Foundations of Qigong

Introduction to Qigong1. What is Qigong

Week One Establishing Your Practice

Objectives : Establish a regular routine of qigong practice that you will be able to maintain throughout this course. Learn to quiet
your mind, direct your attention, and basics of breathing for qigong.

Outline:

Beginning your qigong practice

Introduction to meditation and mindfulness

Qigong Breathing

Meditation One: Breath Awareness

Meditation Two: Sensory Awareness

Meditation Three: Directing the Intention

Notes:
The main focus of this week is to establish a regular routine of practice and also developing some basic skills with breathing and
awareness.

Week Two Posture and Awareness

Objectives: Learn simple routines for opening and closing your qigong practice, continue with development of breathing skill.
Learn principles of good posture for qigong. Practice energy awareness exercises.

Session Example:
Breathing Exercise Four: Accentuated Natural Breathing 5 min
Warmup exercise (joint rotation) 5 min
Horse stance 5 min
Energy awareness exercise one 5 min
Energy awareness exercise four 5 min
Cool down exercise (energy massage) 5 min

Notes:
This week as well as continuing with your breathing exercises you will be introduced to some of the postures commonly used in
qigong and you will also begin to practice some opening and closing exercises for your qigong practice and some energy awareness
exercises.
BREATHING
The breath is considered so important to energy that the Chinese character for qi (energy) is often translated simply as breath, so it
is well worth putting in the time and practice to improve your skill with this. The exercises in the first two weeks of this course will
help you to deepen and strengthen your breathing. Never breathe more slowly or deeply than you are comfortable with, rather go to
a level that you can manage easily and then gradually slow and deepen your breath as you continue to practice. Later in the course
when you learn the twelve exercises for the meridians and organs the speed you do them at will be largely determined by your breath
capacity. The deeper you can breathe, the more slowly you will be able to do them and more benefit you will gain.
If you are interested in learning more about your breathing and developing greater skill with it, the Release the Power of Your Breath
course goes into much greater depth in this area.
POSTURE EXERCISES
The time allowed for the posture exercises during your sessions this week is five minutes each session. This is not a long time,
traditionally teachers would often have their students practice various posture for times ranging up to several hours at a time, but
still a beginning student will likely find it challenging.
The best thing to do is practice going into the posture and stay there for as long as you comfortably can. When it becomes
uncomfortable, stand up to give yourself a rest, give your body a shake to loosen it off and then go back into the posture and hold it
again for as long as you can. Repeat this until the five minutes are up.
This type of training will make it easier for you to have good posture during your qigong practice sessions. There are also many other
benefits. The Between Heaven and Earth course goes into these types of exercises in much greater depth if this is an area you would
like to explore further.

Videos

1. Warm Up Exercises Joint Rotations Follow Along https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=lMBAOjrD47M#t=63

2. Cool Down Exercises Energy Massage Follow Along

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG0I1LXYN2I
3.

Introduction to Energy Awareness Exercises scroll down on page

http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/online-courses/qigong-foundation-practices/qfp-week-two-posture-andawareness/

Week Three Following the Movements

Objectives: Become familiar with the twelve health exercises by following along with the video
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_OSiu-2cXs#t=21

Practice Sessions
Session Outline:
Breathing Exercise Four: Accentuated Natural Breathing 5 min
Warmup exercise (joint rotation) 5 min
Twelve health exercises complete set 15 min
Cool down exercise (energy massage) 5 min
You will follow this same session outline each day for the whole week.

Week Four & Five Remembering the Movements

Objectives: To learn each exercise so that you can do them without referring to the book or video
Optional reading: Chapters 7 and 8 of the QFP book
Videos: There are 12 short videos that break down the 12 movements here that is week 3 video broken down (you can just watch
week 3 for full video of 15 minutes) http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/online-courses/qigong-foundation-practices/qfp-week-fourfive-remembering-the-movements/

Practice Sessions
Warmup exercise (joint rotation) 5 min
Learning individual exercises 15 min
Twelve health exercises complete set 5 min
Cool down exercise (energy massage) 5 min
This will be the structure of your practice sessions each day for week four and five.

