About Jan

These days acupuncture and Chinese medicine is taught in colleges and schools, but traditionally Chinese medicine was taught in an apprenticeship. I am lucky to have done  both. I studied acupuncture at Tri-State College of Acupuncture in New York City graduating in 1999. Before I even began my 3 year program at Tri-State I was engaged in an apprenticeship with my martial arts teacher Tom Bisio. I studied Xing-Yi Quan and Ba Gua Zhang (internal forms of martial arts) with Tom for twelve years. I also  studied Tai Chi Chuan and Karate with Annie Ellman in Brooklyn. Those practices led to my interest in acupuncture. I worked in Tom’s clinic for over 3 years learning about acupuncture, herbs and Zheng Gu (Chinese osteopathy). I will be forever grateful to Tom for all he taught me.

I participated in extended programs of study in  Chinese Herbal medicine with Sharon Weisenbaum, Dr. Huang Huang, Andy Gamble and Helen Zhang.   I studied Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy in a two year program in Boston Massachusetts.   Finally, studying meditation and consciousness with Bob Pasternak has been an invaluable support to my medical practice and life as well.    

What has driven my medical practice has been an appreciation of the subtle workings of beauty and harmony. Namely, what do these two qualities feel like/look like/sound like? I moved to New York City from Boulder in 1980 to study painting, searching for that quality of quiet awe and wonder in art. I also found it in martial arts, especially while practicing on my own at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Feeling the movement of energy in my body, and how it increased my awareness and connection to nature –even in the middle of Brooklyn — was a deeply profound experience for me.  These experiences changed how I lived. It was also useful to learn that being punched in the face was not the worst thing in the world, and it’s possible to develop equanimity even at that moment. That was a great lesson for me to experience as well.   We’re all engaged in the challenges of life and we sometimes suffer for it. But we can come back, we can survive and we can experience good health and happiness. These lessons all inform my medical practice where I aim to support the beauty of feeling good.

In my free time I love playing the mandolin and violin with friends. And searching for the perfect place to sit and paint in the mountains with my dog Louie, while Omar the cat naps at home.