Hello friends,
I’ll explain more about QiGong, which is a wonderful ancient Chinese practice for taking care of both the mind and body through movement, breathing, and meditation.
“Qi” means life energy or bio-energy, which we might refer to as “prana” in yoga. “Gong” means work or method. So, we learn to start working with this vital energy through breathing, movement, and meditation, helping to open it up in the body—moving it through the body.
Now, in these QiGong exercises, it’s not so much about how strongly you can perform the movements or how much you can stretch or open up, as we sometimes do in yoga asana practice. It’s more about doing it with as much fluidity as possible, staying loose and relaxed, but with great attention and awareness. The goal is to become like water—fluid, loose, adaptable to all forms, both physically and mentally. At the same time, we want to develop a strength that can cut through rock.
So, with these movements, try to perform them as mindfully as possible, so they become a moving meditation. With repetition, over time, you will become more and more flexible and stronger, without forcing it.
In these QiGong exercises, we aim to open up the body, the nervous system, blood flow, and so on. We also have energy channels running through the body, which you may be familiar with from acupuncture and acupressure. These are the meridians. Through these different techniques, we open up all the meridians, allowing the life energy to flow freely through the body, making it strong and healthy.
Some of you might question, “Energy? I don’t really believe in energy.” But what do you think is happening when I’m talking now? What’s making my heart beat? How are the thoughts I’m having coming into existence? How are you processing what you’re seeing and adjusting to the environment around you? This is all energy moving through my body, through life, through nature.
So, we begin to tune into this energy, open up everything, and become mentally and physically healthy. But we also become more aware of a deeper layer of ourselves, reaching a higher state of consciousness and being.
