Practice doesn't end
when you stand up.
This is personal training with extra steps: you get stronger, you learn to enjoy exertion, and you carry the spaciousness you find on the cushion out into chaotic movement.
Book a free intro call1:1 training · over video
“It went from an arduous obligation to an extension of my contemplative practice that I find really pleasant and look forward to. My mana and HP are higher than ever. … When I meditate, it's great — and now exercise feels like that too.”
— Elwyn Foote
On the cushion, and off the cushion
A lot of the meditators I've known didn't have an easy, reliable way into their bodies. I made that shift myself — from disembodied to embodied, from not enjoying to enjoying — and it was much easier than I expected. Joy and satisfaction are right there in the body; most people just need a few pointers and a little scaffolding.
Feel good while you sit
- Stay comfortable longer — a comfortable, settled seat means the niggling aches don't show up as early, or as often.
- More to practice with — a relaxed, embodied body makes sensory experience simultaneously lighter and more vivid.
Feel good while you move
- Actually enjoy exertion — experiences of grace, interconnection, and vibrancy are right there in movement, and finding them turns exertion from something you survive into something you enjoy.
- Spaciousness within chaos — practicing spaciousness while you move makes it much easier to find in the confusion of everyday life.
- Get stronger — once you enjoy exertion, strength, mobility, and cardiovascular capacity come along almost as a byproduct.
Enjoyment is the base of all of it — it's what makes establishing the habit, going deeper, keeping it alive so much easier. One client's daily practice turned enjoyable the week it became about listening for pleasurable sensation; he found himself hungering for more. Nobody prescribed that top-down.
Is this you?
The people I work best with tend to arrive from a few different places. Do any of these sound like you?
“I know exercise is good for me, but it sucks.”
Exercise feels like a grind. You know it's healthy or whatever, but it's decidedly unfun. Thankfully, you know from meditation that your relationship to an experience can change. Maybe it's possible to love exertion.
“I have an exercise habit, but it feels separate from meditation.”
You can show up to the gym and hit your daily run. You like it. You want the clarity you find sitting to come with you when you run, lift, or play on the floor with your kid. Extending meditation into movement makes those insights anti-fragile — you'd learn to thrive in chaos, not just in a blissful space you find only on the cushion.
“I'm spacious on the cushion, but I lose it when I start moving.”
You can find real spaciousness in stillness. But where does it go when you start lifting weights — or juggling three balls, or learning a dance step? What if you'd already practiced finding spaciousness within chaos?
What we actually do
Every session is one hour, and no two look alike: for one person it's a workout combined with an embodiment practice; for another, forty minutes of gentle movement that doesn't look like a workout at all. Sometimes it's really practical — an exercise routine that makes sitting cross-legged comfortable. We use whatever will help you most: strength training, mobility, somatics, standing meditation, posture work.
Find pleasure in movement
You might have forty ways to work with a thought and ~none for your body. So we train attention in motion: guided meditations are woven through the movement itself, such as listening for pleasurable sensation. Games and improvisation also give enjoyment a boost and expand what counts as exercise.
Move with ease and economy
Real-time feedback so your movement becomes lighter, smoother, and biomechanically sound. And a byproduct of easier movement is more ease in your sitting and standing practice.
Get stronger
The standard things that make you stronger, done well: progressive strength work, calibrated loads, improving one's form.
Learning to fish
I'm not just an accountability buddy — this goes beyond accountability, into self-responsibility. I expect my clients to do their homework, bring their own ideas, and demonstrate what they've learned. Not in a hardcore sense — I just find it so important that my clients are actually learning, not passive participants.
I will not wreck you. With most clients, I start from where enjoyment and capacity are already available, and help grow practice from there.
A typical session
Here are three session outlines, anonymized:
Finding pleasure in exertion
A meditator who learned to dread exertion after a lifetime of unpleasant exercise.
- 0–10Check-in
- 10–40Listening for pleasurable sensation in exertion — a guided meditation woven through her workout
- 40–60Learning to explore movement sensorially instead of a dry mechanical routine
Fluidity for a busy parent
A parent with a toddler and little spare time.
