presented me with an opportunity to find alternative ways to stay connected to my beloved circus community: I got on instagram, started a blog, and used it to teach circus artists about the most common injuries and issues I’d seen over the past few years. Now, this was way back in the day when there were only a small handful of circus-specialized physio’s in the US, and there weren’t a ton of online educational resources. If you’re here, you probably know how fast word of mouth travels within the circus community…before I knew it, I had an inbox full of requests from circus artists asking if I offered “Skype” appointments, or if I had any flexibility training programs they could purchase.
Hi! I’m Dr. Jen,
And this is my “cirque physio” origin story.
Grab a snack & settle in, this isn’t the short version!
After my China contract ended and I returned home to San Francisco, I got to work: soon, I had both online programs and “Skype” appointments available. Y’all, I can’t TELL you how incredible it was to meet and work with artists from all over the world. I never could have imagined that this type of “remote” work was possible as a physio, and I was loving every moment of my hybrid San Francisco/ virtual schedule.
Another incredible career experience I had shortly after that was working with Cirque du Soleil as a “fly-in” physio: this is basically a short term contract with one of the touring shows, filling in for their full time physio. I got to do this several different times, which was GREAT— it gave me the opportunity to do (really cool!) short term work for them without having to totally give up my Cirque Physio practice…the best of both worlds!
Somewhere along this path, I ended up working with two more groups of humans, niche-ing down even further: first, I started working with hypermobile humans— this was a natural progression that came after years of working with so many of my artistic athletes who were struggling with symptoms of undiagnosed or newly diagnosed hypermobility disorders. As a hypermobile human myself (hEDS), I am intimately familiar with the unique struggles we go through, especially when trying to train around so many frustrating and painful issues. I know how demoralizing it is to navigate the medical system as a hypermobile human, and my primary goal is to be the healthcare provider I wish I’d had.
The second population I added to my niche-y little mix was transgender folks who were preparing for, or recovering from, gender-affirming top surgery. Living in San Francisco, and later Montreal (two very queer cities), I had many transmasc friends and loved ones who were navigating top surgery and were frustrated with a SERIOUS lack of reputable resources that discussed the rehab process and what to expect. This lit a real fire under my ass, because there are SO many great resources for patients and physio’s about literally every other major surgery. So, I learned everything I could about the surgical techniques, made connections with gender-affirming surgeons from all over, and created several free resources for trans folks & their healthcare providers. I also started offering pro-bono and sliding scale appointments, because top surgery is EXPENSIVE and I feel very strongly about accessible healthcare for queer folks.
Fast forward to 2024, and I’ve moved from San Francisco, to Montreal, to Portland (Oregon, not Maine). I set up an office at AWOL Dance Collective, and am offering both virtual an in-person appointments to all of the above subtypes of humans…and then some! I also teach online flexibility classes for folks who want to prioritize strength and avoid injuries, as well as offering a whole smattering of other online courses, on-demand programs, and intensives throughout the year. Oh, and I’m also still doing that whole instagram thing, so if you want an inside peek into my life and you enjoy consuming bite-sized educational content, you can always find me there.
Thanks for reading this far, my friend— and thank you so much for being here, I’m thrilled to have you. Always feel free to reach out via the contact form if you have any questions, or if you just want to say hi <3