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Frances Farmer

I have always loved science, especially the Life Sciences and so, after high school I began studying to become a Dental Hygienist. I had always dreamed of traveling and living in another country, so I moved to Switzerland in 1984 and practiced Dental Hygiene full-time for four years. When I moved back to the States, I fell in love, got married, and began "looking for myself". I got involved with Zen meditation, women's groups, therapy, alternative healing for my migraine headaches that I had ever since I was a child, and just searching for some meaning to my life. I then had a realization that I wanted to do some type of healing work. I didn't know in what way, but thought I should at least know how to touch people in a healing way. So I decided massage school was a good place to start. In 1991 I went to Irene's Myomassology Institute in Southfield MI to study massage. After finishing the program, I began doing massage full-time in my own private practice in downtown Ann Arbor.

I began exploring other modalities such as Polarity, and Cranial-Sacral. Then I had an Ohashiatsu session and knew I wanted to study that. I went to the Ohashi Institute in New York City in 1993 and studied with them for two years and graduated in 1995. I really fell in love with the dance-like quality of the sessions and the Zen approach. I changed my massage practice to shiatsu, originally I lost many of my clients as I was changing my practice, I was sorry to let people go, but I had to follow my passions.

I delved into Japanese, and Chinese healing arts. That led me, in 1996, to travel to Sri Lanka for three months to study Traditional Chinese Medicine and Homeopathy at the Open University in Colombo, a free clinic for all peoples who come for treatment, and we students studied and assisted in the clinic to learn. That is where I met my husband Allan; he was from Germany studying acupuncture and went to Sri Lanka on his TCM teacher's request. He moved here to Ann Arbor in 1998. We went to China together in 2000-2001 where he studied at the Nan Jing school for Traditional Chinese Medicine and I hung around learning Tai Chi, learning to speak a little Chinese, cooking, teaching shiatsu to other students living in the dormitory, and just having fun exploring China. When we came back to Ann Arbor, I went back to the Ohashi Institute to get my instructor training and became a Certified Ohashiatsu Instructor in 2002. I started teaching Ohashiatsu to students here in Ann Arbor.

Since 1999 I have been seriously studying real nutrition with Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon-Morrell, and the works of Dr. Weston A. Price. I am very dedicated to getting real nutrition in my life and community and to learn from true scientific resources. I believe food is the most powerful tool we have against sickness and disease, not only in our bodies, but also in our communities. In my sessions, I will mention food to you on and off, but I will not go into all the details unless you specifically ask me about food and nutrition and your health. It takes a lot of time, and you have to be willing to go out of your way to eat truly healing foods.