Tevia and Dana talk about Qigong and Healing

This is from a podcast transcription of White Tiger Qigong's Master Instructor, Tevia Feng and Dana Maxey about Qigong and Healing from the Juicy Pause podcast.

Tevia and Dana talk about stress and anxiety and the amazing healing power of Qigong and life experiences. Here is what they discussed. Hoping you will find the healing you are looking for.

Okay, okay. Welcome to the Juicy Pause. Tools for transitioning through menopause and other major life changes, and life shifts while remaining powerful, creative, and exuding vibrant radiance during our wisdom years. My name is Dana Maxey, and I'm your host for this series. And tonight I have the privilege of interviewing my Qigong master instructor, Tevia Feng, who is the founder and Master Instructor of white tiger Qigong. Welcome, Tevia. Thank you for joining me for this series. We really appreciate you having me. 

Thanks for having me.

Dana's Experience with Qigong and Healing

Yeah. So I just want to briefly go into how I met Tevia. I was very ill with about four things. And I won't go into that. But I was dealing with an illness. And as I started to come out of it, I had a dream one night that she has gone, and Chinese medicine would finish healing me and I would become whole through that practice. And so the very next morning, when I woke up from that dream, I got online, and every time I typed in Qigong, White Tiger Qigong would pop up, and there was this amazing, you know, temple and this guy and a black hat and a black, you know, outfit who was faced, I couldn't see doing these amazing forms. And I'm thinking, Oh, send me wherever this is, I've got to go here, this, this will heal me. And so then I would try to find something nearby, I might you know, where I live, and boom, White Tiger would show back up.

And so I just, I just said, yes, if that's what the universe is saying, let's do it. Let's do it. So I jumped onto the course called my sister knew Eve knowing she had studied she going for about three years. And she joined me and we took Tevia, a September course. And I'm still studying with him, I'm in phase two of another course with him. And it's just been a transformational experience, the very first practice of our very first form that we had to use, the moment I did it the first time, something in my body released, I started to cry. And for the next two weeks, I concentrated on that form. And I really began to have the shift of, of what had been really, really wrong started to loosen up. And I was able to see myself again for just even if it was just for moments. And then as we started to work through all these different forms, and I started to meet this community and started to do all that, I just, I healed I've healed, I feel 100% I'm entirely different than I was last September. And it's really exciting. And so that's why I wanted to invite you on today and have you share with us, your story with Qigong about how you came to it, and you know where you've gone with it. So jump in and share? 

Tevia's Life

Well, well, first, I want to just acknowledge how happy I am that you reaped such great benefits from this practice. And your intuition led you to this, and you followed that. And that has led to an incredible recovery for you. So I'm really I mean, these types of stories are what inspire me to keep spreading this practice around the world and sharing this with people. I really that those are the most inspiring stories or the stories of my students like, like the one you just shared. So thank you. Well, I started Qigong when I was seven years old because I was born with a chronic illness. And my parents didn't want me to be on medication my whole life and in hospitals with doctors and they wanted to find an alternative therapy, an alternative way for me to really strengthen myself. And my father did Qigong before I was born. So he found a Qigong master that I could study with every day after school. And that was how I got introduced to Qigong and it strengthened my organs strengthen my body strengthened, my mind concentrated me and it became a staple in my life and a crutch, so to speak. And fast forward later, I was a teenager, I was in a brutal car accident, and doctors told me I had to have surgery on my spine. And I went to my master and I said, I am scared.

The Paths of Qigong

I'm going to have to go under the knife. I'm going to go into surgery for my spine said don't do it yet. Just try that First, he gave me the simple wave exercise called the wave Qigong. It's a simple Qigong exercise. I did the five to 10 minutes every day. Now, it took me four years to heal my spine, but four years later, I was pain-free. So four years to reach a pain-free state. And now, you know, I'm, I have better spine than many people I know in their 20s. So and I never had surgery and I attributed it to Qigong. So that, to me was really a testament to how powerful this Qigong is. Later, I went to work in a Qigong clinic in China working with cancer patients and people with difficult-to-treat illnesses, Tourette syndrome. And my first patient was a man who was dying of liver cancer, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, and didn't smile. After just three days of Qigong exercises, and medical Qigong therapy, he was able to smile he was able to eat, he was able to sleep. And this man, you know, eventually unfortunately died. But he enjoyed the last days of his life, in peace and happiness.

