ALOHA
I’ve fought in kickboxing & Muay Thai rings. I’ve played rugby. I’ve run marathons. I’ve played 2nd, short stop, & 3rd base. I’ve cycled to work and school every week, every year for a decade. I’m an athlete. And I’m a competitor. But in the end, I think I’ve always just been trying to help.
I started fighting to help fill a card at my gym. I started coaching a touch rugby team to help rebuild the group after the coach had left. I ran marathons to help strengthen relationships with friends. I commute by bike to help the environment. And when I began to feel that teaching English wasn’t really helping as much as I’d hoped, the question was: What can I do next to help more?
After considering a few different options, I decided on medicine. Acupuncture had helped me (and continues to help me) stay active and healthy that I knew this would become my passion!
That’s how Jackupuncture was born, and why sports acupuncture is my focus.
I understand how hard it is to train or work when you’re sore, injured or too exhausted (maybe because of workouts during your lunch break, like me). I have had to fight through the pain, and I understand how unproductive or dangerous that can be. This medicine is the reason I have been able to go so hard for so long in all these different sports. And I have only continued to feel better, healthier, and more capable as I age.
My passion for remaining extremely healthy & competitive continues to drive me. This passion is why I strive to hone the techniques most capable of getting you the best results—because I want us both to be as successful, safe, and pain-free as possible. I continue to improve upon the techniques that have worked best for me because I know my demands are high and I want to be able to provide you with superior results.
I am truly passionate about my work and love helping you succeed in every physical goal—whether that’s a competition, a world championship, or returning to work at 100%. I look forward to helping you.
Be well!
You’re always welcome at Jackupuncture.
educator
I wasn’t the only teacher in my family. My great uncle was a professor at Cal Poly. His mother, my great grandmother, was my Sunday school teacher. And her daughter, my 90 year-old grandmother, recently retired from her public school classroom.
fighter
I picked up kickboxing in Japan because it was the only gym that would accept me. Even my friend, who was a professional boxer & the manager of a local sports club, denied me membership when he learned I had tattoos.
healthcare provider
It’s important to me that every person I serve feels cared for. I work hard to help you feel increasingly better during & after every treatment. And I strive to make sure you can be healthier, longer because I care.
JACK’s story
Ucsc to hiroshima, japan
After graduating with honors from the University of California, Santa Cruz, Jack was accepted into the JET program as an English teacher for Hiroshima prefecture. For the next 11 years, Jack would live in Hiroshima, Japan. These years introduced Jack to rice farming, the koto, okonomiyaki, and a busy schedule of competitive athletics, especially kickboxing.
TEACHER TO KICKBOXER
When tattoos prevented him from becoming a member of the local fitness gyms, Jack was taken in by the fighters & owner of Studio-K. While training & competing in kickboxing at Studio-K, Jack took up running, cycling, and touch rugby. As might be expected, this active lifestyle led to the inevitable injury.
INTRODUCTION TO ACUPUNCTURE
Juggling multiple sports while training for the Tokyo Marathon culminated in the knee injury that led to Jack’s very first acupuncture treatment. Within two weeks, acupuncture and Japanese herbal medicine made it possible for Jack to not only restart training, but to also finish the marathon in a respectable time. With that, Jack made acupuncture a regular part of his health maintenance.
GOING DEEPER
Thanks to acupuncture & herbal medicine, Jack was able to continue his daily 7.5-mile commute to work by bike while also continuing to successfully compete for 7 years in many other runs, fights, & touch rugby tournaments simultaneously. These 7 years saw Jack develop a deeper understanding & study of performance enhancement, injury reduction, & Chinese medicine, including Qi Gong, meditation, & acupuncture. During this time, unfortunately, many of his teammates and competitors had to sit out due to sickness or injury. Jack, however, was never again prevented from competing due to either.
FROM “WIDE ISLAND” TO “GATHERING PLACE”
After over a decade of teaching, Jack wanted to further study his interest while more deeply impacting his community & helping those around him. A traditional Taoist school of Chinese medicine with a rich history in Qi Gong brought Jack to Oahu, where he enjoys a culture & community pleasantly similar to Hiroshima’s.
An enthusiastic, lifelong student, Jack continues to actively seek out the most effective treatment techniques to best support patients.
Jack graduated in the top 10 of his 1000-student high school class. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with college and department honors. Jack holds a master’s degree in acupuncture and is an NCCAOM Diplomate of Acupuncture.
Over 15 years of caring as a mentor, coach, trainer, tutor, English teacher, & volunteer.
Jack taught English in Japan for 11 years. Before that, he volunteered as a reading tutor for elementary students, worked as a mentor for high school students, & was a writing tutor for UCSC. In Honolulu, Jack helped develop & lead the Tzu Chi Foundation’s volunteer training program for the Heart Lotus Life Program, which facilitates local volunteer visits for the kupuna at Palolo Chinese Home.
Jack trained at Hiroshima’s Studio-K kickboxing gym for 8 years, competing in multiple Chugoku Kickboxing Federation amateur fights.
As odd or funny as it may sound, fighting was not Jack’s original intention when starting kickboxing. 13 years later, he’s still in love with the art. Now, Jack continues his training at Hawaii’s premier Muay Thai gym, The Mango Tree.
To improve his cardio for fighting, Jack started seriously competing in touch rugby & marathons, including Tokyo & Honolulu marathons.
Competing simultaneously in multiple sports was the impetus for Jack’s intense study of performance enhancement, injury prevention, and mindfulness practices. This eventually found Jack studying and regularly practicing Qi Gong. It was this daily practice that led to Jack’s exploration of acupuncture as a form of regular health maintenance. Little did he know these interests would evolve into a passionate career path.
As coach & player, Jack helped lead his Japanese
touch rugby team to a 2nd place finish in Hiroshima’s regional championships.
Well before Japan’s successes in the Rugby World Cup, Jack trained and competed alongside professional Japanese rugby players for many years as a part of the Hiroshima Hammers touch rugby team. This, in addition to many years of sparring with some of Japan’s top-ranked kickboxers at Studio-K, helped him appreciate the exceptional level at which professional athletes must constantly train & perform.
Training injuries led to Jack’s introduction to acupuncture & herbal medicine in Japan.
Thanks to Chinese medicine, Jack successfully competed injury-free in many athletic events simultaneously for nearly a decade in Japan. After watching the athletes he trained with regularly get sick or injured, Jack noticed the single major difference between them & himself: regular acupuncture treatments for maintenance & injury prevention. In most cases, Jack was actually training harder & performing better than his counterparts, whose injuries were forcing them out of competition altogether. It was these years of competing without sickness or injury (minus a few broken bones) that led to Jack’s career change from educator to healthcare provider.