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About

We would far rather practise with you than teach at you

We believe Qi Gong should support you on a physical, mental and spiritual level, and that an authentic, safe approach gives everyone the space to let go of self-limiting beliefs and move forward.

A practitioner working through a movement, photographed from below

We are passionate about Qi Gong

Over the millennia many styles of Qi Gong have evolved, each with its own strengths, its devotees and its critics. It is easy to get caught up trying to find the best style — but there is only the best style for you, in your current situation, and that is the one you find most benefit from.

We should be able to listen to and learn from each other, and that can only enhance our own chosen practice. Through practice, discussion and a more open understanding of how Qi Gong works in a modern Western setting, we want to support you in your style.

The systems we train in

It’s easier to go on a journey with one bicycle

We believe it matters to work through a recognised system. Our team have each dedicated themselves to one, and can guide you at whatever level is relevant to you.

Shaolin Cosmos Qi Gong

少林太虚气功

Combining Buddhist and Daoist influences to offer radiant health, tremendous internal force and spiritual fulfilment.

Find out more about Shaolin Cosmos Qi Gong

Zhineng Qigong

智能气功

As taught at the Huaxia Centre in the 1990s — a full system for healing and self-cultivation.

Find out more about Zhineng Qigong

Elemental Qigong

A contemporary system of Qigong focusing on the five elements of Chinese Medicine, with influences from Hua Gong and Craniosacral Therapy.

Find out more about Elemental Qigong ↗

Health Qi Gong

健身气功

A Chinese Government approved system of qigong that embraces the traditional movements of Yi Jin Jing, Ba Duan Jin, Wu Qin Xi and more.

Find out more about Health Qi Gong

Qigong Academy team

The people behind the Academy

John Millar

John Millar

Primary tutor · Zhineng Qigong

Josef Puff

Josef Puff

Technology and business partner

Clara Apollo

Clara Apollo

Elemental Qigong · teacher trainer

Marilia Blackburn

Marilia Blackburn

Zhineng Qigong · acupuncturist

Naomi Merritt

Naomi Merritt

Research and integrative practice

Teachers in the Qigong Academy community

The people you will practise with

John Millar

John Millar

Primary tutor · Zhineng Qigong

Jeremy Colledge

Jeremy Colledge

Zhineng Qigong Teacher

Lot Wijlhuizen

Lot Wijlhuizen

Zhineng Qigong Teacher

Arianne de Zwart

Arianne de Zwart

Zhineng Qigong Teacher

Feixia Yu

Feixia Yu

Taiji and Health Qi Gong

Clara Apollo

Clara Apollo

Elemental Qigong · teacher trainer

Olivier Rijcken

Olivier Rijcken

Artist and teacher

Doris & Ivo Siebenförcher

Doris & Ivo Siebenförcher

Zhineng Qigong Teachers

Now and in the past

People who have been important to the Qigong Academy’s development

Luise Kohl-Hajek

Luise Kohl-Hajek

Counselling, coaching and mentoring

Constanze Cymmek

Constanze Cymmek

Zhineng Qigong instructor

Tim Franklin

Tim Franklin

Shaolin Cosmos Qigong · therapist and martial artist

Zou Ping

Zou Ping

Zhineng Qigong Teacher

Find a teacher

Somebody near you

Beyond our main tutors, the map shows accredited teachers, student teachers and others in the Qigong Academy network.

  • Tutors working with the Academy
  • Teachers accredited by the Academy
  • Teachers affiliated to the Academy
Ask us who teaches near you

10 teachers so far. The map loads from OpenStreetMap when you open it.

What people tell us

“If you wish to learn and grow and are willing to be challenged in a safe and nurturing environment, by teachers with a wealth of experience, this is the course to choose.”

Margaret

Manchester · Teacher Training

“A comprehensive and in-depth teacher training that focuses on practice but includes the history and philosophy too — one of the best rounded I have ever attended.”

Tracey

Congleton · Teacher Training

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Abbie Thoms

Abbie is currently training to become an accredited teacher
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John Millar

Practising since 1997, teaching full time since 2010, and co-founder of the Three Monkeys School of Qigong.