And he invited me into his home and that touched my heart so deeply to be able to be there for someone who's suffering and show them a way to relief, to release and relieve their own suffering. And to realize that this practice is so special and so powerful, I realized that this was what I want to do for the rest of my life. And so since then, I've worked with people with MLS and had incredible results. I've worked with people with Parkinson's disease, with positive results. I've worked with people all across the spectrum. I've also worked with professional athletes, the world champion female karate fighter of 2019, and the North American Muay Thai champion, I worked with hedge fund managers, CEOs, but also just everyday people. And I've just witnessed incredible results across the board for all these different types of people, whether rich or poor, whether sick or an athlete, I've just witnessed so many beautiful, incredible results. So I'm really excited and happy to be able to share this practice with people. Now,

What is Qigong?

no, go ahead. I was just gonna ask to know what if you would describe for us what is Qigong? Hmm. I don't know what Qigong is.

So a lot of people don't even know how to pronounce it when they come in and say, Qigong, quiet going, what is this qigong? And, you know, well, anyway, it's, it's, it's a 5000-year-old science of human potential. So this was developed 5000 years ago by the Wu tribal people in China who were like these shamans. They were a kind of shamanistic people that would dance around fires like and, and they would do animal dances. And they found that these animal dances, energize them and they got into a trance into a zone into what we might call a flow state. And they started to make them more formal into actual formal dances. And then, fast forward a few 1000 years later, a man named Watteau, who was a Chinese medicine physician, decided to integrate the meridians, the organs and bones of Chinese medicine into this and created what's called medical Qigong now, so what is Qigong, "Qi" is defined as simply energy. And "Gong" is a refined skill. So Qigong is the refined skill of working with energy.

Now, this might sound esoteric, or vague to someone. So I really wanted to break it down, in a way that someone from the modern world could understand it would make sense. So then I got into the fascia. And fascia flipped the way, I was able to explain Qigong and I was able to explain it in a scientific way. So for those who don't know what fascia is, fascia is the web that encapsulates your body, it wraps around the organs that wrap around the bones becomes the bones, it wraps around the muscles, and it's the glue that holds your body together, and not if your body didn't have fascia, it would fall apart.

Learning about Fascia and Chinese Medicine

So this is now a science fascia is a science. It's modern science. It's reshaped anatomy books and our understanding of anatomy that we're not just made up of individual muscles. We're actually a web of interconnected fascia. So you could have a headache and not realize that the actual headache comes from your foot. Well, Chinese medicine has known this for 1000s of years. That's why they treat meridians. So this guy named Thomas Meyers. He's a manual therapist, he dissected cadavers. And he found that these fascia connective tissue lines that connected the body were almost identical to Chinese meridians.

Now, he didn't know anything about the Chinese Meridian and someone had said to him, you should check this out and compare it to the meridian maps. So that's what he did. And lo and behold, they were almost identical. And he found that when you coil and uncoil, these fascia connective tissue lines, which he called myofascial meridians, generated an electrical charge that could be measured with a scientific instrument. And so that is essentially what I realized what my master was talking about with Qi is because my master said, "tension to relaxation, coil and uncoil the body this generates Qi" and he was essentially talking about this electrical charge that we can generate in the fascia. So that essentially is what Qigong is, in a nutshell. Now it's specific movements.

The way leading to White Tiger Qigong's discovery

Now in our Qigong, White Tiger Qigong, we use specific, dynamic movements, to wring out the organs like a sponge. So we believe that the organs hold toxins and hold emotions. Now, fascia science has proven that fascia holds emotions. And you can wring it out like a sponge through these deep squeezing and undulation undulating movements of the spine to massage and wring out the organs like a sponge, and the fascia like a towel. And what happens when you do this as you're able to release pent-up tension, emotions that are inside, and toxins that become like residue in the body. And then we have meditation like It's like moving meditation, and then we actually have a still meditation and breathing at the end of the class, or of the practice. And that is like, essentially, from a modern perspective, we would look at it like almost like self-hypnosis is if now the body is relaxed. Now I'm tapping into the parasympathetic nervous system so I can rest and digest. And now the mind is more open to programming. So I can reprogram. And we know from neuroscience, that the mind is programmable. So you need to be in a programmable state. And now you can create your own program. And we use a Taoist methodology that's 1000s of years old. And a lot of it is emotionally transformative. Meditations such as really connecting with that emotion, such as, for example, stress, or anxiety, and then allowing it to let go leave the body and then bringing in the antidote emotion, which could be nurturing, or love, or joy or happiness, and bringing that in and actually changing our physiology through that. So through concentrated practice, yes.

