Michael Lear is an internationally recognized Trager® Approach Movement Instructor, practitioner, and Ashtanga Yoga instructor whose work spans five continents and serves leaders in entertainment, business, humanitarian aid, and elite performance environments. 

A professional drummer as well as a therapeutic bodyworker, Michael brings a rare integration of embodied artistry and clinical precision to his work.  

He has partnered with Special Forces–aligned foundations and consulted with U.S. Special Operations personnel, introducing a Trager®-based Polyvagal neuroregulation protocol to combat medics and operators. His work in this arena focuses on improving team performance, reducing resting muscle tone under load, and mitigating trauma before it encodes into the nervous system — enhancing both operational readiness and long-term resilience.

Michael maintains a private clinical practice within an integrative wellness center where he addresses chronic pain, injury recovery, anxiety disorders, and trauma-related conditions, including work with veterans experiencing PTSD. He was recently published as a contributing author to Total War on PTSD, offering a full chapter on the Trager® Approach in the treatment of veteran trauma.

He was previously featured on the cover of Massage Therapy Journal for his humanitarian work introducing Trager® to physical therapists in post-tsunami Sri Lanka — work he later expanded to Japan. His international health efforts include service as Director of International Relations for the Real Medicine Foundation, where he negotiated alongside UN agencies, the WHO, and foreign ministries to strengthen primary healthcare delivery in Sri Lanka, South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Haiti, Armenia, and Nigeria. He was cited as a principal contributor in establishing South Sudan’s first College of Nursing and Midwifery.

Michael serves as an advisor to the United States Trager® Association Board, has served on the management team for Trager® International, and mentors emerging instructors globally.

With over three decades in mind-body medicine, his teachers include Dr. Milton Trager, Deane Juhan, and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. As a Yoga Alliance E-RYT 500 and YACEP provider, he teaches anatomy for teacher trainings and conducts Mysore-style classes and therapeutic adjustment clinics through a somatic lens. 

Breathwork and pranayama are foundational elements of his teaching.
A longtime Vipassana meditator in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin as taught by S. N. Goenka, meditation remains the keystone of his personal practice.

Michael also served for ten years as a founding board member and Director of Court-Involved and Recovery Programs for The Shanthi Project, leading trauma-informed yoga initiatives within prisons and juvenile detention systems and securing Pennsylvania’s first Federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grant for mindfulness-based trauma recovery in a residential juvenile treatment center.

In addition to his clinical and humanitarian work, Michael continues to perform professionally as a drummer. He developed Yoga4Drummers, an online yoga and mindfulness training program for musicians, now hosted by Drum Channel. He is available for recording, touring, therapeutic sessions, speaking engagements, and can embed on tour as both musician and somatic performance specialist.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and International Management from Rider University and brings corporate fluency to all strategic and leadership engagements

A native of Easton, PA, Lear makes his home on the East Coast when he is in the United States where he enjoys visiting with family, friends, and his cat Sayagyi.   After completing 4.5 years drumming with Mystik Fool, he's again available for tours and recording.

In the interim, he maintains a private practice and works at the premier Integrated Wellness Center in the Lehigh Valley, Nu House. where his focus is PTSD, trauma-recovery, impact injuries and chronic pain.  When not working locally, you can find him on the road teaching Trager® Approach Professinal Trainings, presenting on Polyvagal Down Regulation Utilizing Trager® or covering Mysore Ashtanga yoga classes at Mysore Las Vegas.

Otherwise, for now he is drumming in his private studio, The Urban Tree House,  until the next intimation of fate, wild card moment, or dream moves him to action.

"Michael Lear's attentiveness is palpable, his touch is skillful and effective. As a career body-worker, educator, and hands-on psychotherapist, I rate him in the highest category of practitioners that I have met and worked with in my 40 years of professional practice. Five Stars plus! " 

Ed G.

At the end of a Trager® session with Michael, I always feel incredibly thankful to him for his caring presence and competent touch. Michael helped me improve my health and reduce pain so that I have been able to resume activities that I thought I had given up for good. Because of Michael, I value Trager® Approach even more than ever before.

Elisabeth C.  LMT, LCISW, Trager® Practitioner

Through the hands of an outstanding practitioner, Michael Lear, the Trager® Approach has given me a physical freedom and well-being unlike anything else in my entire life.   In my experience no other body-work regimen can even come close to matching the benefits of Trager®. "

Don D.

" Your brilliance, fun, & knowledgeable expertise was a breath of fresh air.  I could of learned from you for hours.    Thank you. "      

Debra S. LMT

"I really enjoyed your class and am grateful to have learned more about Trager! Your teaching style, humility, and energy were all so wonderful."

Emily D . LMT

Wish to schedule a session or host a training with Michael?  Please contact: 484.542.0249 or michael@michaellear.com

Developed over 70 years ago by Dr. Milton Trager for the treatment of polio and sciatica, The Trager® Approach remains an innovative approach to movement education and self-care, which facilitates lasting neuro-muscular change.

The Trager® Approach is mindfulness in motion and utilizes gentle touch and rhythmic movements to cultivate a state of deep relaxation to release muscle holding patterns residing in the unconscious mind that often manifest as functional limitation, or pain. Self-Care movement exercises are provided so clients may develop their own session "recall" capacity to elicit similar relaxation responses experienced during their session.

Michael's Clients often report:

Increased Mobility, Vitality, Clarity, Capacity to Relax, and Sense of Overall Peace • Improved Sports Performance • Decreased Likelihood of Injury  Quickened Recover from Surgery or Injury  •  Improved Neuromuscular Function in those with Parkinson’s, Cerebral Palsy and MS

Applications:
Stress Related Neck and Back Pain
 • Sciatica
 • Herniated disc/ Post Laminectomy Pain
 • Scoliosis
Temporal Mandibular Joint pain • 
Migraine Headaches • 
Sports injuries
 • Frozen shoulder • Fibromyalgia
 • PTSD related pain • Thoracic Outlet Syndrome • Sexual Abuse Trauma

Neuromuscular / Auto-immune Conditions:


Parkinson’s Disease
 • Post Stroke Paralysis • 
Multiple Sclerosis • 
Cerebral Palsy
 • Clonus 
• Ankylosing Spondylitis
 • Schleroderma