Goldmine of Energy

Despite the gloomy weather, January has been a wonderfully qi-full (yes, I made that word up) month for me, thanks to all of you. I’m thrilled to welcome the newcomers, to welcome back those we haven’t seen for a while, and to continue to see every one of you who has been with me from the start.

A great pleasure of practicing and playing Qigong is that no matter how advanced you are, there is a gold mine of energy to be excavated from even the simplest, most familiar of exercises. One of my teacher’s teachers, B. P. Chan, said the reason for studying Qigong is to master what he called “the four virtues”: lying down, sitting, standing, and walking. (!) The challenge is to learn to do them with ease, attentiveness, and alignment. When we move that way, even the simplest movements become a pleasurable source of grace and energy.

In Qigong we explore through movement how not to separate our thoughts from our feelings from our body. We practice bringing them together, so like three horses pulling a cart in the same direction rather than struggling against each other, we create lots of energy.  This is tricky at first! But with practice we begin to recognize the wonderful state where things begin to flow together. That feeling of integration and flow explains why we feel so good after class, so full of energy, yet relaxed. For many of us, learning to relax while staying attentive to our thoughts and movements is a leap of faith at first. It might even feel a little weird, or make us dizzy at times. (That can happen when qi begins to move through parts of our body/mind/spirit that may be a bit blocked.)  As it flows, energy brings fresh, new vitality and healing. We learn to trust this process, and to trust ourselves. Almost like turning the clock backward, we rediscover the freedom and joy of movement that we had as little kids.