Jesse James Retherford

Movement therapist and life-changer, Jesse James Retherford, helps clients to move out of poor movement into better function and freedom. By relearning what it means to move like a human, his clients reduce pain and embrace how they’re meant to engage life on this planet—as natural human movers who explore, play, connect, and serve one another. Inspired by James Dean, Jesse had no plan to live past 35, so he lived the first third of his life with abandon and without any conscious awareness of how he was going to feel in the final third. As it turns out, his thirty-fifth year had more to offer than he’d imagined. His son was born that year, and suddenly it was clear that he would need to, and want to live a long life. Bogged down with pain, he began to explore movement and healing, and his experiences have directed his path over the past decade. You might say that Jesse was his own first client. He studied exercise and sports science at Texas State University. In 2010, he became a licensed massage therapist. In 2013, he earned his Level 1 certification in Neuro Kinetic Therapy (NKT), and in 2014 he both added his Level 2 NKT certification and became a MovNat certified coach, developing the skills of human movement for greater function and service. Jesse turns the appearance-focused fitness paradigm on its head, teaching people how to explore movement in a way that changes their life. Through intentional movement, his clients experience less pain, less dysfunction, less injury, and they explore a world that wasn’t formerly available to them because of their lack of skill. In order to do this, Jesse offers movement therapy (a combination of strength training, natural movement, NKT, and massage), natural movement classes, and massage. When he’s not with clients, he’s generally adventuring with his 8-year-old son. He spends 95% of his time barefoot, and yet he’s obsessed with shoes (although not in the way most people are).