Welcome! This page is your curated practice companion. It contains the standard Qigong sequence we cover in class, complete with quick video links to guide your movement.
🧘♂️ Core Practice Principles
To get the most out of your Qigong practice, always maintain these three focus areas:
- Rooting (Yin): Feel the contact points of your feet. Let weight transfer naturally and draw up energy from the ground.
- Alignment (Stacking): Relax your chest, sink your sacrum, and let the back third of your crown press up to align your spine.
- Softness: Move with minimal effort. Qigong is about ease and energy cultivation, not strain.
🔄 The Standard Practice Sequence
Perform these movements in order. Click the Watch Video link on any movement to open a short video tutorial.
What: Gentle bouncing in place initiated purely from the feet and knees.
Why: Pumps the lymphatic system, restores autonomic homeostasis, loosens gelled fascia through direction-change interference patterns, and increases nitric oxide production and vagal tone.
How: Keep feet hip-width and parallel with soft knees. Bounce gently, letting your internal organs and tissue mass move up and down. Hum slowly on an extended exhalation.
What: The neutral, balanced foundation posture.
Why: Maps baseline structural tension and trains anatomical skeletal stacking from the ground up.
How: Stand with feet hip-width and parallel. Soften knees and let sacrum sink down toward heels. Keep sternum relaxed, chin slightly tucked, and crown of head (fontanelle) pressing up.
What: Sensory calibration of your feet and slow lateral weight transfers.
Why: Counteracts age-related sensory degradation in peripheral mechanoreceptors and prioritizes plantar sensory signaling in the motor cortex.
How: Stand in Wu Chi. Map the 9 Yang points on your soles and engage toes to activate the arch suction cup (Yin center). Slowly shift weight side-to-side keeping hips level, pushing off the loaded foot.
What: Meditative circular stepping from Bagua.
Why: Calibrates balance in continuous motion and engages spiral lines of myofascial connection.
How: Maintain a soft, upright Wu Chi stack. Step smoothly around an imaginary circle, letting your waist turn slightly toward the center.
What: Symmetrical forward palm extensions driven by the lower body.
Why: Entrains the bottom-up kinetic chain (Feet → Knees → Sacrum/Waist → Hands).
How: Bring hands to solar plexus / xiphoid process. Inhale: grip feet, sink sacrum, draw palms inward. Exhale: drive force through feet, extend legs/waist, and express palms outward last.
What: Counter-directional palm press (one hand up, one down) paired with lateral waist engagement.
Why: Decompresses the spinal column and loads lateral myofascial lines under single-leg weight distribution.
How: Press right palm toward the sky and left palm toward the ground. Shift weight onto the left leg and lean laterally over the weighted side. Return to center and reverse sides.
What: Rotational waist push utilizing the edge of the palm (pisiform bone).
Why: Teaches rotational power generation through ground-reaction force without swaying the center of mass.
How: Assume a slightly wider stance with soft knees and fix gaze forward. Push with left foot to turn waist right, driving right hand out pisiform-first. Reverse direction with right foot push.
What: Overhead planchette (diamond hand position) paired with axial torso rotation.
Why: Stretches and loads the Deep Front Line and releases diaphragmatic restriction to deepen respiratory depth.
How: Form a diamond/planchette overhead with fingertips. Look up through the shape, load big toes and outer foot edges, and rotate torso around a fixed vertical axis.
What: Low-amplitude leg swings and toe/heel taps in cat stance.
Why: Isolates single-leg balance and mobilizes ankle/hip joints without joint shearing.
How: Root supporting leg at 45°. Step lead leg forward into cat stance. Alternate tapping toe ball and heel, or gently lift foot low off the floor.
What: Dynamic forward leg extension reaching opposite hand to shin/foot.
Why: Lengthens the Superficial Back Line without flexing the lumbar spine.
How: Shift weight back onto heel of supporting leg. Keep torso strictly erect with crown lifted. Swing leg forward dynamically to meet descending hand.
What: 3-count kinetic movement pattern (step-behind, sweep, step) paired with cross-body palm extensions.
Why: Drives cross-lateral neuromuscular integration and rotational balance transfer.
How: Count 1: Step foot behind supporting leg. Count 2: Sweep non-weighted leg outward in a circular arc. Count 3: Step forward to reset. Pair leg sweep with a cross-body palm push.
What: Circular rear leg sweep from cat stance.
