Qigong is how I came home to my own body.
A four-thousand-year-old practice for a modern nervous system that has never been so loud.
The Practice That Changed My Medicine
I found qigong in 2002 and in Chinese medicine school we had the option of taking qigong or tai chi for one semester. It was the first week of school when I met my first teacher, Lee Holden. He also went to Five Branches and was the instructor. From that first class, I have never looked back. I took qigong all 10 semesters (I also took tai chi) and I was certified in June 2005. It has been the practice I return to every day, for more than twenty years.
Before qigong, I had always thought of myself as an athlete. I started ballet and gymnastics at age 5, played every sport I could in school, and even received a scholarship to play Division I field hockey. I understood bodies from the outside — muscle, posture, performance. Qigong turned me inward. It taught me that movement is not something you do to the body. Movement is something the body already wants to do, if you give it space.
Twenty-four years later, this is still true. And qigong is still the single practice I prescribe most often in my clinic — for more conditions than any needle or herb.
What Qigong Actually Is
Qigong (pronounced chee-gong) is the movement and breath practice of Chinese medicine. The word itself means energy work — qi is the animating life force that moves through every tissue of the body, and gong is sustained, disciplined practice.
Where acupuncture moves qi from the outside in, qigong moves it from the inside out. Where herbal medicine nourishes the body through what you take in, qigong nourishes through what you do with your attention, your breath, and your body in space.
It is not yoga, though they share some ancestors. It is not tai chi, though they are cousins. It is its own long lineage — slower, quieter, and in my experience, more specifically medicinal.
Practiced regularly, qigong:
Teaches the body how to feel itself again — which, for anyone who has lived through trauma, burnout, or chronic stress, is the work
Regulates the nervous system out of sympathetic activation and back into parasympathetic rest
Opens the meridians where qi has stagnated — the physical origin of most pain and most emotion
Builds the body’s reserves rather than depleting them, unlike most forms of exercise
My Teacher
I trained with Lee Holden and Holden Qigong — a lineage I consider home.
Lee is one of the most respected qigong teachers in the West, and Holden Qigong is where I was certified. Over the years our relationship has deepened into something closer to extended family. I now formulate the custom Chinese herbal formulas and teas for Holden Qigong — a strategic alliance that brings together my clinical training and the practice tradition I love. More to come on this later!
If you are looking for daily qigong videos, full courses, or a complete library to work with at home, I will always point you there first. holdenqigong.com is the foundation many of my own students build their daily practice on.
What I Teach
Taoyin — the ancestor of yoga. Deep, held, breath-coordinated stretches that release stored tension from the connective tissue: fascia, tendons, ligaments. This is where most emotion is actually stored, and where most chronic tension lives. Taoyin reaches places stretching alone cannot.
Tendon Nei-Gong — subtle internal strength work. It looks like almost nothing from the outside, but it builds deep-body strength and pliability that standard exercise cannot. For anyone over forty, this is some of the most important work there is.
Five Element Flow — moving sequences organized by the five elements of Chinese medicine: wood, fire, earth, metal, water. Each element corresponds to specific organs, seasons, and emotions. We move through all five so the whole system gets watered.
Breathwork — the bridge between body and mind. Specific breath patterns to regulate, energize, calm, or clear. Most people have forgotten how to breathe well. Qigong gives it back.
Visualization and Meditation — the quiet practices that make everything above land. Without them, qigong is slow exercise. With them, it becomes medicine.
Why I Prescribe This Practice
One patient comes in with headaches. Another with insomnia. Another with anxiety that spikes in the late afternoon. Another with back pain that nothing has touched.
In almost every case, part of what I prescribe is qigong.
Not because it cures everything. But because most modern suffering has a common root: a nervous system that cannot come down, a body that has forgotten how to regulate itself, and emotion that has nowhere to go. Needles and herbs can do tremendous work. And the body also needs a daily practice — something simple, short, available at home — that keeps the work going between our sessions.
Qigong is that practice. It is the one I trust most.
Who This Is For
- Anyone with a stressed, tired, or overstimulated nervous system
- Patients working with me on chronic conditions who want something to do between sessions
- People who have tried yoga and found it too fast, too hot, or too performative
- Anyone over fifty who wants to stay mobile, strong, and clear into the next decades
- People who have done a lot of talk therapy or trauma work and are ready for a body-based practice
- Anyone curious about Chinese medicine from the inside out
How to Practice With Me
Monthly live classes — Boulder and Santa Cruz. One class a month in each city; about twice a month total. For anyone who wants to practice in person.
A growing library of replays. Live classes are recorded and added to a practice library so you can work at home, at your own pace, whenever you need it.
For daily practice between classes. I recommend the Holden Qigong library — vast, well-taught, and where I built my own foundation.
A Note on Practice
Qigong is not about getting good at it. It is not about achieving the form. It is about showing up — five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes — and letting the practice do its slow work.
Consistency matters more than duration. Daily small practice is worth more than occasional long practice.
If you take nothing else from this page, take this: breathe for ten minutes today, slowly, through your nose, with your shoulders dropped and your feet on the ground. That is qigong. Everything else is refinement.
A Blessing
May your breath remember you.
May your body find its own rhythm again.
May the old practices carry you where the new ones cannot.
May you move, slowly, home.