Having been introduced to Qi Gong in 1997 by my Reiki teacher, I immediately knew it was something that made sense to me. I started searching for a teacher and was soon studying with some amazing teachers from China, the UK and Australasia.
Over the next twelve years I studied seven different styles of Qi Gong, being sanctioned to teach in four of them. Fairly quickly it became clear that I needed to devote myself to a single form, and the form that worked best for me was Zhineng Qigong.
Since becoming a full-time teacher in 2010, Zhineng Qigong has given me the depth of practice and the flexibility of approach to work with a broad range of clients.
As one of the co-founders of the Three Monkeys School of Qigong, I have been training Qi Gong teachers since 2013. That work led to collaborations with Jianshe Liu of the Hexianju Qigong Centre, Lu and Ling of Dao Qi World, and Gao Yuan of Big Qi Field, with whom we are re-translating Dr Pang’s original material from the Teacher Training Programme at the Huaxia Centre.
On the corporate side, a decade in leadership development, soft skills training and workplace wellbeing across the UK, mainland Europe and the Middle East built a reputation for bringing business understanding and Qi Gong together in a way that creates real change.
In integrative medicine, close ties with the College of Medicine led to collaborations with the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the University of Central Lancashire, and then to long-term academic and medical research with the University of Southampton, Oxford University and Oxford Health on the use of Qi Gong in a western medical setting.
Working with one of the UK’s leading Parkinson’s charities has also led to new approaches for bringing Qi Gong into the Parkinson’s community, and to training for Qi Gong teachers who want to work in similar ways.
I believe Qi Gong should be simple enough to be accessible while being profound enough to offer constant learning and insight. It does not matter how long you have been practising — we are all learning, and we can all learn from each other.
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Josef Puff

The person to blame when a button doesn’t work, and quietly pleased when nobody notices the technology at all.

Joe has been John’s business partner since 2024. He is the one member of the team who will not be leading your morning practice. Instead, he looks after everything around it: the website, the online community, bookings, payments, and the small army of systems that talk to each other behind the scenes, usually politely.

His studio, Digital Human, builds websites and digital tools for people who would rather spend their time on their actual work than on passwords and plugins. The name is the brief: technology should feel human, and it should get out of the way. At the Academy, that means making what John and the teachers offer easy to find, easy to join and pleasant to use.

If something on this site works smoothly, that was Joe. If it doesn’t, also Josef, and he would genuinely like to hear about it.
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Jeremy Colledge

Jeremy has been a student of Qigong for over 30 years, and a teacher for more than 20 years. He's an insured Qigong Healer and Teacher specialising in all types of Chronic Illness with an active interest in the “bridge” between Eastern Medicine and Western Science. He lives and teacher between London and Portugal, but also online and all over the world.
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Lot Wijlhuizen

I am working as a full time Zhineng Qigong teacher, coach and Hun Yuan Qi therapist in Amsterdam. Teaching live and online classes in Dutch and English in Holland and the Canary Islands. In groups and private. Everybody is welcome to my classes or at the winter retreats in Lanzarote.
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Arianne de Zwart

Training, practising and healing myself for over 20 years.

For me Zhineng Qigong has always been about healing. Not only physically, but also being and becoming whole in all ways possible. Especially the way I walk through daily life.

This is also the way that I teach. Practising and training together is not only to become stronger in your body and more quiet in your mind. You learn how to integrate Qi and the connection with the Qi Field into your daily life. Your daily struggles. Your daily pain. Your daily patterns.

When I was 24 I broke my lower back and have had pain for 24/7 for ten years in a row. Till I discoverd Zhineng Qigong. After that not only the exercises, but Zu Chang (the power of the group), Xin xin (the power of trust), Fa Qi (the power of healing) and Lian Gong (the power of movement) helped me through a lot more challenges.

