Qigong: A journey last 20 years honing my craft. Everything weight training, speed development and movement minded is where my specialty resides. I’ve coached over 5,000 athletes in my career, worked for four major universities and now head up strength for the most successful high school athletics program in the country.
By Dr. Christopher R. Holder
Tai Chi, meditation, yoga, neigong, all of the internal martial arts and Qigong have been known for millennia to bring about a myriad of health benefits. There are countless studies, if you are willing to do a comprehensive search, that support this from all over the world. From addressing very general things like stress down to very specific disease states, the Eastern approach to health has answers for it all. Beyond the search for a cure, most anyone else who regularly participates in this type of work either have a heavy cultural influence or was indoctrinated into a practice or martial system and simply never stopped. Particularly for westerners. And because of this, many of the more esoteric practices that are either in the forefront or hidden in the mysteries of some of these trainings, stay “mystical” and out of the consciousness of western society. I found my way when I began to study with Sifu Dr. Jerry Alan Johnson in 2009. My experience with eastern philosophy of any kind was next to zero before my full immersion in his teachings. I studied Medical Qigong, shamanic Daoism, Tai Chi and Baguazhang which completely shattered everything I thought I knew about medicine, martial arts and mysticism. In 2012, I graduated from his Medical Qigong doctoral program with an emphasis in oncology. Having The Empty Vessel — Page 24
3.5 years of the deepest dive imaginable, I didn’t know where I was going to take my studies. It wasn’t long for me to find a home for it in the exact place I had been working for over a decade.
Performance My 9-5 is very different from that of an energetic oncologist. After my playing days were over as a member of Eastern Kentucky University’s football team, I immediately shifted my role from athlete to coach. If I’m being totally honest, I never loved football. What I loved was the training for football. The long days in the gym, the grueling conditioning sessions and all that goes around for preparation for the season… this is where my love was. Naturally, I went into the sports performance side of coaching for my career. I started my coaching career in 2000. I became a collegiate head strength and conditioning coach immediately and have spent the
At the time of my graduation from Sifu Johnson’s doctoral program we were given a wonderful gift. We were required to write a doctoral thesis for the completion of our degree and because we were oncology students, it was assumed that we would have to conduct cancer research to receive our diplomas. But, as a gesture of love to us all, Sifu Johnson gave us permission to conduct research on any topic that interested us. With that, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. During our clinical rounds I was able to treat folks from all walks of life. The truly sick to those folks who were healthy and simply wanted to have the experience. Concurrently, I had the opportunity to randomly treat my athletes at the university and found some very interesting trends. See, folks who come to me for Qigong to address an illness present in an eerily similar way to an athlete who is burning the candle at both ends training for their sport. Both have marked deficiencies in some areas and an overabundance in other areas. The athlete frankly is lucky that their youth and resiliency keeps them in front of any real stagnations developing and kicking them into the disease state. Oh the magic of youth.
