Village of Zion Brings
Wellness to Skid Row

On March 10, 2005, Yo San University student Derek Hubbard launched his first "Village of Zion Health and Wellness Clinic" on skid row, in downtown Los Angeles, serving individuals transitioning from homelessness. Derek brought along six fellow Yo San students: Yang-Chu Higgins, Kim Reid, Marius Imfeld, Baylen Slote, Suzy Sostrin, and Xuan-an Le. Carolyn Leigh, a licensed acupuncturist who is a YSU graduate and a member of Yo San's clinical faculty, accompanied the group. The clinic took place at the “Service Spot,” located within the Skid Row Housing Trust. Our students set up shop, laying out pots and casseroles full of nutritious food they had lovingly prepared at home: congee, a bitter melon soup, bean soup, and fresh oranges. They proceeded to engage the curious, slightly reticent residents who could not resist the aromas of warm food.

Students introduced themselves, explained their mission, ladled the special foods and soothing, tonifying herbal teas, and initiated individual consultations. Residents readily shared their health issues, many of which were quite serious. Students made recommendations about diet, sleep, and meditation and demonstrated acupressure that individuals could perform on themselves. Yang-Chu Higgins led a group qigong session and Carolyn Leigh supervised tongue and pulse diagnoses. The clinic was very well received, with 35 residents participating. Most were interested in learning more about TCM, including the concepts of herbal medicine, meditation, and energy healing. They were eager to learn practical things they could do to improve their own health and were most interested in learning when the Clinic would return. Yo San students were equally enthusiastic about the experience and respectful of the residents.

Derek conducted a second successful clinic in June. He plans to formulate a treatment protocol, enhance the program, and is applying for grants to fund the Clinic on a regular basis. Yo San University has been pleased to support Derek’s efforts by providing herbs for the teas, educational materials, and writing a letter of support to foundations considering funding the Clinic. The University would like to deepen its collaboration with the "Village of Zion" and work to establish a new externship site. We share Derek’s dream of bringing the healing powers of TCM to under served communities.

Derek Hubbard was born in Long Beach, California, in 1975, and grew up in Fresno. He received a full athletic scholarship to Stanford University to play football. In the Spring of his senior year, Derek sustained a serious knee injury that dashed his dreams to play professional football.

Despite this injury, Derek graduated from Stanford in 1998 with a major in political science. He describes this period as an emotional low point that led to a spiritual awakening. “I had my first awareness that everything in life is connected. I lost a lot of the fear I had been carrying in my heart and that broke through the wall between me and others. It led him back to Los Angeles, where he spent the next four years teaching special education in an inner city middle school and immersing himself in a study of spiritualism. Ultimately, this intellectual understanding developed his desire to live spiritually. He says he ran into Yo San quite by accident, while surfing the web. He hadn’t even known that acupuncture was a profession. Derek says his family was always doing service projects in their community. Founding the "Village of Zion" with his sister was a natural outgrowth of their shared desire to help others. "I want to prove that low-income, minority communities want TCM treatment and show people that it can be done."

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A Sacramento Story
By Steven Carter

August 17, 2005. 8:30 am PST. Sacramento, CA. In a small, beautiful park, just a few blocks from the Sacramento Convention Center, nine Yo San students are quietly practicing taiji or qigong. Otherwise, the park is empty. Just a few blocks away, more than four hundred students from schools throughout California and other states are wolfing down pastries, bagels, coffee and orange juice. The 6 hour California Acupuncture Licensing Examination will start today at 10 am.

What is wrong with this picture? Or, to be less clichéd, what is right with this picture? Sitting on a park bench, watching these students move through their morning rituals, quietly craving a bagel and some coffee, I am asking myself these questions.

In August of 2005 I had only been a part of Yo San University for one month. I was struggling to understand the many subtleties of the Yo San education and the larger Yo San experience. I knew this was a very special place, but it was important for me to quantify that "special-ness" if I was going to be able to help strengthen the University in my new role as Dean of Student Affairs. In Sacramento, I was witness to the explanation I was looking for.

On the morning of the Board Exam, a person has many choices. You can sleep as late as possible, drink as much coffee as possible, have a last-minute cram session, isolate yourself and pray, or wait nervously with your fellow test-takers carb loading at the Convention Center. Yet on the morning of August 17th, our test-takers did "none of the above." They walked to the park, together, and turned to the practice that had been the focus of their studies for the past four years.

Let me make this one thing perfectly clear: Nobody spends thirty minutes practicing taiji or qigong on the morning of the State Board Exam unless they are 100% certain that it will give them the strength and clarity they need for this day. You have precious little time and much stress to manage. The choices you make are critical. It is a business decision. I learned this twenty-eight years ago when I chose meditation over lunch during the grueling MCAT exam. Clearly, after four years of studying to learn and "become the medicine," our students had learned that “becoming the medicine” wasn’t just a clever turn of a phrase that looked good in the Yo San catalog. The medicine had penetrated these students. It had become a part of them. And they knew it was their best chance for success.

I felt sorry for the students from the other schools. I knew that their early-morning carb fest would deplete them by midday. And I knew that they had no other way to fortify themselves for the challenges of that day. They had not become the medicine. They had just taken classes and completed them. Their education lacked dimensionality.

Last week, the exam results started to arrive in the mail. They confirm my experience; this year’s passing rates are almost perfect. Congratulations to our many graduates who have truly “become the medicine.” May they share it with wisdom and altruism to those in need.

Steven A. Carter is the Dean of Administration & Student Affairs at Yo San University.