Our Teachers
Our teachers are the foundation of our community, and deeply passionate about what they do and their craft. Each comes from a unique movement background and has years of experience and training professionally and personally in their own movement journey — from physical therapy to contemporary dance and CrossFit. Many have trained and worked with some of the world’s most innovative teachers in the movement field.
Matt Bernstein - FOUNDER
I started teaching at CrossFit Steamboat in 2008 after receiving my BS in Kinesiology and have taught thousands of people how to move. I founded Ape Co for one simple reason: to remind everyone that you are much more capable in your body than you think is possible. I wanted a home where everyone could have the same breakthroughs that I had and do it together in the community. I believe Movement is the key to a happy, healthy, and alive life!
I was formerly a professional firefighter and ski patroller, trained actors including Oscar Isaac (Star Wars, Dune) and Jake Lacy (The Office, White Lotus). I taught Ido Portal’s US seminars and events as a lead teacher, worked for CrossFit HQ, and am currently a student of Marcello Pallozo’s Human Movement Studies Program. I am happily married and have 3 crazy moving kids.
In my free time I love to climb, ski, move, camp, work on my land in the mountains near Ward, CO, and share this beautiful life with my family. Ape Co and the people here have changed my life in so many ways, and I’m so thankful.
Dr. robert adams
Robert is inspired by how the body moves. He loves to work with the body’s individual parts and explore how it can move together as a whole. He is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and has over 10 years of teaching experience. Robert was first introduced to Ape Co in 2016 through his love of hand balancing and has been hooked ever since. He loves combining his experience as a physical therapist and movement teacher to create individualized progressions for skills and movements in his classes and one on one with students. Robert also uses is background as a physical therapist to work with injuries and proactively help students to prevent getting injured in their training. He also uses his knowledge of the body to inform how to progress exercise variations to help his students work through plateaus.
daniel flores
Daniel is truly an Ape Co original. He began as a student back in 2016 and has evolved along with the community ever since. He has been teaching since 2019 and is always working to refine himself as a leader.
He is a deep thinker and a passionate, creative practitioner. He originally began his movement practice as a way to break into dance as an adult and is very drawn to the world of creative movement. He loves to tinker with concepts and create ways to approach self-treatment of injury, build catalysts to exploration, and live an example that a physical life is a way to thrive in our complicated and challenging world.
When he’s not overthinking what to write in his bio, he loves to cook, engage in enriching conversation, and get lost in his search for the perfect playlist curations.
Jacob Robertson
Jacob started as a childhood tri-athlete and eventually formed a life around extreme sports including BMX biking and high level, competitive snowboarding in both racing and freestyle. The dream of becoming a professional was cut short after a series of minor, yet illuminating, injuries that left Jacob seeking something more sustainable. Through the movement practice he has not only healed those injuries but has rendered his scoliosis largely irrelevant, made himself stronger, faster, and more connected than he ever was in team athletics, and more prepared for what major physical change life throws at him next.
Jacob studied psychology in college and is now fascinated with the potential that somatic psychotherapy has towards healing. He has a goal of opening a practice that bridges the gap between psychotherapy and the movement practice: helping individuals understand the innate duality of the two departments but through a connected lens that leads to immense growth and integration. As that goal remains in development, Jacob is committed to growth through learning, practicing, teaching, and living a lifestyle of movement.
