Day 92 – Qi Gong

I’ve been trying to keep moving as much as possible whilst being stuck indoors at the moment. I manage to run 3 times a week, and as I mentioned here, I’ve been doing a lot of online classes live-streamed by the local fitness centre. After increasing my running distance this week, I have a little less energy than normal, but the desire to move was still there: this Qi Gong lesson came along at the perfect time.

I’ve read that Qi Gong is similar to Tai Chi ( I tried it as one of my early new things and loved it) in that it uses co-ordinated movements at a slower pace, as a meditative practice. Tai Chi has a set pattern of moves, based in martial arts, that follow each other like a dance, whereas Qi Gong is a little more adaptive, more focused on improving health. Or at least that’s what I’ve gathered from reading online! I’ve been going regularly to Tai Chi classes since I first tried it in January, so I was happy to finally try Qi Gong and find the difference out for myself.

As with Tai Chi, Qi Gong is something you can practice in loose and comfy clothes – a.k.a. my uniform for the past few weeks, something that fit into my chilled-out-moving-mission.

The class (actually presented by my Tai Chi teacher, Peter) was so calming and relaxing. The picture above shows me moving slowly up and down with my breath: it was incredibly grounding and meditative. Doing all the exercises to activate the chi (life force) in different areas of my body was a strange feeling, but looking at it on the surface, it was a great way to gently warm up the body.

I really enjoyed doing the class, it helped loosen some tightness in my back and shoulders from spending too long sitting down, hunched over a computer. My body felt relaxed, and my mind clear: something sorely needed after the past few strange weeks. When things return to normal again, I’ll definitely attend a real-life class, but until then, I’ll try and find an online class and keep practising.