The Healing Power of Qigong

In psychology because that was one of the main things that I found when we were working, and on a form, that when that emotion was released, if I found in a day, or in a moment in a day that it started to come back up. That's where the retraining came in. I'd say, Dana, turn yourself back in. Okay, let's go back to the dragon I'm going to say dragon because Dragon is my favorite dragon was the one that was really my key. And then let's go back into a dragon and let's do this form. And let's work it because we don't think this way anymore. We don't have these emotions anymore, we have released them. And this is what we are patterning, a new way of thinking, and a new way of being. And I would just stop myself in the middle of whatever that negative reaction was, and twist it to go with what we were learning in your, you know, in your course. And it was fascinating, because all of a sudden, all I had to do after, you know, six months or so was just think of it. And I was, you know, I didn't have to go into the form anymore. I had transformed my brain or my emotional reactions or however you want to call that it was it's just been phenomenal.

Qigong's Emotional connection

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And, and that is essentially the crux of it. And what happens is, is you we have Western psychology, which is great. And we have also now new sports science and fashion science that shows that emotions are held in the body. And we have neuroscience that shows we do have actual physical reactions to our emotions. And so when we can use that as a cue, say you feel that emotion coming on, you have an intervention, where say I'll give you a parameter example, I, you know, say I have a, an argument with someone I know, in my house in my household, someone I love one of my family members. And that, you know, as we all know, arguments with family members can be the tensest because they can rub you in the rawest ways they know how to do it better than anyone. And, you know, normally, you know, if I didn't have Qigong, I might be emotionally reactive and snap. Whereas with the Qigong, I can take a moment, go outside, do some nice movements that work on my liver, massaging the liver, which stores anger, and, then also do some meditation and breathing. Now I've relaxed my body, I've relaxed my mind, I've let go of the emotions now I start to think more rationally, rather than emotionally. And I go in, and I can now have a rational, calm conversation about the topic rather than being emotionally reactive.

Chinese Medicine and Emotions

Yeah, hey, will you go through the different organs and the different emotions and then what the anecdotal emotion is for that? Would you mind?

I'm happy to do that. So. So right, in, we have the five major Yin organs in Chinese medicine. And each one is each organ connects with a different emotion. And, and, you know, emotions, I want to say that there's no negative emotion. It is, you know, I read on websites, you know, the negative emotion is this, the positive emotions, that is actually all emotions are healthy when in balance, even anger is healthy when in balance, because it acts as a catalyst for action. But when it's out of balance, when it's excessive, that's when it can become toxic. So the heart is connected with the emotion of joy. And on the flip side, it's connected with the emotion of desire. Now, if our desires are too strong, that is like, you know, you're never you never satisfied, you always want more, you've got everything you want, but you still don't feel happy, you're not satisfied, you still feel like Oh, I'm missing this, I'm missing out on that. And that can lead us into depression, where we want to bring, you know, a balanced state would bring ourselves into peace and contentment. So bringing ourselves into a state of contentment, where we feel that we have everything we need. And we're we have everything right there.

So this is also a mindfulness practice, Qigong when you do this, you're really tapping into the here and now. And that that actually releases the here-and-now chemicals in the brain, which we're finding out from neuroscience as well. So stimulating the here and now. So we're literally doing a true mindfulness practice through doing this. And so now we move down to the lungs, the lungs are associated with grief. So think about it, when you get sad, your shoulders start to go forward, your chest starts to hunch over, and it closes up and you're trying to get a breath of air, like when you're crying. You have this like you're trying to breathe in, it's the body's natural way to try to balance itself. And to try to get that nice breath of air in.

How does it work?

What we do in Qigong is open the lungs to bring balance to the lungs and really get a deep breath in. And then we can release the grief or sadness. And we can come into happiness, joy, and love. And so these kinds of emotions can help balance out excessive grief. Now we move down to the liver, as I mentioned before, it's associated with anger, but also on the flip side forgiveness and love. So forgiveness is a way to counteract excessive amounts of anger, how can you be angry when you're forgiving? So when I'm tapping into that meditation we call it a 5 element meditation because also each organ I should mention is related to an owl a natural element as we're the microcosm of the natural macrocosmic world. So the wood element is connected to the liver.