I am a teacher at the Dutch Chi Neng Institute where I teach Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3. Also I have founded Chi Neng Healing where we have Zhineng Healing Meditations every Sunday morning and twice a month Zhineng Healing Circles.

Every third Tuesday of the month there will be a Zhineng Healing Circle for every one, free of charge. For you, for your beloved ones, for war zones, for nature, for mother Earth ... Please feel free to join and spread out love, light, Qi and healing all through yourself and all over the planet ❤️
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Feixia Yu

Honorary Principal Lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, researching Qi Gong as an intervention in chronic conditions.

Feixia Yu is an Honorary Principal Lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire. She was the Founding Director of the Confucius Institute from 2008 to 2024, where she organised a wide range of Chinese cultural events on and off campus and was regularly featured in the local media, including BBC Radio Lancashire and the Lancashire Evening Post.

A lifelong advocate for body–mind practices, Feixia teaches weekly Taiji and Qi Gong classes both online and in person, and frequently gives public lectures and workshops on Chinese health traditions, current practice and emerging research. She also delivers bespoke wellbeing sessions for corporate clients. Her research focuses on the use of Qi Gong as an exercise-based intervention for chronic health conditions such as Long Covid, hypertension, Parkinson’s, diabetes and spinal misalignment.

Feixia holds Duan 4 in Health Qi Gong routines with the International Health Qigong Federation and is a senior instructor with the British Health Qigong Association. She is also an indoor disciple of Chen Xiaowang, Grandmaster of Chen Style Taiji. She won first prize in Baduanjin at the 6th European Health Qigong Competition in Vienna in 2024, and two first prizes in Six Healing Sounds and Daoyin 12 at the 11th World Health Qigong Competition in Vancouver in 2025.

Her training includes qualifications from Beijing Sport University as an Exercise and Recuperation Instructor, senior yoga teacher training in India with Yoga Alliance, and certification to teach with the Yoga in Healthcare Alliance. Her classes often blend elements of Qi Gong and yoga, reflecting their shared roots in body–mind practice.

Since the lockdowns of 2020 she has offered over 500 free online Taiji and Qi Gong sessions. In recognition of that commitment she received the Preston Mayor’s Covid Hero Award in 2021. More recently she has been teaching free sessions with the Open University.

Feixia is a member of the Social Prescribing Research Unit at the University of Central Lancashire and is working to embed body–mind practices within the NHS Social Prescribing movement. She is also conducting joint research in Medical Qi Gong with Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
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Clara Apollo

Twenty-five years of Elemental Qigong, a Reiki Master and colour psychologist, and host of the Chi Time podcast.

Clara Apollo is a UK-based Elemental Qigong teacher, teacher trainer and creative energy guide with over twenty-five years exploring the transformative power of Qi Gong. Originally trained as a nurse before immersing herself in the healing arts, Clara brings practical healthcare knowledge together with decades of study in energy cultivation and embodied wellbeing.

She trained with the London College of Elemental Chi Kung, where she later became a Faculty Foundation Teacher Trainer, and has also studied with Qi Gong Grand Master Ken Cohen. For more than a decade she taught regular classes through New Forest District Council leisure centres alongside private groups, workshops, retreats and one-to-one clients.

Driven by a passion for integrating ancient wisdom with contemporary understanding, Clara is developing original research into the relationship between the dantians and the chakra system. This work has evolved into Chakra Qi Gong, an integrative approach that honours the roots of classical Qi Gong while offering modern practitioners an accessible way to explore the body’s energetic landscape.

Complementing her teaching, Clara is also a Reiki Master, colour psychologist, and Akashic Records teacher and practitioner. Her multidisciplinary approach reflects a lifelong fascination with how energy influences health, creativity and conscious living.

Alongside her teaching, Clara has over fifteen years in broadcasting and podcasting. She hosts Chi Time, a platform exploring energy, wellbeing and human potential, and previously co-presented the radio programme One Qi with John Millar on UK Health Radio. She has also been appointed lead interviewer for the forthcoming Quantum Qi film network.