leah woods
Leah is a movement artist and teacher who is passionate about accessibility, creativity, and community. She holds an M.F.A. in Dance and Performance from the University of Colorado, Boulder where she received her secondary emphasis in Somatics for her studies in the Alexander Technique, the Feldenkrais method, and BodyMind Centering. After growing up studying West African Guinean dance, Flamenco, and Middle Eastern dance, she attended Mills College in Oakland where she studied dance as an undergrad. Leah enjoyed an extensive performance career for over 11 years in the SF Bay Area where she performed, and taught fitness & yoga professionally. She is an enthusiastic student of Tom Weksler who combines Contemporary dance, Acrobatics, Martial Arts, and Contact Improvisation, as well as a member of Ido Portal's movement culture movement. She is passionate about health, wellness, and longevity and draws from her extensive movement background in Pilates, GYROTONIC®, Yoga, strength training, and dance in her classes. In January 2023, I embarked on an exciting journey with the Fighting Monkey 10-month mentorship program, furthering my commitment to exploring movement arts. This January 2024, I proudly joined the inaugural cohort of Marcello Palozzo's 5-year Human Movement studies program, to continue my pursuit of knowledge in the field of movement.
dae (david) gallina (they/them)
I’ve been teaching for 10+ years, and am committed to improving people’s quality of life through the practice of movement, mobility, dance/play therapy, somatics, and functional neurology in a trauma-informed way that is inclusive and accessible to all bodies.
I’ve studied extensively with Movement Culture and numerous movement/dance modalities- I love contact improvisation, freeform dance/authentic movement, practice qi gong, circus arts, Gaga dance, Continuum, and weaving somatics, nervous system education, and wisdom traditions into movement practice.
In addition to teaching in Seattle, WA and Boulder, CO, I’ve taught workshops at the International Association of Functional Neurology and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School, UCSF Medical School, and Bastyr University. I am a Functional Range Conditioning certified Mobility Specialist, and engaged in continuing education in neuroscience, anatomy, trauma healing, and somatic-based movement. I love freeform/ecstatic dance, singing and playing music, being in nature any chance I get, playing with poetry, and spending time with my community.
misha lantslov
One of my earliest childhood memories is learning that left and right are distinguished by which way the stereo dial turns to change volume. Since then I have been captivated by music, movement, and creative expression.
My curiosity about the mind led me to a degree in psychology and 7 years of teaching in public and private educational systems. The deepest experience I gained was working as a one-on-one cognitive trainer for 100+ hour programs. I used progressions of memory and attention exercises to help transform people’s ability to focus on and manipulate information.
Meanwhile, I continued my explorations in artistry and athletics: writing, music, backpacking, races, and visual arts - always fueled by a sense of discovery and a desire to understand.
My aim as a teacher is to make learning accessible and fulfilling. In the context of movement practice, I aim to develop students’ kinesthetic intelligence. Through organizing strength, harnessing flow and fluidity, and realizing our embodiment, we cultivate the athlete-artist within. This process is challenging yet playful. One moment: the tensile coordination of pull-ups. Another is the fluidity and coordination of dance-like forms. I work with anyone willing to learn and practice. Any skill level is a perfect starting point.
Outside of movement I have a therapeutic bodywork practice, collaborating with deep wisdoms of the body that generate the healing process. There, the focus is on restoring movement, flow, and vitality. For my clients it is an exploration into the roots of dysfunction and pain, and the journey toward ease and wholeness. I work with injuries, chronic pain and discomfort, rehabilitation of muscular and fascial systems, and their neuromuscular connections.
The science and art of bodywork intimately informs my movement practice and each contributes to the other. To train and play sustainably is to become your own bodyworker, your own trainer, your own teacher, your own source of knowledge. There is a creative force behind the inspired movement, behind the healing process, behind physical and cognitive expression - it is within everyone, awaiting activation.
sydney stuberg
Sydney (she/they) is a trauma-informed movement artist who teaches individuals to move more confidently and freely, express themselves through embodied movement, and share ways to engage with others in partner and group dynamics. She works with a diverse range of students, including beginners starting their movement journey (check out her Level 0 classes!), as well as advanced practitioners seeking creative integrations and refinement in the quality of their movement. Specializing in hand balancing, locomotion, and floorwork. Sydney ensures that, no matter where you are in your practice, there will be playfulness, mind/body puzzles, and accessible variations tailored to your skill level.
michael bernal
How do we expand our capacity to listen and communicate through our bodies in relationship to our self, environment, and community? How can we create an ecology of play and curiosity?
