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As I'm addressing here how coaching meets Qigong, I'll be mentioning Abraham-Hicks, Byron Katie, and the Enneagram—three important influences of mine whose teachings and principles greatly inform my work with clients.
Qigong is my absolute favorite mind-body presence-based (and presence-growing!) practice. It can be used at varying levels of ability and strength to generate the unimpeded flow of breath and Qi (energetic life force) through the body for developing and maintaining total well-being. As a student, teacher, and great fan of the Enneagram, which is based in a 3-centers model (body, heart, and head), I appreciate that Qigong promotes physical, emotional, and mental health. A diverse group of people can follow the same forms with self-directed individual variations. When we work together in session, individual choice allows for:
When you take what you learn in the group to practice on your own, variations include the above as well as
I love to think of Qigong as a great way to develop gentle badassery. In Qigong, we never strain or push limits. Still, if you like, you can use it in a way that builds strength. It does that anyway, even at more subtle levels, and also supports greater balance, fluidity in joints, nervous system calming and reset, and emotional balance and well-being. As a presence practice that invites maintaining focus on the breath and moving consciously, it allows for the head to clear and find the blessed relief of relative silence. For those who don't love (or can hardly tolerate) sitting still, it's a great alternative to mediation. The movements in Qigong are typically fluid and graceful, and you're in motion through most of the practice. I have loved Qigong for many years. When I first discovered it, yoga wasn't working for my post-accident body (I was in a serious car crash in 1993, just before I turned 31), and in this ancient practice from faraway, I was able to establish some good grounding and experience ease of movement, fluidity, and even some modicum of grace as I built strength and balance. I lost my footing again in the summer of 2023 when I broke and sprained my ankle in a joyful collision with an exuberant german shepherd, and I know I wouldn't be as solid, strong, and connected to balance as I am now without Qigong as my ally. I taught it for a while with Yoga Farm (2022-24) but I had initially stepped in to fill a gap and the role of teacher felt premature for me. I benefited tremendously (way more than I had expected!) from taking a year off to be part of a mentorship program led by Mimi Kuo-Deemer. Mimi is an amazing Chinese-American woman living in the UK who maintains an active relationship with China (where Qigong has its origins) and has devoted herself to a yearslong practice and growing mastery of martial arts and Qigong. She continues to be a student herself even as she has taught for decades and keeps teaching international students of all ages and abilities. Mimi also authored the excellent and illustration-rich book Qigong and the Tai Chi Axis (2018). During this mentorship, my own personal practice grew tremendously. 
5-ELEMENTS QIGONG What I've most been drawn to is 5-Elements Qigong, which targets all the major organ systems of the body (and then some) and addresses attendant mental and emotional issues. Traditional Chinese Medicine (and healing modalities under its umbrella, such as acupuncture) is rooted in the elements of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water and concerns itself with creating balance and flow where imbalance and blockages obstruct total well-being. WOOD Liver and gallbladder. Anger (bile) resides here, along with irritation and impatience. With wood out of balance, we argue with reality (as Byron Katie says) and do what Abraham-Hicks calls pushing against the unwanted. The Wood element wants to be soothed and calmed, and Qigong Wood forms address that, while also building patience and a sense of rootedness and stability. Wood in balance aligns us with the knowing that everything's working out, it all comes out in the wash. We can let go of fixating on and poring over each annoyance and pet peeve and take life on its own terms. We learn to love what is (Katie) and choose to focus on the wanted (Abraham). You can correlate this element with Ennegram body types (8, 9, and 1), whose life journey includes working with anger (neither overexpressing nor suppressing it). FIRE Heart and small intestine. Joy, including grounded contentment, is central to this element. When fire is out of balance, we may be emotionally dull or frozen, or we may be overwrought and reactive. We may give exaggerated importance to our current emotional reality and have trouble valuing, focusing on, and generating happiness. Qigong heart forms can both calm the heart fire and rev up the joy factor. This element correlates with Enneagram Heart types (2, 3, and 4) and the related forms support their harmonious relationship with the emotional realms. They can assist us to have more grounded, present experience in physical reality, where nothing is inherently stressful, painful, sad, retraumatizing (etc, etc), and we can more quickly shift our interpretations, narrative, and focus to what supports emotional well-being whatever may or may not be happening in our lives. EARTH Spleen and stomach. Themes housed in this element include abundance and well-being, plentiful harvest, all needs fully met. Earth out of balance shows up as anxiety and a tendency to ruminate and look for solutions through (sometimes frantic) mental processes of trying to figure things out and find solutions through research and logic and/or scouting around for advice and opinions. Ultimately, the Earth element is all about balance. The energy of the spleen moves UPWARD, providing cleansed, nourished blood to the body, while the energy of the stomach moves DOWNWARD, sending the food taken in for nourishment through digestive processes for absorption and release. While balance and yin-yang principles are operative in most every Qigong form, whatever the governing element, these are explicitly emphasized in Earth practices. They tend to be very balanced, upward movements matched with downward, motions going to the left and right, awareness called to a downward grounding as the body moves up and an upward awareness and aligning as we sink earthward, Earth-element forms quiet the anxious mind and provide grounding and a sense of embodied solidity. They renew our connection to abundance, or even to a simple trust that our needs are met and we are held and cared for by the Earth itself. Enneagram Head types (5, 6, and 7) especially benefit from working with this element. Out of head, into body, solidly grounded, with permission to look away from the mind and allow more instinctive movement through life in connection to inner guidance that comes in the dynamic now, not through thorough preparation and planning, never mind worry and hypervigilance. METAL Lungs and large intestine. The energy of Metal allows us to pare away things we no longer need and bring in or hold onto what most serves us, what has true value for us, here and now. Because it's so much about letting go, it includes processing grief in the emotional realm. While all Qigong forms involve conscious breathing, WATER Kidneys and urinary bladder. |