Wednesday, Feb. 01, 2012

Jennifer Klich: In Tune on the Grand Strand

jblackmon@TheSunNews.com

Jennifer Klich performs acutonics on a patient at her Zen Jen Acupuncture office in Carolina Forest. Photo by Janet Blackmon Morgan for Weekly Surge.

 

Jennifer Klich experienced a eureka moment while she was studying for a doctorate in music in Boulder, Colo. A longtime classical musician focusing on viola, Klich arrived in Colorado from her home state of Ohio, where she received a master’s in viola performance from University of Akron and a bachelor’s in music therapy at Baldwin-Wallace College and Conservatory.

“I left to study with a viola teacher who had been my teacher in Ohio at one point,” she says. “I wanted to work on certain things with my technique and how I was physically approaching the instrument.” In the course of her doctoral work [DMA – Doctor of Musical Arts], she became involved in a research paper on the psychophysiology of musicians – and noticed that many of the books were written by people with double doctorates, most notably by MDs who also held DMA’s. She began taking prerequisite classes for med school.

“I wanted to be somebody knowledgeable, licensed and fully accepted as a person that could physically help musicians,” she says. “There are a lot of problems that musicians encounter because of repetitive motion, posture – the demands of rehearsal and the stress of being onstage. I had been living all of this as a freelance musician for a long time.”

Eventually, Klich says she started finding out more and more about alternative medicine. “I ran across a book in the library about acupuncture, and I went, ‘oh yeah – that’s the answer. Pills and pharmaceuticals are not the answer to these problems – it’s natural medicine.’” Soon after this epiphany, she left the doctoral program and enrolled at Southwest Acupuncture College in Boulder, where she received an MS in Oriental Medicine and did internships in Beijing and Tokyo.

Flash forward: Klich, a licensed acupuncturist [LAc] and a nationally certified Diplomat of Oriental Medicine, arrived on the Grand Strand three-and-a-half years ago. Her business, Zen Jen Acupuncture [www.zenjenacupuncture.com] in Myrtle Beach focuses on Traditional Chinese Medicine [TCM], and includes acupuncture and the Acutonics Sound Healing System, which in itself is a fitting tie-in to music.

“Acutonics involves using tuning forks that are specifically calibrated to achieve certain results,” she says. “These tuning forks are applied to acupoints on the body, and that causes the therapeutic effect.” She continues that everything to do with Acutonics [a proprietary system] is about wavelengths and frequencies. “Everything in nature really boils down to physics. The body is frequencies and the planet is frequencies – and so healing can take place when we can change the frequencies of things and put these into alignment and balance.”

Not surprisingly, it was only a matter of time before Klich found out about the Long Bay Symphony, of which she is now a member. “When I moved here I really just focused on my acupuncture business, but then you meet people and they find out that you play a musical instrument,” she says. “There are really not that many classical musicians in the immediate area, and the Long Bay Symphony is made up of people from other cities, including Charleston, Columbia and Wilmington [N.C.] – so the Grand Strand’s only symphony is really fortunate to bring in musicians and have these great concerts.” Klich contends that the symphony is a fun and friendly. “Our conductor [Charles Jones Evans] is very friendly. Historically in Ohio and Colorado, conductors are not friendly – they are the kind of people that are demanding and they yell. So I just appreciate the group, and it’s nice to have an outlet for performing.” She also performs chamber music with others in the area.

Did we mention that Klich completed a full marathon in Myrtle Beach in 2009? This was a result of her hiking experiences in Boulder, which evolved into rock climbing and mountaineering, which took her to Mexico and later, Bolivia, where she scaled Nevado Illimani, which boasts a peak of 21,201 feet.

And what of downtime?

“Downtime – that’s funny,” she laughs. “If I have free time, I like to walk my dogs on the beach.” She enjoys sea kayaking, live music and theater or running at Huntington Beach State Park.

And if the Zen philosophy involves living in the moment, Klich is on track in regard to the future, per se. “I’m just rolling with it. Right now I have amazing work here – great, consistent clients – and the referrals continue to grow every week. Then I have the music and the people I have met and friends. It’s like a wave – you just ride it and see where it takes you.”

Know of a local with an interesting job or career that should be given the Working 4 A Living treatment? Contact Roger Yale at rgyale@gmail.com.