- 0–10Check-in
- 10–25Active recall — he guides himself aloud through a practice we'd already covered, to test and troubleshoot
- 25–50Guided somatic movement — experiencing the body as a connected whole
- 50–60Squatting and floorwork improvisation and play
Bridging strength and meditation
Already trains regularly, but it feels walled off from his meditation.
- 0–10Check-in
- 10–35Strength work — calibrating load, refining form
- 35–60A guided practice to bring meditation into his runs
What people say
Scott Schaffter“Tanner has been a superb trainer for three years now — much of it over video. His approach focused on sustainability rather than complete and utter annihilation, and it helped me grow and maintain consistency. Particularly helpful through rehabbing a knee injury — a judgement-free space. I can't recommend him more highly!”
“I've been pleasantly surprised by how creative Tanner has been — the ‘exercises’ don't feel like exercises at all. We always have a lot of fun and I'm never bored. If you're intimidated about starting personal training, I highly encourage you to try working with Tanner.”
Max Soweski“An easy recommendation for anyone who meditates. Meditation can create habits of being static and even disembodied — turns out the antidote to this is feeling into the many accomplishments our bodies achieve on a daily basis! Tanner makes this readily available.”
Joe Gherity“I recommend it as a bridge into easeful movement that I simply didn't think was possible on my own. It expands the possibility space for how you experience your body.”
Ye'tsal Khandro“Tanner brought new life to my opening awareness meditation practice. By connecting with my body, it became much easier to stay with sensations, slow down, and at times allow thoughts to completely fall away. I find myself wishing this had been available to me earlier, as so many of my meditation sits might have felt more settled and embodied.”
Matthew Phillips“I've had plenty of meditation teachers, instructors, and podcasts tell me to ‘feel the earth support me,’ but to be honest I never really got it. The way I explored it with Tanner made me really feel embodied for the first time — and it's something I still enjoy checking into at various points during the day.”
“I felt like I'd never get rid of the pain. Now I can release my low back at will, move my neck into new territory, and I'm back to walking and running.”
Cost & coverage
Every new client starts with a three-month commitment. We work roughly weekly, though some clients end up working more often and some less. We’ll set a cadence that fits.
Three months
$1,800 paid once
- 12 sessions, typically weekly
- $150 per session — saves $300
- Refundable after the first session
Monthly
$700/month
- 4 sessions a month
- $175 per session
- Continues for as long as it serves
Your company may cover this
Some companies cover personal training outright; many more reimburse it through wellness or development budgets. I provide documentation.
Scholarships available
Students, academics, non-profit staff, between jobs, or working at an impact-driven org? I offer reduced-rate sessions. Tell me about your situation and we'll work it out.
Meet Tanner
I fractured my back when I was 15. My baseball dreams died a slow death over the next year of rehab — and were instead replaced with nightmares of those stupid little exercise printouts in fluorescently lit offices. The rehab barely worked; it wasn't until theatre school, four years later, that I learned to enjoy movement again. That's when my pain went away. That experience eventually pulled me out of a doctorate track in physical therapy (I was done with printouts) and into full-time training. Certified since 2022, I've worked with normies and athletes, and one-on-one with people in chronic pain. These days I work mostly with meditators: people who already know transformation is possible, and want to extend it into their bodies. For years my own meditation was heady and uncomfortable — until I learned to find openness and enjoyment in the body.
For those who love a list of modalities, here are some of my biggest influences: mainstream exercise science™, Feldenkrais, Alexander, Fighting Monkey Practice, Ido Portal, Vajrayana, dance. I've spent most of the last ten years immersed in these modalities; it's been a joy to shift my focus to teaching them.
Frequently asked
Is this remote?
Do I need equipment?
How often would we meet?
Isn't this just personal training with extra steps?
What does it cost?
What if I decide it’s not for me?
Do I need to be fit, flexible, or experienced?
Do I need to be a serious meditator?
Start with a free call
The first thing we'll do is hop on a 30-minute call. If it's a fit, we jump straight into our first three months — typically a week or two of setting up your program, and then things really get cooking. You'll wrap that first period with a new sense of what it's like to be an embodied being, a way of relating to movement that feels good, and a lot more confidence to run your own experiments — to try things, to move your attention, and to know why you're doing it.
I take on a handful of clients at a time.
Book a free callNo pressure to sign up for anything. Prefer to write first? .