Bob Flaws

Bob Flaws (born February 20, 1946) is an American practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine and the author, translator/editor of over 100 books on Chinese medicine.

Flaws was born on February 20, 1946, and grew up in Rutherford, New Jersey.

He attended Newark Academy and then Middlebury College where he earned a B.A. degree in American Literature.

In 1969, Flaws went to India and Nepal to become a Tibetan Buddhist in the Nyingmapa lineage, and subsequently developed an interest in eastern medicine.

In 1977, he moved to Boulder, Colorado, to attend the Boulder School of Massage Therapy and began his study and practice of Chinese medicine and acupuncture under the late Eric Tao (Xi-Yu) of Denver, Colorado. He took lots of workshops by such people as Naburo Muramoto, Herman Aihara, Kiiko Matsumoto, Paul Chen, Michael Broffman, etc.

Flaws then continued his Chinese medical education at the Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine from 1982 to 1986.

From 1979, Bob conducted a private practice in Boulder, Colorado, mixing massage with acupuncture. In addition, he taught daily qi gong classes, weekend workshops, and six-week summer intensives through Blue Poppy Chi Kung Association.

In 1982, he and his wife, Honora Lee Wolfe, established Blue Poppy Press which eventually grew into Blue Poppy Enterprises, Inc. of Boulder, Colorado.

Flaws is a past president and lifetime fellow of the Acupuncture Association of Colorado, a fellow, and director of the National Academy of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine as well as a past editor of that association's quarterly journal, and a founder of the Council of Oriental Medical Publishers. He is also the co-author and co-director of an NIH-funded research project working with AIDS-related peripheral neuropathy.

Flaws regularly lectures at schools and conferences in the U.S. and Europe.

In 1978, Flaws married Honora Lee Wolfe, the founder/director of the Boulder School of Massage Therapy where he studied massage therapy.

Articles written by Flaws about qi gong have appeared in Yoga Journal and Black Belt Magazine. Up to 2009, he had written, translated, or edited almost 100 books on all aspects of Chinese medicine. He has also published hundreds of articles in both popular and professional journals all over the world.

Selected writings

• The Treatment of Western Diseases with Chinese Medicine
• The Secret of Chinese Pulse Diagnosis
• Statements of Fact in Traditional Chinese Medicine
• Chinese Medical Psychiatry
• The Tao of Healthy Eating
• A Compendium of Menstrual Diseases in Chinese Medicine