Where Qi Gong comes alive

Qi Gong is a form of moving meditation that originates in China and has developed over millennia in order to address a broad range of needs. There are a vast number of Qi Gong schools, each using the practice for the benefits that are appropriate for the school. These benefits fall broadly into the categories of Martial, Medical and Spiritual and most schools will be a mixture of these three main areas.

Qi Gong is a blanket term for a wide range of practices that include the practice of Taiji. Taiji, or Tài jí quán to give it its full name in pinyin, translates approximately to “grand ultimate boxing” and points clearly to the origins of this practice as one of the three main internal martial arts of China (the others being Xíng yì quán and Bā guà zhǎng). In the modern Western setting, Taiji can often be presented as a health and wellbeing practice, but the underlying principles and practices have been designed more for the martial application. Qi Gong on the other hand is a broad term for a wide range of practices that have been specifically designed for Martial, Medical and Spiritual benefits. Each style of Qi Gong will combine these three aspects in different proportions and, as a result, draw from a broader range of underlying principles based in the practice’s origins in Chinese Medicine and Chinese philosophies such as Daoism and Buddhism.

There is a plethora of styles of Qi Gong and while the majority of them will draw from the same source, there are some styles that have different underlying principles and may appear to be contradictory. While the styles of Qi Gong that we are able to directly support through the Qigong Academy are representative of the teachers who we are currently working with, each one of our key teachers will have dedicated themselves to their chosen style. While we don’t agree with the idea of there being an “ultimate” or “best” form of Qi Gong, our experience is that the best form of Qi Gong is the one from which you derive the benefits you are looking for.

In short: Yes! In general terms, Qi Gong is easily adapted to meet individual needs, but please speak to your instructor if you have any concerns. We regularly work with people with mobility issues and significant diagnoses, so we can support you in finding the approach that is best for you.

The trick to getting great results is in consistently applying the ideas and philosophies that lie within Qi Gong into daily life. Traditional approaches will tend to emphasise regular, prolonged periods of practice, but while there is undoubted benefit in this approach, our experience is that it’s often the simple idea or subtle change in physicality that creates the space for far greater transformation.

One of the great benefits of our approach to Qi Gong is that you can try a broad range of styles and approaches in one place. If you don’t find anything here that resonates with you, please talk to us. We are always happy to signpost people to other teachers and other approaches that will support them on their journey.

All of our membership and community work is run through a platform called Circle. We have tried a number of platforms, but this has proven to be the most secure and reliable for our needs and the needs of our clients.

The Circle platform integrates directly with the payment gateway Stripe, which is one of the most trusted gateways for online payments.

Once you have set up your membership, you have the ability to manage all of your information and cancel at any time by accessing your account settings in Circle.

You can find these options by clicking on your icon in the top right of community pages and we will be happy to assist you should you have any difficulties in either updating information or cancelling your membership.

The majority of our sessions run on Zoom as we have found it to be the most reliable and accessible platform.

It should be noted that different teachers may choose to use different platforms and we are always looking to find better ways of working. As a result of this, some sessions will run on Circle’s native software and you may find some sessions use alternative platforms. Should any of these cause problems, please let us know and we will do what we can to resolve issues arising.