During summer vacation after my first year at Oberlin where I was pursuing degrees in music and in Japanese history, a friend and I took a day trip out to Pennsylvania to attend a martial arts seminar that promised to teach us the true secrets of the masters. It turned out to be an acupuncture point striking seminar and while interesting, it wasn’t until the end that it would change my life. The last event of the day was an advanced demonstration for which I was volunteered by my friend. In short, the teacher knocked me out using a very light touch strike on two points (I won’t say which they were!). In one second I went from a skeptic to a believer. I knew, in my body, that everything I had read about acupuncture, channels, and Qi was very deep and very real.

I finished Oberlin and then lived in Okinawa as a Fulbright scholar, and while there continued my training in martial arts. That entire experience led me to enroll at the New England School of Acupuncture where I started my formal training in Chinese medicine, followed some years later by my doctoral degree from the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine. Today I live in New Jersey with my wife and son, and when I’m not teaching Chinese medicine I see patients in my private clinic. I have a passion for early Chinese medical classics, and trying to bring their teachings into modern clinical practice. I also have a passion for practicing Chen Taijiquan and Qigong, which I teach in northern New Jersey not far from my clinic.