Become a Medical Qi Gong Therapist
Additional 500 Hours
(over 1 – 2 years)
Welcome to the final phase of your Qi Gong training.
You do not have to teach large Qi Gong classes to be a Medical Qi Gong therapist. You will, however, need to be comfortable teaching your clients the exercises, forms, meditations, and breathwork to improve their inner vitality.
You will also need to have a regular, in-depth, and very well-balanced Qi Gong practice to be a grounded and effective Qi Gong Healer.
I am going to take a moment and speak to the Qi Gong ‘experience’ and its potential. I will imagine that I am speaking to a person who is interested in going very deep into the Qi Gong Universe, and who has recently invested a great deal of time and effort in becoming embodied, aligned, and playful, while opening to vulnerability, personal healing, and conscious transformation.
If you have:
- Opened your joints and can actively repair your body,
- Learned to assess, assist, and replenish your internal organs and meridians,
- Cultivated a connection with Qi awareness, energy centers, and energy gates,
- Found a seasonal balance with strength, flexibility, feasting, and fasting,
- Restored the innate structure of your bones and marrow.
- Learned to meditate like a Shaolin monk,
- Practiced Consciousness expanding breathwork, while being guided through your Inner Landscape and Innate Minds,
- Committed at least one Rite of Passage to a Shamanic Qi Gong practice for a Reunion with Nature,
- Learned how to release Embodied Trauma,
- Restored your innate internal circulation through the Microcosmic Orbit,
- and have explored Shaolin and Daoist Meditation, Breathwork, and Spiritual Practice or already participate in a Wisdom tradition,
…it is likely you will live a longer, healthier, and happier life.
Also, after all of that deep Healing and Spiritual work, you are probably capable of experiencing and conducting a great deal of ‘aliveness’ and vitality, or Qi.
It is usually at this point that Qi Gong practitioners make a deeply personal decision.
Continue your journey and flow with life as you have and become an excellent Qi Gong teacher, or become a hermit or a monk and ‘Return to the Source’, or become a Healer and help reawaken this capacity in others.
Today, there are several options to becoming a certified Medical Qi Gong Practitioner, Therapist, or even a Doctor of Medical Qi Gong. Most of the courses available, including what I offer, are a combination of online content, in-person hands-on experience, and clinical training with your own patients or clients.
The term Medical Qi Gong, in some states and provinces, is a ‘protected act’, only allowed to be used by licensed Doctors of Traditional Chinese medicine. So, depending on where you live, if you sought out a Medical Qi Gong Therapist or Doctor, you may meet very different people with very different training. The letters that you may eventually place after your name may or may not be easy to recognize, at least not yet. In the program that I offer, graduates who choose to become certified to practice can use the acronym SQP/SQT (Somatic Qi Gong Practitioner or Therapist) depending on the degree of clinical training and responsibility they choose to engage in. I chose that designation because I teach a combination of an ancient Daoist practice, TCM, modern Medical Qi Gong perspectives, and Trauma Release skills.
Hopefully, in the near future, there will be a more formal standard for education, certification, and eventual licensing – which means that medical insurance companies are more likely to pay for the treatments.
It is an exciting time for Medical Qi Gong!
Learning Medical Qi Gong Online Requires a lot of Support
You will receive the same support as in the 200 and 350 Hour Programs.
The first form of support will be weekly LIVE webinar events.
EVERY WEEK, we will focus on the most essential, foundational, and tangible principles of Qi Gong practice. Similar to an in-person class, we will practice together for part of the class, then I will teach a new exercise or skill, demonstrating the correct version and some common errors specifically for learning on a screen. I will do my best to exaggerate the subtler aspects so that nothing is missed. LEARN MORE…
We will also gather monthly as a group and learn together. For the first few months, I will be going deeper into the principles and theories of Qi Gong. Once the group has learned the essentials and is ready to begin sharing, you will have an opportunity to share an exercise or two, or lead the group through a 20 minute (mostly silent) Qi Gong experience, or enjoy learning from the offerings from your peers. LEARN MORE…
The third form of support is a Bi-Monthly LIVE and in-person, (or in e-person) connection will be your Private Review, Evaluation, and Guidance sessions. In these sessions, you will have a chance to demonstrate what you are learning, ask questions, share breakthroughs, and get some feedback on the subtle details of your practice. As you progress through the levels of the Soma Dao process, you and I will develop a familiarity with your good habits and specific challenges. This will help you develop the best personal practice for your present needs, as well as guide you in what you may want to focus on as a Qi Gong teacher. LEARN MORE…
Another form of support will be follow-along audio files and/or written descriptions of every exercise, skill, theory, and/or traditional teaching. This part of the program is in development. The course manuals will be available ASAP. Keep in mind that Qi Gong is an embodied practice. You will learn much more from your personal practice, watching the instructional videos and taking notes, watching others practice online during group sessions, or from practicing your teaching skills while sharing Qi Gong with people in person.
Once you are ready to work with people in need of Medical Qi Gong Therapy, you can join in on the group Case Study Review Sessions. This can help you choose the best Qi Gong exercises and practices to teach your clients, strategies for the Progressive Somatic Release of Trauma, as well as specific Hands-On Qi Gong Healing protocols for each condition and personal history.
If and when you are committed to becoming certified as a Medical Qi Gong Therapist you will be invited to two LIVE in-person weekend clinical seminars. There is a small fee for these intensives and there is a minimum number of participants.
Please read the Student Resources and Application Package for clarification of commitments and responsibilities, especially with respect to note-taking, clinical records, and personal accountability.
Each level of the 500-Hour Medical Qi Gong Therapist Program takes you deeper into the journey of Embodied Awareness, Inner Cultivation,
Somatic Healing, Medical Qi Gong, and many other skills are needed to become a confident Practitioner or Therapist.
