Transformative Powers of Dayan Qigong

Before discovering Dayan Qigong (DYQG), I was a self described couch potato and fair-weather walker with minimal, inconsistent exercise experience. I had survived multiple injuries and resulting health challenges and was living a stress-filled community organizer/administrator lifestyle. I struggled with chronic migraines, tiredness, stiffness, depression, anxiety, and mood swings. In other words, I was a typical “functionally dysfunctional” American with less motivation than most, poor coordination, a low threshold for pain, and very little self-discipline.

Not long after I started practicing Dayan Qigong on a daily basis, I began noticing subtle changes. For more years of my life than not, I was plagued with self-doubt, chronic depression, and unpredictable mood swings. But now I was experiencing more of a flow in life colored with contentment and fundamental happiness. I started feeling an interesting mix of calm liveliness, and playfully fulfillment. I look back now and see with pleasure how DYQG helped me to become proactively, fully engaged in my own wellness, and the well-being of others. More importantly, I am grateful for the ways that DYQG helped me to discover and learn how to Live a Life of Balance—from my own center. The pulse of that profound lifestyle change truly began with my very first class with Grandmaster Hui Liu, at the Wen Wu School of Martial Arts, and it continues to deepen with each passing year.

I am continually amazed to see how resilient the human body is, and to witness how forgiving it is when we begin to care for it well. My greatest joy comes from making DYQG accessible to students in ways that help them personalize and embed what they learn into their everyday lives. Regardless of what brings students to class initially, their axis of engagement—like my own—expands and changes over time. The joy and privilege of teaching, for me, is helping students to form a new relationship to themselves and the ever-changing alchemy of the body–mind–spirit dynamic.