My expertise is creating a space that explores these questions. While providing tools for cultivating our attention and equanimity. Refining our attention and equanimity will allow us to thrive with the inevitable hardships of life. This process nurtures comfort in discomfort to develop and deepen our senses in curiosity and play. This practice is also conducive to creating a sense of belonging and confidence- enhancing our skill for connection, adaptation, and improvisation.
We do this through the lens of somatic self/co-observation, polyvagal theory, and contact improvisation, amongst other modalities.
We will utilize the interplay between solo and partner (group) practices and games. Both will help us learn how to self and co-regulate and how to trust and care for ourselves and each other.
I adapt my teaching style and facilitation depending on the student(s) in front of me so that they may benefit the most and feel enriched by the experience.
I remind myself and my students to embrace failure, as it is necessary for learning. It is ok to be confused (feel incompetent) as it is a productive step towards growth. The body is already perfect in the sense that it knows how to move, heal, and regulate itself, we just have to listen and be curious.
Last but not least... Don’t take yourself too seriously! Laugh, be kind, have fun, and enjoy the moment.
sarah bonsall
About 10 years ago, I came to my movement practice by way of yoga. In yoga, I was able to experience single pointed focus (meditation) through asana (physical postures and transitions). At that time, I quickly began to realize that, although valuable, asana is incomplete when it comes to optimizing the human body. Lucky enough, this was around the time I stumbled upon Boulder Movement Collective — a place that would drastically improve the way that I move and interact with the world. Not to mention, to my delight, the “non yoga” people within those walls demonstrated more “meditative” qualities than anyone I’d ever met within any other community.
Thoughtful and intentional movement, combined with a wholesome, hardworking community, quickly became something that I considered a non-negotiable. In hopes of expanding my reach in sharing this, I began to travel, train, and teach movement all over the globe.
Over 6 years, with exposure to countless schools, movement modalities, teachers, students and everything in between, I have learned what my values are and how important it is to uphold them by aligning with people and places that reflect them.
sofia ernst
Sophia is a movement teacher, facilitator, and practitioner. She focuses on integrated dance, connection with nature, and somatics. She also loves standing on her hands, arching, and finding new puzzles to work through. Sophia was a competitive swimmer, ice skater, and equestrian in her early years. She taught yoga for over 6 years. Sophia started at Ape Co in 2019 and currently focuses her practice on movement, partner dance, contact improvisation, acrobatics, and pole. She is currently most excited about widening our ability to connect with ourselves and each other through movement and nature.
shaughn drummond
For as long as I can remember, when people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my response was “I just want to do what I love and teach other people how to do it.” While my passions changed throughout the years, from one specific activity to the next, I never really knew where that deep desire would land me. From ballet, to Irish step dance, to drumming, to track, to basketball, to volleyball, to weightlifting, the canvas of that young vision felt dull. When I found ApeCo and furthermore expanded my journey as a teacher there, it started to fill in the colors of what that far-off but very vivid dream felt like as a little girl. The connection. The support. The relatability. The individuality. The merging of so many things I love. The growing community. The knowledgeable teachers. The resources to grow. The conquered obstacles. The ones ahead that I know I can get through now. My canvas is now colorful and it inspires me, and while it’s not complete, knowing that this journey isn’t over… is the best part. Every individual’s journey is different, and my goal is to get to know you and what makes you unique in mind and body so that I can deliver the best tools I know to help you bridge the gap from where you are to where you want to be. Adaptability is the name of the game, resilience is the reward. With ten years of experience as a personal trainer and fitness instructor, and a certification in clinical hypnotherapy, I have a great appreciation for the undeniable connection between mind & body. I draw on my knowledge of the physical body, the nervous system, and the subconscious mind to deliver a whole-system approach to help you enjoy the journey of achieving your goals.