Whether teaching complete beginners or experienced practitioners, Clara’s approach is grounded, creative and deeply experiential. For her, Qi Gong is not simply a practice but a way of living — one that awakens creativity and reconnects people with the intelligence of nature, the wisdom of their own body, and the limitless potential of Qi.
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Marilia Blackburn

Marilia is a Zhineng Qigong teacher and Classical Chinese Acupuncturist. Actually, her understanding and skills set goes well beyond this, but you get the idea.
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  • Research and integrative practice

Naomi Merritt

Naomi is a medical researcher, former paramedic and Qi Gong teacher. She makes Qi Gong hugely accessible to her clients and is central to the research and integrative aspects of our training.
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Olivier Rijcken

Olivier is an artist and Qi Gong teacher based in the Eifel, Germany. He offers a mixture of styles of Qi Gong that are centred around his training in Zhineng Qigong from the Xian Centre in China.
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Doris & Ivo Siebenförcher

We are Doris & Ivo from Austria and are happy to be here in this platform together with John and Joe and so many other teachers and practitioners. Every morning, we lead our Qigong and Taijiball sessions and look forward to starting the day with you. Haola, Doris & Ivo
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Luise Kohl-Hajek

Luise is central to the German Zhineng Qigong Association and brings her huge understanding of Qi Gong along with her passion for counselling, coaching and mentoring to her work.
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Constanze Cymmek

An English and language coach who found that practising Qi Gong changed how she teaches. Although not currently teaching through our site, she remains a great friend and supporter of our work and we look forward to welcoming her back.

My name is Constanze Cymmek. I am married, have two children and a dog, and live in Bad Nauheim.

The idea that we continually learn new things throughout our lives is self-evident to me. It applies to both our personal and our professional lives, and the two often influence each other. I felt the same about Qi Gong: I discovered it because I wanted to develop personally, and it flowed naturally into my work as an English and language coach. The more I practise and guide Qi Gong, the more clearly I notice the development of my whole personality.

After practising at least once a week for more than five years, I began my training as a Zhineng Qigong instructor in early 2023 and completed it in January 2024.

Although Zhineng Qigong is my preferred form, it is not the only kind of Qi Gong I practise and teach. There are so many different exercises, and they all have one thing in common: they are meditation in motion, and in the end they all support the development of both physical and mental abilities.
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  • Shaolin Cosmos Qigong · therapist and martial artist
  • Shaolin Cosmos Qi Gong
  • Lairg, Scotland

Tim Franklin

Tim is a practitioner of Shaolin Cosmos Qigong and a highly experienced therapist and martial artist. He was part of the core team when redeveloping our training in conjunction with UWTSD.

I have been an explorer of energy arts since I was four years old. But I didn’t know it at the time. Born into a family of spiritual healers in 1972, I was introduced to healing by my grandmother at an early age. She would speak of the healing circles she was involved in, and I was curious.

Like many other people, I had childhood struggles that shaped me. I suffered from pain, discomfort and clinical asthma, spending time either receiving treatment, avoiding treatment or wishing things were different. I was told by a doctor that I would never be like other children and that I should accept my health as it was. So instead, I played sports, ran, and became a football captain. Then, practising ‘mind over matter’, I overcame my asthma and self-healed.

Since a teenager, I have practised martial arts, achieving a 1st Dan blackbelt in Karate. Feeling something was missing, I travelled the world searching for a master and found Grandmaster Wong Kiew Kit, 4th generation successor from the Shaolin Temple in China. Seeing and experiencing the healing potential and transformative power of the Shaolin Arts first-hand, I became a dedicated student, inner chamber disciple and teacher.

Trained in Kung Fu, Qigong, Qigong Healing, Tai Chi, Yoga and Meditation, I now work full-time teaching the Shaolin Arts and mind-body-energy-spirit practices, and work as a therapist. The energy arts never cease to amaze me at how simple things can profoundly impact a person’s health physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically and spiritually.
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Zou Ping

Although now back in China, Zou Ping spent a number of years living and working with us in the UK. His insight and enthusiasm fuelled the birth of the Qigong Academy.