Why: Mobilizes hamstrings and hip rotators under strict 100% single-leg load.
How: Root supporting leg at 45°. In cat stance, sweep lead leg around in a backward curve toward glutes ("kicking sand on your back").
What: Step-out sink with chest-to-leg energy compression, claw extension ("Tiger Paws"), and inner-leg pull.
Why: Opens interphalangeal joints, conditions forearms, and engages lower Dantian rooting stack.
How: Lift knee, step out wide onto ball/heel. Press tension down chest, core, and legs while extending tiger paws. Sink hips and pull energy back up the inside of the leg to reset.
What: Hips-forward extension paired with drawing energy into Dantian and sliding palms down sacrum.
Why: Releases anterior hip flexors (psoas) while manually guiding pelvic tuck to protect lumbar spine.
How: Stand wide with big toes firmly grounded. Open hip flexors forward while pulling hands to waist. Slide palms down lower back and sacrum to tuck pelvis under.
What: Full-body isometric contraction ("grabbing the bar") from neck down while keeping jaw and face relaxed.
Why: Leverages Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) / isometric rebound to immediately release chronic motor tone.
How: Inhale, grip floor with toes, engage core, back, and limbs at moderate isometric intensity for 5–10 seconds. Completely release on exhale.
What: Vertical body wave driven by knee and waist drops, with arms lagging behind.
Why: Trains fascial recoil and ensures limbs move as kinetic followers rather than primary drivers.
How: Stand wide. Initiate movement by dropping feet, knees, and waist; arms follow downward. Push floor to rise; arms float upward in response.
What: Archer posture pulling an elastic string while squeezing scapulae across multi-plane vectors.
Why: Retracts shoulder girdle, stretches pectorals, and engages upper-body cross-lines.
How: Raise arms. Lead hand forms bow target; trailing hand pulls bowstring back. Squeeze scapulae deeply at end-range along overhead, horizontal, and downward angles.
What: Diagonally rooted "lawnmower pull" / figure-8 infinity sweep across the body.
Why: Integrates full kinetic chain (Foot → Knee → Hip → Torso → Arm) across sagittal and transverse planes.
How: Reach diagonally down toward opposite foot. Drive off floor with foot, passing energy through leg, hip turn, torso rotation, and extending hand along an infinity pattern.
What: Deep spinal rotation looking over shoulder ("checking for a tail") while loading outer foot edge.
Why: Wrings out the Spiral Line and decompresses thoracic and cervical facets.
How: Root rear foot at 45°, front foot forward loading outer edge. Place trailing hand on lower back. Twist torso and neck to look back over shoulder, leaning slightly away.
What: Multi-directional neck pushes (lateral, anterior, posterior) paired with full-body root.
Why: Trapezius muscles are controlled directly by Cranial Nerve XI, offering a structural pathway for processing high emotional/nervous system stress without cervical overload.
How: Stand in Wu Chi. Press hand against side, front, or back of head. Resist with neck at light intensity for 15–20 seconds per angle, feeling engagement down into upper back.
What: Lotus Lift midline ascension transitioning into Yin/Yang Ward Off weight shifting.
Why: Integrates upper/lower Dantian focus while training force absorption (Yin) and redirection (Yang).
How: Step forward, draw hands together up center line to third eye, expand palms. Shift weight back (Yin), step up to hold ball, and push forward into Ward Off (Yang).
What: Multi-directional cervical isometric pushes paired with eye-led head tracking.
Why: Recalibrates cervical proprioception and integrates ocular-vestibular balance.
How: Work vectors (Right, Left, Front, Back, Side to Side, Top to Bottom, Clockwise, Counterclockwise). For tracking, eyes lead first and head follows.
What: Terminal integrative shaking and vibrational down-regulation.
Why: Flushes residual muscle tone and reintegrates dynamic fluid balance across the myofascial stack.
How: Bounce gently through feet and knees, releasing lingering isometric tension and letting the body settle back to neutral.
🔔 Cautions & Safety
Practice with awareness; your body is unique. If you feel dizzy, light-headed, out of breath, or any “ stabby” pain, stop immediately, sit down, and breathe slowly (5 belly-breaths per minute) until you recover.
General discomfort during fascial loading can occur, but sharp pain requires immediate disengagement. Never use the specific muscle group you are currently stretching to pull yourself out of a deep stretch; bend the knees, re-root the base, and use your leg/hip stack to return to neutral.