Elements, Our Emotions, and Body

And so I might connect with you know, feel myself in a forest, which makes me feel calm and can help release anger and go into feeling forgiveness for either the person I was blaming or anything because, you know, when you hold in blame and anger towards someone, it turns back on you and then it becomes toxic to yourself. And so, now we move on to the spleen, which is under the left on the left side of the body, under the left ribcage. And that is associated with worry with anxiety. And so when you are really worrying and ruminating over something, it's hurting, it's harming the spleen, and we need to move that emotion through the dynamic movement and then do meditation just like with all the organs. And we can bring in, you know, the antidote to worry, which is, you know, which is feeling nurtured, you know, think about a baby, when a baby cries and the mother nurtures and holds it, it feels relaxed again, it relaxes the worry, and the anxiety leaves the baby.

Even though we're supposedly adults, we still have that, you know, an inner child that does need to be nurtured, that does, you know, we need a human touch. And we need that feeling of nurturing you can get from the earth. So uh, standing on top of the earth barefoot, feeling the earth energy, feeling the earth nurturing you feeling natural and energy connecting with nature, that, and then releasing that that anxiety and feeling nurtured, connecting with that emotion is going to help release that anxiety.

Fear 

Now we move on down to the lowest organs of the human organs which are the kidneys, and the kidneys are associated with fear. So think about, you know, like a deer caught in headlights. So you go into fear and you freeze, and you're tensing and your lower back, lower back pain is actually commonly associated with people who are in fear states. And I think about all those people, all of us in the world, you know, all of us now are working on computers. And we're sitting in a stagnant position. And we're going through emotions, when we're doing oftentimes, when we're going through eat, you read an email you, you see the financial fears, you're reading the news, and seeing all the fears that are, you know, being implanted in the news into you, and you're sitting in a chair, which is already in a stagnant position on the back, and you're experiencing those emotions. And now that's exacerbating the fear condition, the fear state. And so the kidneys really react to that.

Courage and Willpower

Common symptoms of that might be low libido or low willpower. And so what we want to do is increase that willpower, increase the courage, to balance that fear. And so we have Qigong that rings out the in a twist the spine, so it rings out the organ, the kidneys, like a sponge. And then we can bring in the water element connecting with the water element. And releasing the fear. Think about it, when you're you are next to a river, or the ocean waves, or a lake, it's calming you feel you feel, you don't feel that fear, it's released, those emotions are released, and water has that effect. So we connect with that water element. And we connect with that feeling of courage, and willpower. And so those are the five main Yin organs and the emotions that they're connected with.

Hmm, beautiful. I can remember when I first moved to Mexico, and that and just I lived on the beach, this was 20 years ago, and I just lived on the beach and I would be right in front of all those waves. And every day at a certain point, I would just start to cry. And there was no story it was just like that water was brought must have been bringing the kidneys, you know that that fear is one of my major issues. And when I was ill I had the noradrenaline hormone stuck on almost for a year and a half without turning off. And it was pretty awful. But it was you know if once I did the story around fear based upon the forms that we were learning with you and I just started to connect with my body and those forms and the spirit of those forms as well.

Then everything started to find his balance and you know, and now live in balanced for something that plagued me for quite some time clearly, you know, I just didn't realize it because you just keep trudging you know, trudging forth, you know, so it's a phenomenon. It's a phenomenal, phenomenal practice. And I'm just wondering if you at the moment would take us through a meditation or breathing technique or some form of relaxation, for that general stress and anxiety that we're feeling in this day and age of chaos. 

Stress, Anxiety, and Imbalance

Yeah, absolutely. So we can go into one for anxiety and stress. So we'll do a 5 element of Qigong meditation. Now first I want to explain what's different. What's the difference between meditation and a Qigong meditation? Okay, so Meditation is a very broad general name. Meditation can be many things many different there's so there are hundreds and maybe 1000s of types of meditation out there. So what defines Qigong meditation is, that we have to have three harmonies, that's the body, the breath, and the spirit. So what does that actually mean? So first, we need to engage the body, like the body and the spirit are intrinsically connected. If the physical body is in pain, the spirits going to be in pain. And if the Spirit is in pain, the physical body is going to be in pain. I mean, let's look at some actual manifestations of the Spirit. And those are the emotional imbalances. But it's also a manifestation of the physical body, since they're intrinsically connected, there's no separation.

