Medical Qi Gong Therapy
This Course is Level Ten of the Soma Dao Medical Qi Gong Training Process
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.
Just a quick question…
If your Inner Landscape (Nei Jing) was a valley, a high mountain, or a desert, how would you feel?
The Inner landscape practice is a part of the Ancient Daoist Shamanic Dao Yin version of Medical Qi Gong. Before bed, you feel into your body and ask it to show you your inner landscape – the qualities of aliveness that you intuitively ‘see’ inside your body. Some people draw or paint their Inner Landscape as a part of their Healing Journey. From there, what kind of support and Qi Healing, Qi Gong, Dao Yin, diet, meditation, and other choices would bring more balance?
A conscious and therapeutic relationship with those felt sense, belief, fate, fault, illness, and often Spiritually awakening experiences is just good medicine. However it works…
What is ‘actually’ happening from a scientific point of view, is fascinating to look into. As a researcher, the many ways we can measure the potential benefits of this incredibly supportive form of healing are inspiring.
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.
The world definitely NEEDS more Healers and Doctors – especially the Qi Gong kind.
- Bodywork for Deep Relaxation – being able to help a person down-regulate their nervous system through mindfulness, breathwork, guided visualizations, Qi Gong practices, and gentle bodywork can be an essential first step to healing and too trust.
- Myofascial Release of Embodied Memories – provide a soothing massage is also one of the best ways to assess the most common areas of distress. We all flinch when scared, and we all slump when left behind. Your fascia, which makes up most of your meridians, remembers every intense moment in your life. Being able to unwind and reintegrate the tone and function of a person’s fascial integrity not only rebuilds many aspects of their ‘greenhouse’, but it also profoundly changes their mental, emotional, and instinctual qualities of aliveness (Qi).
- Somato-Mapping – I ask many of my acupuncture patients to draw a picture of their bodies and where they have the most tension of pain. It is good to have a Healing roadmap that you can watch change over time as you optimize what is working. This awareness of your Inner Landscape can also guide you into very aware and intentional relationships with your health, your past, and every Qi Gong Healing session.
- Breathwork and Bodywork Integration – learning skills like progressive relaxation, Nervous System down-regulation, Breathwork to shift you into a lucid dreaming state, or a rooted and powerful state, while moving slowly, stretching, being stretched, being massaged, being held, or being cared for in a more subtle way is what makes Qi Gong Healing so tangible – so felt/sense in the moment effective. These are also practices you can do on your own, continuing the shift in your health and your Inner Landscape.
- A Collaborative and Symbolic Diagnosis – a clinical diagnosis can save your life, or it can just become another elephant in a room full of elephants. In Medical Qi Gong practice, the focus is on restoring innate systems within the body, not the treatment of disease – at least in the clinical sense. Since the focus is on restoring efficiency and resourcefulness to your primary Energy Centers (Dan Tian), Organs meridians, and more subtle aspects of Being, your diagnosis should reflect that relationship, and the ‘patient’s relationship with their life and their healing process. This allows the diagnosis to become something personal and meaningful.
- Feeling into Qi and other energetic connections – cultivating Qi awareness is like becoming a Jedi. We all start with the basics and eventually become very skillful. One of the benefits of the old oral traditions is all of the creative ways to include awareness practices into your life. Qi Gong and meditation practice are a good foundation, and when people are ready, seasonal Attunement (Five Element) and Nei Gong (Inner Cultivation Skills) are included.
- Gathering Allies from Nature – in the ancient Indigenous traditions of Healing, going into Nature and creating a conscious relationship with the Land as a Being, with a waterfall as a Quality of this Being-ness (or as a Being), that can be imprinted in your meridians and memory, or ‘carried with you, as a kind of Qi medicine. Asa a Healer, this could quite easily be the most powerful thing you ever do.
- Somatic Mindfulness Processing – people need to talk about their experiences. As a Qi Gong Healer, this may happen while they are lying on a massage table, or it may need to happen while sitting down. It is like being held and Healed socially and intuitively. Sometimes, people need to talk their way down. Having a ‘counseling-like’ approach to a feeling-centered conversation can be invaluable at the right moment.
