From the Archive
Four decades, in photographs
Guelph, Ontario — Since 1986
Retired Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner and licensed acupuncturist. Founder of the Oriental Healing Arts Research Institute and director of the Centre of Integrative Natural Medicine. Twenty-seventh generation Ninjutsu grandmaster and founder of the University of Guelph's Ninjutsu program.
Profile
Sherman Lai is a retired Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner who practised in Guelph from 1986 to 2023, and taught Ninjutsu — a martial art passed through 27 generations of his family — at the University of Guelph from 1983 to 2006.
Lai was the founder and director of the Oriental Healing Arts Research Institute and the director of the Centre of Integrative Natural Medicine, a clinic that grew into one of the largest and most established integrative medicine clinics in North America, treating more than 20,000 patients from across Canada and internationally over its history. The clinic combined Chinese medicine with Western science, nutritional science, and lifestyle coaching, and was known for its work with chronic and acute pain, digestive disorders, arthritis, sleep disorders, hormonal imbalances, and — alongside oncologists and other treating physicians, as a complementary and consultative resource rather than a replacement for conventional oncology — cancer care. Lai became a frequent resource for other Western and Eastern practitioners on herbal approaches to complex chronic illness, and after retiring continued as an educator and speaker for medical institutes internationally.
In 2002, Lai founded BioHerbalai Inc., which operated until 2017, to bring together classical Chinese herbal medicine and contemporary bio-science, manufacturing herbal formulations and providing education for health practitioners. In 2003, he was appointed by the Ontario Minister of Health to the advisory committee that helped establish the regulatory framework for Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture in the province — work that contributed to Ontario becoming one of the first provinces in Canada to formally regulate the professions.
"Nothing speaks louder than clinical results. It's very effective for patients suffering from chronic pain, injury or accidents... the basic principle is to heal the body without being invasive." — Sherman Lai, Guelph Mercury, October 2003
Alongside his clinical work, Lai spent decades in community and international service. He was a member of Rotary International from 1992 to 2006, chaired the Rotary Club of Guelph's Health Committee, and supported hospital and children's fundraising throughout the region. In 1998 he volunteered for three weeks in Taiwan providing care to Indigenous communities living in poverty, a relationship that continues today through his role on the medical advisory board of St. Mary's Hospital in Tai-Tung, one of the most remote hospitals in Taiwan. He has also collaborated with practitioners in Taiwan, Japan, and China on integrating Chinese and Western approaches to cancer care.
Credentials & Appointments
Coverage & Recognition
A two-part Life & Health feature profiling Lai's acupuncture practice alongside other alternative-care approaches in Guelph, with several University of Toronto studies cited on acupuncture's clinical mechanisms.
A profile on Lai as the only Ninjutsu grandmaster to have travelled outside the Orient, and his effort to correct Hollywood misrepresentations of the art through education.
Coverage of the first generation of students to earn black belts under Canada Ninjutsu, the school Lai founded in Guelph eight years earlier.
On the inclusive, non-competitive design of the Ninjutsu day-camp program Lai ran through the University of Guelph and city parks and recreation department.
From the Archive