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Please join us Saturday December 20th from noon to 3 pm
At the Friends Meeting House (120 Third St, Ithaca)
To remember and celebrate the life of
Anthony Fazio (1951-2025)
Practitioner of acupuncture and Chinese medicine
at Peaceful Spirit Acupuncture
and the Ithaca Free Clinic
Student and teacher of Qi Gong and diverse martial arts,
including Aikido, Iaido, and Tai Chi
Friend, teacher, husband, and father
Lunch provided; additional dishes for the table welcome
RSVP here
for questions, contact Emily Adams, 607-708-0342
Tribute from Pat Dolson, Anthony's wife (posted by her on facebook):
I want my friends and family to know that my dear husband Anthony Fazio has died. Always strong and healthy, he surprisingly got very sick in July and died quietly in his sleep early Saturday November 15, 2025.
We were married for 36 years. Anthony was kind, compassionate and a voracious learner. He studied and taught Aikido, Tai Ji Quan, and acupuncture/herbology in Chinese medicine. His practice Peaceful Spirit Acupuncture helped many. He volunteered his acupuncture skills at the Ithaca Free Clinic. Oh and he loved horror films and Monty Python. And so much more. Twenty-five years in Ithaca, NY and 74 years old, he got around. Yet our greatest accomplishment and treasure is our daughter Ailin.
We always had simple final plans. No funeral but direct cremation after a few days to allow his Buddhist spirit to collect itself.
Now it is time for us to grieve, to rest, and consider next steps. To those who have asked what they can do for us, I ask that you write your story of Anthony and share it with us all. Pictures too. We have so many memories but each is different. I want to hear and cherish it all!
Some thoughts from Jed Michael, friend and colleague acupuncturist:
Anthony left a trail of ideas and plans that have stirred a surprising response since his passing. The quiet beginnings of something has been shaped and people are gathering around the seeds he planted. Nothing is being announced... yet... but something has begun. Please stay connected so that we can reach out to you...
Anthony was an amazing man. A spiritual beacon of light, an insightful medical practitioner, a fount of knowledge and sponge for new information, and somehow simultaneously an immense goofball. -- Gina Varrichio
Tribute from Hannah Rumpf, colleague and fellow martial arts practitioner
Anthony was a close friend of nearly twenty years, and is already deeply missed. He always called me “old friend,” and that’s exactly what he was to me too.
He was a person of unwavering kindness, generosity, and humility. He lived and loved his craft, and his knowledge ran deep. He was an astonishingly gifted practitioner, thoughtful teacher, and trusted friend, As a mental health clinician myself, we frequently referred clients back and forth. Anthony saw what others couldn’t and thought in ways most people don’t. Learning from him was an honor; calling him a dear friend was even more of one.
As a fellow martial artist, I can say that he embodied the spirit of a true martial artist. Aikido, Iaido, Daito-Ryu Jujitsu, Judo, Tai Ji Quan, Qi Gong, and even some Kung Fu - his knowledge and movements carried the quiet depth of decades of disciplined, dedicated practice. Despite all he knew, he remained a student at heart: curious, open, and always refining his knowledge.
Anthony’s presence will remain with me. Everything he shared - knowledge, perspective, curiosity, wittiness, and that unmistakable calm and kindness - will stay with me always, and I will forever be grateful that our paths crossed.
Thank you, old friend, for living so fully and for sharing your spirit with everyone lucky enough to know you. You were extraordinary, Anthony.
(Ginny Huszagh) I enjoyed Anthony’s gentle manner of including and encouraging students, and offering his extensive knowledge and experience in small and selfless ways. He never belittled anyone, but instead made one feel valued and “heard”, coupled with a gentle sense of humor.
(Ernest Blake) I enjoyed talking with Anthony about a variety of topics; and we shared an appreciation for the physics commentator Sabine Hossenfelder.
Thoughts from Emily Adams, patient and tai chi student and friend, posted with a tai chi video on facebook:
Anthony passed away one week ago, at a hospital in Rochester, after several months of steadily declining health. Neither he nor any of his doctors were able to determine what had caused his organs to stop working. Just a few months prior, he was full of vitality, ably demonstrating a different tai chi form to our class (see video) -- not even the form that he was teaching to us. I still can't believe that he has left this world.
Paulus and I had arranged with his family and the hospital in Rochester than Anthony would be transferred here to Brooktondale, to the apartment where my father spent his last weeks. Here, Anthony could receive hospice care from his family, with local nurses and with Paulus and myself assisting. We had a zoom call with him and his family and the person in charge at the hospital, on Friday afternoon, and he gave the plan two thumbs up, and we prepared to welcome him here on Tuesday. But his spirit had other plans, and he passed away early Saturday morning.
Anthony's impressive training and skills in Chinese medicine are described on his website, https://peacefulspiritacupuncture.com/about-anthony-fazio/. But I can share three personal testimonials: When Paulus fell on the icy driveway and cracked a rib, Anthony came by our house with needles, so that Paulus could still get in his van and drive to Boston that afternoon as planned. When my father was struggling after a fall and concussion, Anthony came every Saturday after tai chi class to do special Chinese scalp acupuncture. Anthony treated me, at the Ithaca free clinic and then at his own practice, for long covid and general exhaustion, and I made a good recovery.