Qigong Inhalation and Exhalation Matters

So what we want to do is we want to harmonize the body breath and spirit, how do we do that we're going to, number one, create a posture or in dynamic Qigong, we create a movement, then we harmonize that we synchronize that with the breath. So we're going to have a specific breath, the breath, we look at as a strategy, a strategy for releasing, in this case, so we're going to have a longer exhalation than our inhalation. The reason for that is, is that longer exhalation when we look at it from a neuroscience perspective, is going to tap us into a parasympathetic state, which is the rest and digest as opposed to the sympathetic state, which is, you know, in that adrenaline state, or that that anxiety state, that stress state. So we're going to focus on a longer exhalation, in this case, with a natural inhalation. Or sometimes we can do a long inhalation and a maximum exhalation. And then we're going to engage the spirit by using visualization, engaging the senses engaging. So how are we going to engage the senses? Well, we're going to work on the earth element, since the earth element is associated with the emotion of anxiety or stress.

And we're going to connect with the Earth, we're going to feel it come into our body. And we're so that's engaging the senses. So it's going to, we're going to create a feeling like a sensation. And we're going to also visualize it. So we're engaging as many senses as possible. And what we're doing from a scientific standpoint is we're inducing a physiological reaction. So when you focus on something so much, you actually induce a physiological reaction. If you focus on stress and anxiety so much, you're going to induce a negative physiological reaction. In this case, we're going to induce a positive physical, and physiological reaction. So if you're ready, we can begin. Lovely!

Sitting Qigong

So if you're sitting down, you can either sit on the floor, or you can have your feet touching the ground, but the key is we want a connection with the ground. So you can either have the feet flat on the floor or if you're sitting on the floor, cross-legged, you feel you're perennially connected to the earth, you feel your Crown Point connected to the sky, so your spine is erect. You couldn't even stand up doing this if you wanted to. So I'm sitting in this case, my feet are flat on the floor, I'm in a chair. My hands are over my lower belly, one on top of the other. And my tongue is touching the roof of my mouth.

And the reason for this is we're connecting the front and rear energy centers of the body, which is a whole nother course in itself. But so we're going to now gently close your eyes and we're going to take a cleansing breath. So to do a cleansing breath, you're going to inhale through your nose, fill up your lower belly, push out your lower belly gently and take a full breath in and gently slowly breathe out of a pinhole of your mouth as if you're blowing out of a straw. releasing any feeling of emotion, thinking, or toxins in the body. Actually like seeing it come out of your mouth as if you could visualize it releasing from your mouth. Again, breathe in slowly, long, slow, soft breaths and breathe out focusing on the dirty Qi the dirty air, the emotions releasing out of the mouth, trying to elongate your exhalation making your exhalation longer than your inhalation. So breathing out nice and slow. Again, breathe in as you breathe in the fresh air the fresh Qi filling up your body, and breathe out.

Refocus

So now we're going to start to go into meditation. So I first want you to connect to your lower dan tian. That is the lower Lexar field. So essentially, deep down in your lower abdomen is the center of gravity. You know, dancers know this is the center of gravity. And we call this the lower down to that, which means the lower elixir field. And essentially, that's where your sexual organs and your digestive system reside. So this is the energetic powerhouse battery storage center of your body. So we're focusing on that like a small ball. As you inhale, it expands as you exhale, it condenses. And now, we're going to start to connect with that anxiety connect with that stress as we breathe in, we breathe in that anxiety, we breathe in that stress and connect with it, feel it, we don't avoid it, we feel it. And exhale out of a pinhole of your mouth and let it go. Again, breathing in connects with that emotion of anxiety with stress. And breathe out slowly out of a panel of your mouth, letting it go.

