About Andrew Nugent-Head

Andrew Nugent-Head was born into a multilingual-multicultural family in the United States in 1967. Under the influence of his older brother, he started wrestling in 5th grade and transitioned into Chinese martial arts in New York City at 13. Fascinated by all things Asian, he studied Russian and Chinese at Phillips Exeter Academy, one of the only high schools in America to offer both those languages at the time.

After graduating in 1986, he deferred Middlebury College for a year to continue studying Chinese language and martial arts in Taiwan. While there, he had a motorcycle accident and broke the bones in his right foot. Choosing to have them set by a Chinese medicine doctor, Andrew discovered the 'realness' of Chinese medicine for the first time. He began to help the doctor, sweeping and cleaning while watching the treatments of every condition imaginable. At the end of his 'year off', Andrew decided to not return to the traditional educational route in the United States. Instead, he moved to Beijing in 1987 and enrolled in the Chinese Medical Language Training Program at the Beijing Languages Institute.

Set to begin studying medicine at the Beijing College of Chinese Medicine in 1989, the events around Tiananmen square that summer completely changed his life. When the government wrestled control back from the students and re-organized university education around a political curriculum, it was obvious that the official collegiate route was no longer an authentic path to learning Chinese medicine. Taken under the wing of the late Professor Wang Jin-Huai, Andrew was introduced to the last of the pre-1949 practitioners of Chinese medicine in Beijing and around China. Andrew began learning Chinese medicine in traditional teacher-disciple relationships, listening to their lectures and watching them treat patients in the privacy of their homes. Under his teacher's guidance, he began to see his own patients in 1992 after the traditional 3 year apprenticeship common in old China.

In 1993, Andrew met the late Dr. Xie Peiqi, the last person fully trained in all three aspect of the traditional art of Yin Style Bagua. Becoming Dr. Xie's student, translator, assistant, representative, friend and confidante, Andrew spent 10 years intensively training under him and is the only student of Dr. Xie's left directly trained in all three areas of Yin Style Bagua: Chinese medicine, martial arts and internal cultivation.

Between 2001-2004, Andrew traveled back and forth between his home in Beijing and Boulder, Colorado to obtain academic credentials and licensure in Chinese Medicine. When in Colorado, he was also member of the continuing education faculty at Naropa University and traveled extensively to teach around the United States.

Back home in Beijing full time in 2004, Andrew's relationship with Dr. Li Hongxiang (1924-) grew as he spent time in his clinic as a translator for western patients. In 2005, Andrew was officially recognized by Dr. Li as his Closing Door Student and spent the next 6 years as his clinical assistant and case documentor, as well as filming Dr. Li in his home discussing Chinese medicine. Dr. Li also began work on The Study of Chinese Medicine: A Traditional Perspective, which he finished in the summer of 2011 and is set to be published bilingually with an English translation by Andrew in December of 2012.

In 2011, Andrew, his wife and fellow practitioner JulieAnn, and their 3 children moved to the tea hills outside of Hangzhou to escape the growing pollution and gridlock of Beijing after 24 years. They now live in a small village of 100 houses surrounded by the famous green tea called Longjing, or Dragon Well. Andrew and JulieAnn are busy obtaining their doctorates of Chinese medicine at the Zhejiang University of Chinese Medicine and travel to visit and film Dr. Li twice a month.

In this year of 2012, Andrew will also be flying 6 times a year to the Tri State College of Acupuncture to teach the clinically focused Acupuncture in Orthopedics & Rehabilitation: A Classical Chinese Medicine Approach--a 300 Post Graduate level program taught in six modules over 10 months. His goal: to teach everything that has been taught to him and create a video record of the process for all to access on the Association for Traditional Studies website.