Week Six & Seven Refining the Movements, Awareness of the Organs and Meridians
Objectives: To learn and practice the finer points of each exercise and gain an understanding of the effects on each organ and
meridian.
Videos: watch all video on this page http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/online-courses/qigong-foundation-practices/qfp-weeksix-seven-refining-the-movements-awareness-of-the-organs-and-meridians/
Practice Sessions

Warmup exercise (joint rotation)

Individual exercises refining the movements and developing

awareness of the effect on the organs and meridians

Twelve health exercises complete set

Cool down exercise (energy massage)

5 min
15 min
5 min
5 min

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12.

Dragon Clears A Path Lung Meridian

Bending The Body And Swinging The Head Large Intestine
One Arm Raising Stomach Meridian
Crane Looks Behind Spleen Meridian
Wild Goose Beats Its Wings Heart Meridian
Punching Wind Small Intestine
Black Tiger Straightens Its Waist Bladder Meridian
Bow and Arrow Kidney Meridian
Turning and Gazing Pericardium Meridian
Two Hands Push The Sky Triple Warmer (San Jiao) Meridian
Tiger Stretches Its Back Gallbladder Meridian
Four Body Movements Liver Meridian

Notes:
At this point you should be quite familiar and comfortable with the exercises. You should be able to do them all in order without
referring to the book or videos. There may however be a few finer points that you have not mastered yet.
This week you will focus on understanding the massaging effect of each of the exercises on the organs and meridians of your body.
Choose two or three exercises to focus on each day and review the organ and meridian video for each of them, then practice those
exercises seeing if you can notice the massaging effect of the exercise on the organ and stimulation of the meridian. Ideally when
you are performing the exercise correctly you will notice a stretching and compressing massaging feeling in the area of each organ
and possibly a warming/relaxing feeling in that area, much as a muscle would feel when it is gently massaged. You will also feel a
similar stretching and compressing stimulation of the meridian. If you do not notice this feeling, see if you can adjust how you are
doing the exercise a little until you can feel it. This acts as an excellent feedback mechanism, you will know that you are doing the
exercise correctly when you can feel stimulation through the entire meridian and massaging of the organ while you do it.
This massaging effect on the organs and stimulation of the meridians is one of the major benefits of these exercises and what
separates them from just doing stretches or push-ups or some other type of exercise which is focused entirely on the external part of
our physical bodies. These exercises will benefit not just your muscles, but your internal organs as well.

Week Eight Emotions, Posture and Organ Function

Objectives: To become aware of the relationship between emotions, posture, organ function and meridians.
Videos: watch all videos here http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/online-courses/qigong-foundation-practices/qfpweek-eight-emotions-posture-and-organ-function/

Practice Sessions

Warmup exercise (joint rotation)

Individual exercises experimenting with emotional postures

Twelve health exercises complete set

Cool down exercise (energy massage)

5 min
15 min
5 min
5 min

Notes:
This week you will gain some insight into how your emotions affect the functioning of your internal organs, and how in turn the
functioning of your organs affects your posture and the movement of your body.

We each have characteristic ways of moving and holding our bodies when we express different emotions. These are natural ways for
us to deal with what we experience in life. If we become stuck in these postures though, they have a prolonged effect on the
functioning of our bodies and can cause long term health problems. On the other side of this, when we have illnesses or problems
with various organs this can also cause us to adopt the same postures, which can eventually lead to us feeling those same emotions in
our life.
These exercises are very effective at freeing your body up and getting it moving well again and in so doing helping to clear blocked
emotions and improve the health and functioning of your organs. The information about this on the videos is by no means
comprehensive the connection between the emotions, functioning of the organs and movement of the body is a broad area of study
and practice, but the information you will cover this week will give you the beginnings of understanding this connection.
The organs in our bodies are paired together into Element groupings in the Chinese medical system. For each of the five elements
there is a solid or Yin organ and a hollow or Yang organ, the triple warmer and circulation/pericardium are and exception and in a
way relate to the functioning of all the other organs, this is referred to in the videos.
The emotions are categorized according to their element, more so than their individual organ.

