Loose Leaf Notes

~ The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on June 13, 2013

The Blue Ridge Center for Chinese Medicine (BRCCM) is joining the Floyd Artisan Trail this year. The center will showcase its medicinal herb garden as an agricultural site on the June 14 –16 tour.

As one of the 45 county destinations featuring fine arts, artisan crafts, farm products, and more, the center will host a community open house throughout the three-day tour weekend.  The “Opening the Doors Wide,” open house schedule will include tours of the facility and hands-on participatory demonstrations, including a massage sampling with a focus on fathers for Father’s Day. Informative talks (beginning daily at 2:00) will focus on acupuncture and the Asian bodywork style known as Tuina.  There will also be opportunities to participate in the martial arts taught at the center.

“Having the open house is an opportunity to reach out to the community,” said Jody Franko (pictured above), the center’s Administrative Director.  She described Chinese Medicine as a system designed to increase vitality, mobility and well-being through the use of acupuncture, targeted body work, medicinal herbs and internal martial arts, which the practitioners and many of the center’s clients practice as a component of a holistic medicine approach. 

Chinese Medicine is not foreign medicine.  It’s traditional and not unlike the folk medicine that was practiced in this region for many generations, Franko explained.  “It’s based on the ways of nature and on observations that date back over 3,000 years ago of how the body works and how to maintain its healthy state.”  

Franko, who runs the center’s day-to-day operations and develops programming, explained that BRCCM’s main focus has been martial arts classes, the Tuina School and the clinic, but now the center is broadening its focus with new initiatives to better serve the community and support the center’s sustainability.

One of those initiatives is the Heaven & Earth Medicinal  Herb Garden, which will be featured at the open house and is now in its third year of growth.  The center currently uses the herbs it grows and is developing plans for local and national distribution, which will provide opportunities to partner with local farmers, as well as enhance quality control over herbs that have traditionally been purchased from China. 

 “Herbs are one element of care recommended at the center to bring the body back into its natural state,” said Franko, who added that some of the herbs already grow here and that the center is working with national leaders to identify others than will grow well and non-invasively.  

 Teacher/ practitioner Jason Redinbo brought Chinese Medicine and martial arts to Floyd County.  It was well received because people saw how effective it was, recalled Franko.  Request for care was soon beyond the scope of one practitioner, so Redinbo began taking apprentices. In 2006 the BRCCM was founded as a public non-profit and the facility was built.  

The Ancestral Mountain Tuina School was established soon after the formation of BRCCM.  The school has graduated three classes, about 20 state certified Tuina practitioners.  Currently four full-time practitioners, two of whom are acupuncturists, work out of the center.  Several graduates work part-time at BRCCM.

One of the ways the center is diversifying is to make the facility available for rent for weddings and other events.  Franko believes that the peacefulness of the building and property is part of the healing experience. “It’s a very a special place where you can hear birdsong and no traffic, and it’s only 10 minutes from town.”

With beautiful custom woodwork throughout the building, the center houses three clinical rooms, a timber-framed great room, a reception foyer, a kitchen and meeting space. There is also a barn on the landscaped acreage. 

Currently, the center is working to identify areas that can serve the health needs of the community, beginning with the exploration and development of family health and women’s health programs.  They are also working with leaders in the community to explore the use of auricular acupuncture, which has been very successful in the cessation of addictions.   

Eli Schwartz-Gralla, the center’s current executive director, trained with the second generation of Redinbo’s apprentices.  As a practitioner he has done everything from providing palliative care for people with terminal illnesses like cancer to working with clients with bad backs, stress overload or chronic pain due to injuries from office or farm work.    He also teaches martial arts.

As director, Schwartz-Gralla works closely with the BRCCM board and oversees financing. “And sometimes I can be found pulling up weeds in the garden,” he said.   With a new five-month old baby girl, Schwartz-Gralla and his partner Yarrow Delauney-Yard (also a BRCCM practitioner) can now claim three generations who are successfully using Chinese Medicine as their primary form of health care.   

Schwartz-Gralla is looking forward to the Artisan Trail open house and encourages every one to come out.  “It’s an opportunity for everyone who has ever had questions about what we do, or why people speak so highly of the center, to come out and see for themselves and have a personal interaction,” he said.    

Note: Open House hours are Friday and Saturday 10-5pm and Sunday 12-5pm. A detailed schedule of events can be found at www.BRCCM.org or on the Blue Ridge Center for Chinese Medicine Facebook page or call (540) 651-2682 for more information.  More information on the Floyd Artisan Trail is HERE.