Healing Sounds of Qigong

Now we're going to add a healing sound. So the healing sound is for the spleen. And so you're going to now we're going to, we're going to breathe out the anxiety breathe out the stress, but we're going to breathe in now we're going to focus on breathing in the energy into the spleen. So you can even put your hands over your left side if you want where your spleen is, it's underneath your left ribcage, or you can just leave your hands where they are, it's fine. If it helps you connect with that organ more you can put your hands over it. Then we're going to breathe in and feel as if we could breathe in earth energy up from our feet from the ground drawing the earth energy up into the spleen. And as we breathe out, we're going to make the spleen sound which is "whooooo".

and when you're doing the spleen sound, you want to make the vibration so that you can feel it in the spleen. So you want to actually feel the vibration like in the spleen, shaking out that emotion and releasing it. So now again, we're going to breathe in draw on the earth's energy, draw in the emotion and send me a feeling of nurturing feeling that comes up from the earth, up through your feet up into your spleen, and releasing the stress and anxiety with the spleen sound "Wheew".

Breathing and Energy

Already might start to feel a little calmer. We're going to add another dimension to it you're going to breathe down energy from the sky we call this heaven energy. It's literally Universal Energy Star energy. You breathe it down through your Crown Point from the sky. You feel the energy of the stars of the cosmos coming in through your Crown Point into your spleen along with the earth energy coming up from your feet from the earth so you're drowning in Heaven and Earth Qi we call this into the spleen and released with the sound who.

Okay, we're going to do one more sound and you'll do it on your own without my instruction so you can really focus on it to maximum breath in and maximum full slow, long breath out. And now, start to bring your awareness down to your lower dan tian your lower belly. Allow your breath to start to naturalize, normalize, and go back into homeostasis. The breath now is in and out through the nose and you start to feel the head relaxing scalp breathing in like warm energy into the scalp. Seeing this. This earth color And then feel the scalp melting like ice, feel the face-melting like ice as you release the tension, breathing that warm earth energy into the neck and throat and as you exhale, you feel the throat and neck relax. Going down your chest and shoulders and you breathe in that earth energy. So you've visualized it like a soil color. And let the shoulders and chest relax the heart, relax the muscles around the heart. Feel this energy like a wave of relaxation moving down, down through the core of your body down through the lungs.

Qigong and Healing Practices

Feeling the lungs relax as you exhale. Everything's sinking down around the liver. Relaxing as you exhale. Breathing in this earth energy into the spleen. Seeing the spleen pulsing like earth soil rich soil color, feeling the earth in the spleen. feeling the emotion of feeling nurtured. Visualize any scene where you can feel nurtured whether it's lying on the earth or being held by someone you love. Connect with that emotion. Connect with that feeling. And feel the spleen relax as you exhale. Feel this energy sinking down through the lower back and the kidneys. Kidneys, relaxing the hips and groin relaxing as you exhale. And the energy is coalescing into a small, rich soiled colored pearl. Deep in the lower dan tian in the lower belly. Your breath is slow and long like a silk thin thread. As you inhale, the pearl expands. As you exhale, the pearl condenses, storing the Qi energy that you've built today.

How to use Qigong to Relax and be Calm

You feel relaxed and calm. Your breath is so soft, it's audible and we're going to start to bring the awareness back outwards. So feeling your toes, the air against your skin. Notice the sounds around you and feel the air coming in through your nose. You can open your eyes slowly and have a wide-angle vision. Allowing the colors and the shapes around you to come in. And you can open your eyes and that's the five elements of meditation for worry and anxiety. Now stress now you can use this anytime you want. For as many times as you want it for as long as you want people to say how many repetitions should I do? Well, you should do as many as you feel you need until you feel relaxed. That's the whole key. So if I'm going through real deep worry and anxiety, I'm going to do this, you know, 10.....20 minutes, maybe more than you know. So whatever I feel I need. That's how long I will do it until I and if it comes back again, I go back and do my Qigong. So I could do if I'm in a real you know, deep and worry and anxiety state. I might do the Qigong, you know, multiple times a day as many times as I need it.

Oh, that's fabulous. Thank you so much for sharing that it's so crucial right now. So crucial in the world right now. Tell us about a white tiger Qigong the school, the classes, and the courses. Let's go into that. 

Traditional Qigong meets Modern Science

White Tiger I started out in China teaching retreats and bringing people over to study in the temples with the Masters I was training with and we would have small groups I eventually was invited to teach in Bali and I ended up living in Bali and teaching there and I was teaching just a few times a week and just living on $60 of income a week. And then White Tiger grew and grew and grew from teaching in my backyard to selling out every venue we went to just about four years and then COVID hit but we have 60,000 members of white tiger Qi Gong we have 1000s of active online course students right now.

