What is Qigong? Qigong to your health. The Chinese healing practice is thousands of years old, yet you might be more familiar with its younger cousin, Tai Chi. The latter is more martial-arts focused and flowing, whereas Qigong moves from exercise to exercise in a stop-and-go way.
It is pronounced “chee gong,” and can be translated into energy movement. Qi is energy, known to yoga practitioners as prana or life force. The gong is the movement of it. Qigong focuses on the body’s Qi and opening the meridians, which are pathways in the body along which this energy flows. Qigong moves that energy through any stagnant places in the body. Dennis Hiser and his wife, Renee Bailey, lead a Qigong class near Manitou Springs, Colo. I showed up on a recent Saturday morning with only the general notion that we’d probably move slowly and mindfully.
As it turns out, that is one of the intents of the practice. Hiser doesn’t consider Qigong to be an exercise class, but to be a work in healing, mindfulness and stress management. He views the movement as a way to limber the body and use it in ways that we don’t normally do every day, which leads to greater health and immunity.
Hiser is a supervisor at Goodwill Industries, overseeing 120 disabled clients. He has incorporated Qigong into their monthly activities. His passion is working with those with physical ailments and helping them to overcome the illness mindset of being defeated by their incapacitated state. He encourages them to not allow their disease or ailment to take them, but to take charge of their illness and take the healing back into their own hands. Qigong gets them moving and breathing, and can be less physically challenging than yoga or Pilates. The River Region’s 50+ Lifestage Magazine
By Jen Mulson
Qigong is not only good for illness, but for those with life struggles, he said. He’s seen high-risk youths thrive in one-on-one sessions. He also notes the benefits for those with weight issues. We began our class with Qi walking. Barefoot, we were instructed to slowly walk around the studio, feeling the entire foot roll onto the floor. Heel, arch, ball of foot, toes. As we did this mindful walking, we were to think happy thoughts.
He then taught us the breath work, showing us to hold our hands, palms face up, near our low belly, and inhale to a count of three as we lifted them toward our face. Then we flipped our palms over and exhaled to a count of three, pressing the air to the ground. A few minutes of slow walking combined with breath awareness led to a pleasing state of calm. Much as in yoga, the breath crucial to the movement, to energizing and oxygenating the blood and replenishing the organs, Hiser said. There are thousands of Qigong exercises, but Hiser teaches the eight Brocade for Health. Brocade can be considered a series. We did eight exercises with varying repetitions. Hiser is careful to modulate the number of reps, taking into account the health of those he is leading. The practice is intended to build health and energy, not to push an ill body even further away from health. He praises Qigong for its ability to work with anybody.
The exercises were done standing, but can be easily modified into seated positions, he said. As the hour ticked by, we sat into a horse stance and moved our arms up and down slowly and
twisted side to side, moving the Qi. The forward-and-back and up-and-down movements are intended to direct the flow and circulation of Qi along the 12 meridian lines of the body.
In specific exercises, we worked on strengthening our lungs, spleen, stomach, kidneys, heart and brain. We learned an exercise to help release anger. It involved taking a wide, bentkneed horse stance, elbows into sides and then punching one fist slowly out at a time, adding a personalized vocal sound to the outward movement.
After the eight Brocade, Bailey took over and taught Shaolin Massage, a lovely, nurturing way to end class. We started from the top of our body and gave ourselves a head massage. Our ears were next, where a plethora of acupuncture points reside. We rubbed and squeezed the insides and outsides of the lobes, then moved to our eyes, our sinuses and jawline. We pounded lightly on our kidneys with our fists and then turned our torsos left and right, allowing our arms to swing out, fists lightly hitting the same organs. Throughout class, Hiser spoke eloquently about the pace of our current culture. It resonated with me and might with you, too.
“Slow down. Don’t just go from point A to point B. Stop in-between and reflect on it,” he said. “Don’t waste the journey.” _ Jennifer Mulson teaches vinyasa yoga at Corepower Yoga and Gold’s Gym in Colorado Springs, Colo. (c) 2011, The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.). Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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February 2011
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