Hi there, I’m Duncan

I’m a coach, teacher and somatic practitioner

I help people find their depths and edges, come into a deeper presence with themselves and live more embodied and fulfilling lives.

But it wasn’t always this way for me.

Before coming to coaching, I worked as a drama teacher leading busy departments in schools and colleges. I was passionate about my work, had a lot of fun, and it was a wonderfully fulfilling, vibrant and professionally successful time. 

Ultimately though, I became exhausted. I wanted to change but I couldn’t see how. I’d got attached to my work and identity, and it was falling away. And I’d been dragging my body along for the ride. After 20 years of creative doing, I reached a tipping point, and, in and amongst the confusion of a burn-out and breakdown, I surrendered to the not knowing of what lay in wait. 

On reflection this was a time in the wilderness, a transformative period that could one day bear fruit. During the following years different pieces slowly began to fall into place. I slowly opened to a road of faith. I wanted to live a more spiritually fulfilling and embodied life.

I began to work again. I did different jobs. I found myself leading projects exploring masculinity and male suicide, running retreats, teaching improvisation classes and exploring movement practices. I led team workshops in organisations and held powerful spaces for personal and professional expression. I wrote and recorded songs, and made lots of theatre. I learned of the power of making commitments, the joys of creative collaboration and I opened to an ever-unfolding and deepening sense of the mystery of things. Yet I was still hooked into a familiar pattern of doing and I became conscious of wanting to plant seeds in a different, more sustainable and fertile soil. I took more time out. What was this unanswered longing that was calling and felt stronger than ever?

I’d already started to work 1:1 with clients. And it was working as a voice coach where I became more curious about the history and stories we hold in our bodies. I wanted to go deeper, assimilate my experience and professionally re-focus, so in 2018 I trained at Strozzi Institute (CA), the international creators of embodied leadership and somatic coaching, and certified as a somatic coach. While holding creativity close to my heart, I wanted to honour the therapeutic and holistic nature of how I’d been working. Training alongside some of the most experienced body-based coaches in the world helped me to pay attention to the wisdom in my body and opened me to new, exciting possibilities of working with people and how we learn, grow and change.

As an experienced group facilitator, theatre-maker and performer I encourage commitment; my work embraces new possibility and hope, and I champion playfulness, connection, fun and learning to fail without fear...

I’m an accredited coach with the ICF and offer a somatic approach in my work alongside my teaching, theatre and improvisation pathways.