- Dan Tian and Meridian Clearing – this is usually done over ten sessions. There is a protocol aspect to this skillset, but the focus is still on the felt sense emotional connections and memories that arise, physical, somatic, and energetic qualities that can be felt, and personally guided Healing intentions that can be made more coherent.
- Internal Organ Restoration – in Traditional Chinese medicine, when you use the Five Elements, notice that you are dividing every aspect of Existence into five parts, or qualities, phases of Qi expression, or Elements. When you are looking at Healing in this way, notice that every possible aspect of human physiology, structure, and function is now divided into five parts – each having its own needs and nature. Each having a specific Yin and Yang Organ, each connected to what the Universe is doing in its own way. These practices and protocols are the most common forms of Hands-on Qi Gong Healing is a regular practice.
- Ancestors, Souls, Instincts, and Intuition – life is like a river that moves through species, millennia, generations, families, relationships, lives, and days. Sometimes this river comes with ‘baggage’ and sometimes this river is barely a stream. These more Karmic challenges can be met with Medical Qi Gong on many levels of belief, perception, autonomy, and self-discernment.
- Trauma, Addiction, and Polyvagal System – in TCM there are certain kinds of meridians called Extraordinary Meridians. Of them, there are four that regulate every system and cell in your body at a foundational level. Interestingly, they correlate to the functions and sensitivity of your Polyvagal Nervous System, the part of you that evolved over millions of years to deal with stress and trauma, almost exactly. Working with instinctual grudges requires a sensitivity to Trauma and the ability to engage these systems directly to be considered safe for many, many people.
- Fertility and Longevity – everything that exists has limits. Improving your physical and metabolic health is not often complicated, it just takes a lot of self-love, patience, and discernment. Medical Qi Gong is an excellent support system for balancing and realigning where one’s aliveness and Jing bank accounts go, in the short term and long term. Both fertility and longevity have their own protocols, but they are very individualized and rely on complete lifestyle commitments.
- Autoimmunity and Cancer – modern illness is complicated. Autoimmune diseases happen when your immune system no longer recognizes a part of your body and attacks it. Cancer happens when a cell becomes overwhelmed metabolically and begins to divide and grow out of control, theoretically to catch up with the overwhelm, but often to catastrophic consequences. These are the conditions that need Medical Qi Gong and profound Personal and Spiritual Healing the most.
- Medical Qi Gong Clinical Case Studies –going over case studies is one the most fun and engaging aspects of learning any form of medicine. It is also the best place to learn where following protocols end and the art truly begins.
- A supervised solo-clinical practicum – if you are seeking certification as a Somatic Qi Gong Practitioner, you will need some practical experience, preferably with a lot of notes, questions, and time-sharing with colleagues and mentors.
- Two Live and in-person weekend Practicum Experiences – to qualify for certification as a Somatic Qi Gong Therapist, you will need some practical hands-on experience, trying advanced techniques on other students, and then on patients in a supervised setting.
Becoming a medical Qi Gong Therapist takes 2 years of dedicated training and practice, after becoming an experienced Qi Gong practitioner and teacher.
To begin your training in these advanced skills and knowledge, you will need to complete both the Traditional (1 year) and Professional Qi Gong Teacher (2 years) or have equivalent experience.
Contact the Soma Dao Institute if you feel that you have the experience to safely begin learning these aspects of Qi Gong, Meditation, and Clinical Competency.
Starting Fall 2024
This is a Twelve Month transformational process for all of your Inner Landscape, Energy Systems, and Dan Tian, in preparation for practicing Medical Qi Gong.
There will be several group webinars on the traditional theories and modern research on these practices, as well as an in-depth exploration of the capacity called Ting Jin – the ability to direct all of your senses and feel with a completely open awareness.<?>
This program is often taken concurrently with Level Ten – Becoming a Medical Qi Gong Therapist.
The intensity of content delivery will ebb and flow, depending on the group interactions and the time of year.