About Chris-Sensei

This post is also available in: Japanese

Roots: Chris was born in Florida in 1983 and spent his first 18 years there. Early in life he developed a love for music, first through drumming. He would assemble drum sets from pots and pans and bang away for hours, much to the dismay of his parents and neighbors. He discovered the piano around age 10, and he learned a unique way of improvisational playing from a wonderful teacher for whom he wrote his first song. He has been writing original music and playing songs by ear since he can remember. He finally got a real drum set in his teens and added guitar to his repertoire shortly thereafter. In addition to music he was also a serious tennis player, achieving a high ranking in a competitive state in his teens. His coach and mentor introduced him to yoga as a complementary exercise when he was 16 and he has been practicing ever since.

Career: After graduating high school at the top of his class, Chris studied electrical engineering at Princeton University. Upon completing his degree, he followed his friends into the world of high finance in New York City, working on the Interest Rate Derivatives trading desk of JP Morgan. After just a year he relocated with JPM to Tokyo to run the US Dollar derivatives desk there. He spent seven years at that post, learning a great deal about trading, investing, and the financial markets in the process. He wrote a book about his experience, Trading for Survival, which you can find on Amazon.

Back to Roots: Trading for Survival was Chris’s farewell letter to a career in finance. After spending 8 years and most of his adult life working at JPM, he realized he had lost all that he loved as a child – especially music and yoga. Lost, but not forgotten. He set out to find them again and share his love for them with the world. Shortly after leaving his job at JPM he started teaching at Dream Kids, where he continues to teach music and English. He also became an assistant teacher at Mysore Tokyo, the longest-standing Ashtanga yoga studio in Tokyo. He started this blog and the associated bluebeltlife YouTube channel to share his creative endeavors, and is most recently working on PictureLyrics, a learning website for kids and teachers.