But Anthony was so much more than just a talented healer. He was a person who deeply cared and who listened to words, movements, animals, the air, qi. He absorbed life. He was a science-fiction fan, and loved old horror movies, and could talk at great length with my father about the great poets around the time of Shakespeare, and tuned me into the amazing political videos of George Galloway. We all felt deeply heard and seen by Anthony.
Also, Anthony was planning to open an acupuncture school in Ithaca, to fill a huge need for institutions to train the next generation of healers working with eastern healing modalities. There was going to be an initial class of roughly 15 students, starting in September 2025, and he would be teaching classes along with his colleague and friend Jed Michael. I told him that I would happily apply for one of those spots and hopefully finish the program that I did not finish, years ago, in Austin Texas.
It is my great hope that Jed will be able to carry Anthony's plans forward, and find a location and other instructors and funding, and ultimately manifest a school in Anthony's honor. I plan to do whatever I can to assist.
Tribute from Will Fudeman, acupuncturist and Qi Gong teacher
Every encounter I ever had with Anthony was filled with his warmth, light, and caring. Trading treatments, chance encounters in the aisles of Greenstar, teaching me a qigong practice- every moment of connection was a gift of his peaceful, caring spirit. This community will miss him so much. What a blessing to have known him.
Tribute from Barbara Nussbaum
Anthony helped me through many difficult moments, easing my pain from various orthopedic issues with his acupuncture and thoughtful guidance. He encouraged me to begin Tai Chi, and he always listened with patience and care. I’m deeply grateful to have known him.
Please visit this blog: https://blogs.cornell.edu/hist2207/anthony-fazio/. The main content is duplicated below, but there is more on the blog.
Anthony Fazio
Anthony Fazio
Originally a medical technician in New Jersey, in the 1980s Anthony Fazio embarked on a lifelong exploration of multiple styles of Japanese and Chinese martial arts and medicine. His journey brought him into numerous teacher-student, collegial, and healer-patient relationships that — unlike relationships more typical of modern educational and medical institutions — persist for years and decades after classes or treatments ended. His passion for learning has taken him all over the U.S., to multiple schools of East Asian medical and martial arts, and on several trips to China. Anthony embarked on his East Asian martial and medical journeys in the mid-1980s. He remarked that he sees martial and medical arts as “similar paths to the same destination, i.e., the fulfillment of one’s fullest potential; spiritually, somatically, morally. We practice martial arts to better ourselves, not to learn technical aggression; we practice healing arts to help others, the main reason we consider ourselves human.” He said that he combined his martial training and acupuncture with humanities studies because “History and philosophy is the BASIS for everything: why is something worth studying, and what has been recorded about it up to this point.”
Anthony trained in Aikido for twenty-four years, beginning study in New Jersey with the instructors Rick Stickles and Greg O’Connor, and later practicing at Cornell with Yukiko Katagiri. For some years, he also taught Aikido at the Cornell Aikido Club. In addition, he studied such Japanese arts such as Iaido (sword drawing, with Mitsuzuka Takeshi Sensei and Greg O’Connor Sensei and Aiki-Jujitsu (a sibling art to Aikido). In the late 1980s and 1990s he also took up a variety of Chinese martial arts, including Northern Shaolin Gongfu, Liuhe bafa, and Yang-style Taiji quan. He even studied Wu/Hao-style Taiji quan in China under the instructor Zhong Zhenshan, and as part of a winning team in a competition there.
His journey into East Asian medicine began with a desire to balance the aggression of martial arts with healing, which took him to the Ohashi Institute of Shiatsu in 1987. There he came upon a revelation of sorts. His Shiatsu mentor was insistent on teaching them some acupuncture. While learning acupuncture, Anthony tried to use one of the points of acupuncture on himself. He experienced what he describes as an electric shock that mapped not onto neural pathways but through an acupuncture channel. This made him realize that acupuncture is real and that it works, and he committed himself to acupuncture and herbal medicine, something he studied at several schools and with several mentors.
In 2001, after briefly opening a practice in Rockland County, New York, and then practicing in Morristown, New Jersey for three years, Anthony and his wife relocated to Ithaca. Acupuncture was gaining more recognition as a practice that worked, and more schools opened their doors to it, creating new opportunities for Anthony to share his growing body of skills. For six years, beginning in 2003,Anthony Fazio taught adjunct classes at the New York Chiropractic College. (NYCC’s Finger Lakes School of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine became accredited to offer master’s degrees in 2005.) . He taught courses on topics such as Taiji quan, History and Philosophy of Chinese Medicine, and Shiatsu. It was during this time that he met his friend Brian Isacks, who began as Anthony’s student and went on to become a fellow member of the faculty. Since 2018 Anthony has been pursuing a doctorate through the Academy of Oriental Medicine in Austin, Texas. Anthony is someone who has dedicated his whole life to East Asian martial arts and medicine. He is not only knowledgeable on the practices, but on their history and philosophy. Anthony’s life story is one of a pursuit of learning far beyond requirements for degrees and licenses, suggestive of something more like a calling than a simple career. —BQ
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