I wrote this about John last September.  It just begins to tell his story.

 

“At fourteen years old, I held a knife in one hand, a gun in the other.”  John, the youngest son of an unrelenting truck driver and Teamster and a smothering waitress, survived the tougher sections of Chicago and its suburbs, surrounded by racial hatred and gang violence.  Before his father’s death when John turned fifteen, John’s father issued a lifetime of belittlement, humiliation, and so called deserved beatings to his son.  His mother’s over-protective love was an attempt to compensate for bringing another child into a house with a rage-filled father.  “Gee, I wonder why I came out of the womb with a vengeance and why I went head-to-head with everyone in my life, including life itself.”

John sustained many head injuries as he grew.  “I had more stitches in my head than a baseball.”  At age eleven, John was prescribed Dilantin to combat repeated epileptic seizures.  Sickened each time he took the medication, John asked the doctor if he could stop taking it.  The reply was yes, if John could eliminate the disease.  As the doctor renewed his prescription, John turned away and pictured the epilepsy in a basket tied to a balloon, floating away.  “Out of sight, out of mind, out of body.”  The seizures disappeared, never to return. 

At age twenty-three, a double-barreled shotgun was held to his temple.  John heard the click of the trigger, followed by….silence.  He thought “How stupid to bring an empty gun to a gunfight.”  John cracked the stock open on the guy’s head and saw two shells lying neatly inside.  “The minute I felt anyone violating my boundaries, I summoned all the rage I felt from birth.  I unleashed physical and verbal attacks so strong, people stood horrified and bewildered.”  John’s rage grew until he reached thirty-three, when the constant adrenaline rush threatened to shut down his kidneys.  The doctors pronounced that he would need a kidney transplant or he would die within three years.  John walked back to his hotel, contemplating his death sentence.  His eyes were drawn to a sign for an America healer around the corner from the clinic.  This day marked the path of his return to health and life.  “I realized that rage dwelled within me to teach me that I didn’t have to let it be a part of my life.  I was pulled into the Eastern disciplines of Tai Chi and QiGong to free me from the feelings of frustration and hopelessness and show me where I was holding physically, emotionally, and spiritually.”

After healing himself through diligent Tai Chi and Qigong practice, and Chinese herbs, John committed his life to bringing his path to health to others.  John opened a school in his home as demand for his knowledge and services increased.  In 2000, he was blessed with the birth of his daughter despite doctors insisting he could never father a child.  His second martial arts/healing arts school opened in Woodstock, Illinois, in 2005 where healing takes the form of counseling, treatments, and classes.  “It took me 48 years but I can honestly say I’m at a place of peace and understanding I could never have found years ago because I wasn’t done torturing, testing, and challenging myself.   Only by surrendering, can I truly begin to understand that our lives may seem complicated but, in fact, are very simple.  Our lives become complicated when we react to everyone around us rather than reacting to and changing ourselves.  We attempt to change things outside of us, when all the misconceptions, fears, and weaknesses lie within us.”