My Journey into Qi Awareness

Thinking back to the very beginning of my journey into acupuncture, I return to the early 2000’s when I, on a whim – because a book had jumped off a shelf at the bookstore at me – decided to take my Reiki level 1 training. I was travelling through New Zealand on my Odyssey Path, with an intention of where to go next with my work in Outdoor Ed. And since I was off on an adventure – why not try something that my midwestern raised self thought of as too woo and out there for my down to earth, farm raised self?

This seeded the exploration into the sensation of qi, between my hands and in the space surrounding me.

I came home from New Zealand and enrolled in shiatsu school in Boston, not really knowing what I was stumbling into, leaving outdoor education behind me.

As a shiatsu student, we were immediately introduced to finding the meridian pathways in our bodies through stretches, movement, and qi gong. In these practices, I found that sensations between my hands began to wake up – there were magnetic sensations of pushing or pulling, the air felt thick around me, like molasses, my body would tingle and relax, shake and tremble through stagnation and agitation, then settle into a deep sense of solidity and connectedness.

What is Qi Gong?

Qi Gong is a meditative movement with breath, like the familiar form of Tai Chi, that can be found in many practices and movements that open the flow of qi anywhere in the body. While clearing out stagnation and tension, it also is a beautiful form of cultivating energy reserves and increasing your body’s vitality and healing.

The Hun Yuan Primordial Qi form is one that I started practicing in Putney VT with Thomas Garbarino, a student of Ken Cohen, a China scholar and qi gong grandmaster. The work that I did as a shiatsu practitioner began to go more deeply, with new sensations waking up in my hands as I was working with individuals. The fields around individuals, when I tuned in to the qi, became palpable. I could feel where an injury wanted more energy, sometimes six inches from the body, sometimes further out at twenty inches or more.

What will we do?

These are a rich series of exercises that move through movements of cleansing and cultivating. We will start with the foundation of qi gong principles and the first movements and then build on the form with each class.

As a white, cis woman, practicing an Asian medicine, I think often about my responsibility to the awareness of appropriation and to the culture that we have learned from. These are beautiful forms that I look forward to sharing. I don’t have the answers to the questions, but I honor the teachers and the lineage of the forms, along with all I have learned and the skills I have gained over the years.

Please join me for this series starting in January.

Class size is limited. Please add yourself to the waitlist if registration is full so we can gauge interest and consider moving to a larger space.

Blessings in the flow,

Lucy