Level Eight
Enhancing Your Qi Gong Healing Abilities
This course is delivered over an eight-month period.
The primary focus at this level of Qi Gong training is to strengthen your Mind’s and your Body’s innate abilities to conduct and maintain a connection with increased Qi activity for hours at a time.
The content of this course has always been reserved for Monks, Martial Artists, and Healers. At this level of training, a certain part of your capacity resides in an awareness of Qi, but most of your capacity resides in your deeper energy systems and structures that ‘hold’ and express all of that energy throughout the day – especially a long day of treated patients.
This ‘level of practice’ primarily exists to prepare people for a career as a Medical Qi Gong Therapist, share some advanced forms with future scholars of Qi Gong, and guide some Qi Gong adventurers who want to see how far down, up, and inward the ‘rabbit hole’ goes.
Course Contents:
At this level of Qi Gong practice, it is wise to cultivate a great deal of patience, a dedicated personal practice, and a connoisseur’s relationship with refinement.
Hun Yuan Qi Gong – Primordial Qi Gong
Tian Shan Qi Gong – Sky Mountain Qi Gong
Tree Qi Gong
Five Element (Wu Xing) Qi Gong
Nei Yang Gong and Spiritual Recapitulation
Daoist Healing Initiations
Seasonal Qi Gong Attunements
Instinctual, Visceral, Emotional, Energetic, and Existential Wounds
108 Day – Restoring Your Innate Minds and Universal Belonging
Level Nine
Becoming a Healing Vessel and a Hollow Bone (Nei Gong Two)
Preparing for a Career in Medical Qi Gong
This course is delivered over a one-year period.
Inner Power development (Shaolin Nei Jing Gong) – practicing Medical Qi Gong takes a great deal of concentration. You need to be able to ground yourself (literally), and you will need to feel into and respond to many subtle energetic puzzles and possibilities – in every treatment. On a regular basis, you will need to ‘purify’ your Meridians and Dan Tian, to ensure that you are not getting stuck in any patterns. When you need it, the Shaolin Nei Jing Gong (Inner Potency Restoration) will ensure that you do not get energetically burned out or ‘pick up’ other people’s energetic curses and challenges.
Level Nine also includes:
Daoist Shamanic Dao Yin
The Indigenous Daoist Universe – Yu Zhuo Zhi Dao
Daoist Alchemy from the Yi Dao Huan Yuan tradition (Jin Hua Nei Dan)
An Ethical Life of Autonomy and Reciprocity
Self-Care for Healers
Public Speaking
100-Day Chan meditation
This course is taught over a year to stay in tune with the seasons.
Level Ten
To become a Qi Gong Healer of any kind, you will need to touch people, often, and with a lot of intention.
You will also need some guiding principles and protocols to learn and practice this ancient art.
Medical Qi Gong focuses on combining intention, visualization, and repetitive gestures of interaction with the patient’s Qi Fields, systems, meridians, and internal organs.
Modern Medical Qi Gong has evolved towards ‘hospital’ protocols that focus on the interaction with the disease process and the vital capacity of the patient’s Qi. This is a good place to start for most western practitioners because, in this model, Qi is a substance or field that can be moved or changed. Conceptually, this could look like scooping out grey turbid and foul Qi, then clearing the area with cleansing Qi, and then nourishing the area with Healing Qi.
That is a very oversimplified example.
In the older forms of Medical Qi Gong, specifically the more physically interactive and hands-on approaches, the focus shifts from effecting Qi Fields, to connecting with a series of layers of interaction with how the system is containing, exhausting, dispersing, or collapsing on itself.
In this model Qi is not a substance, its expression is a result of the interaction between Jing (Essence) and Shen (Spirit), Sky and Land, Yin and Yang. The more layers of interaction between the Healer and the patient, the deeper the shift in Jing Shen (physical and emotional state of being). There is also the understanding that these interconnection, co-regulation, inter- regulation processes are happening anyway – just because the Universe loves itself. In this tradition, coherent states, guided visualizations, and multilayered tangible interactions shift the result, by reorienting the cause of the Qi dysfunction. In the old school approach, these processes occur during ceremonial or intentional ‘treatment’, that involves tangible shifts of State through Breathwork and Trauma Release (Dao Yin) practices.
The modern version and ancient version come from the same source, they just focus on different relationships and potential. Both are necessary and require their own specific kinds of training. The biggest difference is how much ‘Hands-on’ physical interaction and collaborative Breathwork happens. Over time, with either approach, and with some regular personal (often prescribed) Qi Gong/Dao Yin and meditation practice, the greenhouse returns to balance and inner abundance.
The following skills and knowledge are the foundation of what I recommend and teach. Please remember that what I offer is only a 500-hour course and the focus is on a combination of the old Dao Yin approach, some aspects of modern Medical Qi Gong Therapy, and some Indigenous and modern Trauma Release practices. If you are looking for a more modern and clinical approach to Medical Qi Gong, there are 1000, 1500, and 2000 hour programs available in China, and internationally.
Course Contents:
Bodywork for Deep Relaxation
Myofascial Release of Embodied Memories
Somato-Mapping
Breathwork and Bodywork Integration
A Collaborative and Symbolic Diagnosis
Feeling into Qi and other energetic connections
Gathering Allies from Nature
Somatic Mindfulness Processing
Dan Tian and Meridian Clearing
Internal Organ Restoration
Understanding Trauma, Addiction, and Your Polyvagal System
Fertility and Longevity Protocols
Autoimmunity and Cancer Protocols
Medical Qi Gong Clinical Case Studies
A Supervised Clinical Practicum
Two Live and in-person weekend Practicum Experiences