The Birth of White Tiger Qigong

We are reaching a bigger and bigger segment of the population each month and the people coming to Qigong are growing so fast. So what makes White Tiger Qigong unique is that I took a traditional ancient Qigong, Taoist Qigong, and I fused it with cutting-edge science. So I worked with a neuroscientist. I worked with sports science experts, I worked with anatomy experts, and fascia experts to create a comprehensive curriculum, and also professional educators, I worked with a guy who had his master's degree from Stanford University in education, to put together a university-style curriculum that can be learned online. And, it can be learned by the most beginner student to the most advanced student can still get a lot out of this course. The integration of sports science has really given us a tangible way for people to discover Qi. So I'm very excited about White Tiger Qigong, and the results that people are getting. Our main thing right now is due to COVID. And the travel restrictions are mainly online, we have us we have master courses and teacher training with instructor guidance, and it's quite comprehensive. And it's intensive, and then what you did, and then we have the regular online courses, which are shorter online courses and ebooks, we have courses for emotional balance.

The Trinity System of Qigong Healing

So the course that I just taught you is, is a snippet from our qi gong for anxiety and stress course, we have Qigong for all the different emotions, and we have Qigong for body balance. And then we have our Trinity Qigong system, which is the 5 animal Qigong, five element Qigong, and 8 Trigram Qigong, which are core courses. So that's essential, in a nutshell, what we do.

And it's really fun. It's, it's amazing, the online community is amazing. In my, in, everyone's from all over the world. I think the first course I was in, I think there were only three Americans out of all the students and we were from everywhere, we were all waking up at different times of the day for the live course. And different times of the middle of the night, that I ended up I'm still in touch with three or four the students from that class and we still, you know, talk about Qigong and do our homework. And, you know, it's really it really opened up.

Our Qigong Community

It opened up for me, it opened up the world again, especially during COVID That, you know, to tap into, to people all over. So that was, I think it's we've built a beautiful community, people have made lifetime friendships. People call us the United Nations, because we have so many around the world, in my life, in one of the last live-in-person courses that I taught, we had people from 27 countries in one course, it was phenomenal, all together. And it was so beautiful to be with all these people from different cultures and different places in the world. Just doing this single ancient practice together. It's beautiful. So I love teaching and sharing with people from all around the world. And we have this wonderful community, we have a private online community, for our students. And we have to offer a lot of support in that way.

Thank you, and your and your instructors are all from all over the world, too. It's really fun.

We have way over we have over 60 instructors from around the world. I believe we have the largest directory of certified Qigong instructors in the world currently, and we have a pretty strict process for becoming a teacher as well. It's not easy. It's not in it and oh they're tough on me I'm you know, what, do try this again, do that. And then I'm like I'm six years old, I just learned I can finally feel it's on my left side again. Yeah, we'll get back to work. Which I'm grateful for, you know, I'm grateful for that process. Because, you know, in other you know, other subjects, someone takes a weekend long or two-week course and bam, they're a teacher. And that's, you know, it's a little dangerous in my, my book. So yeah, that was the big challenge for us.

Our Courses and Trainings

When we went on our training online, how can we keep the integrity and the quality of these teachings and still bring them online to the masses? And that's why I reached out to professional educators. I worked with one lady who got her master's from Harvard University and, and in education, and she specializes in online education. She helped me break this down really into chunks and ways that students could really learn this and grasp it online. And that instructor support that we offer is really is focal to students' success.

So we have the qi gong for worry and anxiety online course. I believe it's normally around $99 Depends I'm not sure what it is currently, but it's rough. It's usually that price. And I'm offering that as a gift, a free gift for all the listeners here, and really happy to share that with you guys. And that's my gift for people going through the struggles that you're going through right now with COVID and the lockdowns and shutdowns and, and joblessness, I really hope this can help you act as a crutch and help guide you through this and get you through this these difficult times. So, yeah, and thank you for having me on this. This was a pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity.

Well, thank you and I'll be back in class soon. And now that I'm back from Mexico, and now we don't have all the issues with timing and bad internet, I'll be back live again, many of you. But thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate all your help getting us off today and in good qi. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day. Okay.