Michael Taylor: Ivy Towers, Steel Mills, and Yoga Mats

Mike is a guide and resident healer at Strala. Named “Best Mover” by MindBodyGreen and one of Shape Magazine’s Hottest Trainers, he’s practiced Eastern movement and healing techniques, including tai chi, qigong, and shiatsu, for more than three decades.

In his younger years, Mike challenged centuries of reasonable and well-tested martial traditions in hundreds of competitions, by applying unruly imagination to a world where rules were unbreakable. As he got older, he happily become more interested in supporting bodies than disrupting them, and continued on to medical applications of the mind-body connection in university. Mike studied mind-body medicine at Harvard, and alternative medicine and psychology at Oxford. After running into walls with standard medical practice in the U.S. and England, Mike left his healthcare roots. He worked at a steel mill for a while, joined a web company, and then founded a few more.

Now Mike has found his way back to health care done right, helping people let go of stress in their bodies and minds, become their own best caregivers, and live happy capable lives. Mike is a long-time runner, cyclist, rower, skier and snowboarder, and climbs a few mountains in his spare time.