Week Nine Exploring the Movements, Yin and Yang

Objective: To better understand the exercises by performing them at different speeds and with different levels of tension.
Videos: Learn more about yin/yang here http://longwhitecloudqigong.com/online-courses/qigong-foundation-practices/qfpweek-nine-exploring-the-movements-yin-and-yang/
Practice Sessions
Session Outline A:

Warmup exercise (joint rotation)

Twelve health exercises as softly and slowly as you comfortably can

Energy awareness exercises, your selection from one, two, three and four

Cool down exercise (energy massage)

5 min
15 min
10 min
5 min

Session Outline B:

Warmup exercise (joint rotation)

Twelve health exercises as hard and fast as you comfortably can

Energy awareness exercises, your selection from one, two, three and four

Cool down exercise (energy massage)

5 min
15 min
10 min
5 min

Week Ten Review

Objective: To review and refresh the aspects of qigong that you have focused on in the previous weeks
Videos: the videos for this week appear on the week one and week two pages of the course material. refer to them as needed.

Practice Sessions

Session 1:

Meditation One: Breath Awareness

Breathing Exercise One: Abdominal Breathing

5 min
5 min

Breathing Exercise two: Daoist Breathing

Breathing Exercise Three: Developing Skill with the Breathing Muscles
Breathing Exercise Four: Accentuated Natural Breathing
Breathing Exercise Five: Loosening the Back

5 min
5 min
5 min
5 min

Session 2:

Meditation Two: Sensory Awareness

Breathing Exercise Four: Accentuated Natural Breathing
Warmup exercise (joint rotation)
Horse Stance
Cool down exercise (energy massage)

10 min
5 min
5 min
5 min
5 min

Session 3:

Meditation Three: Directing the Intention

Warmup exercise (joint rotation)
Bow Stance
Iron cross
Cool down exercise (energy massage)

10 min
5 min
5 min
5 min
5 min

Session 4 and 5:

Warmup exercise (joint rotation)

Twelve health exercises complete set
Energy awareness exercises, your selection from one, two, three and four
Cool down exercise (energy massage)

5 min
15 min
5 min
5 min

Notes:
This week you will review all of the material you have covered in this course. Take the opportunity to go back through the book and
videos to refresh your memory of what you have learned and to spend some time practicing the different exercises you have
experienced. You have covered a lot during this course over a relatively short space of time. This review will help to consolidate
your knowledge.
Practice Sessions

Your choice of the qigong practices you have done in this course

30 min

Notes:
Over the past ten weeks there has been a lot for you to learn. Each week you have had different things to focus on, practice, learn
and revise. For the last two weeks nothing new is introduced. It is your opportunity to simply enjoy what you have learned. Each
practice session choose what you feel like doing from the exercises you have learned. You may like to work on some areas that you
dont think you are particularly good at, or you may just want to do some of the exercises that you particularly enjoy.

Going forwards
The exercises you have learned are very sophisticated. If you continue to practice them regularly , there is a great deal more that you
will learn as you pay attention to your body and what you experience as you do them.
I hope that you have enjoyed your experience learning these Qigong Foundation Practices. I hope that as a result of your practice
you have noticed that you have become stronger, healthier, calmer and more able to enjoy every aspect of your life. I hope that this
experience will encourage you to want to continue to practice qigong regularly.

Further Courses
If you wish to learn more about qigong, Long White Cloud Qigong offer a variety of courses that will give you a solid understanding
of qigong principles and many enjoyable exercises to practice. Long White Cloud Qigong also offers a certification program for those
who would like to become qualified to teach qigong themselves. This course forms part of that certification program, so you are
already part way there if this is something you would like to pursue.
You can find out more about these courses and certification atwww.longwhitecloudqigong.com