ling gui healing qigong school

[immortal_sister]

i wrote this review and figured i should share it in the general forum. i would love to hear from anyone that has taken classes with liu he or knows people that have. the seminar i attended was really good, and i am about to enroll in that school's two year self-cultivation and teacher training program. i couldn't be more excited!!!

 

 

 

 

last summer, i read an article written by liu he in the empty vessel magazine. it prompted me to look her up online and i found her jade woman qigong book, which i ordered immediately. reading this book was like a breath of fresh air. i did not attempt to learn the jade woman qigong form from the book (i don't think this is usually a very safe way to learn complex qigong forms, and i am too visual to learn things like that from books anyhow!), but there are countless other qigong forms in the book that are simple enough to practice from the book, such as exercises for the 5 organs. she also shares different meditations and visualizations, many of which i have tried and can attest to being very potent. she also goes over a number of mudras, some of which i had never heard of and have been using on and off for the last few months, such as i-ching mudras.

 

liu he founded the ling gui international healing qigong school with her brother, dr. liu dong (he lives and teaches in france). i read through their website and saw that they were offering public workshops throughout the year, and that several of them were women-specific. i have been looking for a qigong or neigong teacher that works more specifically with women; there are a few out there, with different takes on internal practice and different lineages. but what little i knew of liu he and her lineage so far resonated with me far deeper than most internal work i have done in the past. when i saw the listing for the nourishing woman qigong class, i decided i needed to try this on for size and see if this was what i had been looking for.

 

the class started saturday afternoon. i walked into a conference room, joining approximately 25 other women, ages varying from early 20s to 50s, if not older.

 

everyone settled in, sat down on their meditation cushions. liu he walked in and sat down in silence. she sat cross legged, closed her eyes, and proceeded to meditate. we all followed suit. after a few minutes, she gently guided the class into qi self-massage. we then stood up and she guided us through a qigong form that cleanses the liver. i really enjoyed both, and the liver qigong form was very powerful, i felt energy very clearly while going through it. it was nice because she just went through the form, with just enough information for us to follow (many women there already knew the form from having studied with her) and let us figure it out. only after the fact did she explain with detail what the form was doing and how. she explained that this liver exercise was good to practice anytime but especially in spring; the healing sound used during this form is a wave that harmonizes with the cosmic sound of the earth in spring. beautiful.

 

the rest of the afternoon was spent learning the first half of the nourishing woman qigong form. this first section is done seated, cross legged. it is based on a lot of visualization, and a lot of contact with one's body. this really felt good to me, massaging, touching and otherwise working directly with the body during the form. throughout the afternoon, liu he talked a lot about female health, about gynecological issues and how they can be healed through qigong and chinese medicine. she had some wonderful insight into this, some things i had not heard explained in the same way anywhere else. she discussed the fact that the uterus is the 6th organ, an extra organ that men do not have. this difference is important and there is great benefit in working specifically with this in mind sometimes, it definitely has a far reaching impact on the energetic balance of the body in general. i kept having these "aha" moments as she talked, just grinning like a fool when she would speak a truth that i had known in my own body for a long time but had never connected the dots until someone else vocalized it for me. it was very powerful.

 

she also talked a lot about the 3 dantiens, as this form works with all 3: first working with tian mu, then down to tan zhong, and finally to the lower dantien / the uterus. she discussed the differences between men and women in terms of building energy, and how women are a somewhat of an advantage in the beginning because our lower dan tien is our uterus, and therefore we already have a larger space available to store energy, so to speak. for this reason, she tends to work a lot with the middle dantien / CV17 with women, instead of focusing everything on the lower dantien. at the end, the work usually finishes with gathering energy back into the uterus, but it is simply not the main focus during many of the forms she teaches (from what i gather). she explained that CV17 regulates blood, and is therefore extremely important for women. so this is a big focus for her. nourishing woman qigong is especially is designed to heal gynecological problems and enhance fertility, and therefore works a lot with the middle dantien.

 

liu he is great at explaining the internal work in a way that is accessible and simple to understand, without dumbing it down. i could tell many of the women there got lost in some of her explanations, perhaps not having any background in martial arts or never having studied chinese medicine at all. she didn't dwell on it, i got the impression she put a lot of information out there, knowing some of it would not be grasped, but that those who did grasp what she shared would have great benefit from this knowledge. she has a wonderful energy, has a beautiful smile, and a very calming and reassuring presence. i only got to speak to her one on one briefly, to ask her a few questions. i wish i could have chatted for hours and picked her brain. but who knows what the future holds! liu he is a very modest teacher, and does not let on how much she knows and what she is capable of. but i could catch a glimpse of it once in a while. i am very, very intrigued.

 

sunday morning started the same way, silent meditation followed by qi self-massage. she then guided us into a lung cleansing qigong form. i loved this form as well, i know i have a lot of stagnant emotional energy in my lungs sometimes, and i felt a great release from this exercise. she explained that this form is great to harmonize the lungs with the liver, and is good for the immune system as well. really good stuff! we then repeated the first part of nourishing woman, making sure everyone understood it and was memorizing it. we then moved on to the last part of the form, part of which is done in what yoga calls the "child pose", and part of it laying down on the back. all the qigong forms she taught work with healing sounds, which were different than healing sounds i had previously learned from other schools. for the nourishing woman qigong, the main healing sound vibrates the uterus and illuminates is as we gaze into it with our third eye, awakening our inner vision. the goal is to eventually be able to see the color of the uterus and to use this information to determine what organs are in disharmony with the uterus (if any), and what kind of healing is needed. i really look forward to developing this!

 

it was a wonderful workshop, and i got great benefit from it. i was on a natural high all weekend, and i hope that i can continue practicing this form daily and maintain this wonderful feeling and energy. i have some imbalances that i am really hoping this qigong form will help me smooth out.

 

if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

 

blessings.

[Mal]

Thank you for the review. I love hearing about female practices as sometimes things are too male-centric.

[immortal_sister]

Thank you for the review. I love hearing about female practices as sometimes things are too male-centric.

 

i was beginning to think my review never got read! i am glad you liked it mal, thanks for responding. i will be writing more about my studies with the ling gui school in my personal practice forum. and yes, i agree, it is good to stear away from male-centered practices, especially as a woman, some things just click so much more than others.

 

peace.

[Mal]

I've tried a few threads attempting to get information about female practices and their difference to male practices. The info is out there, I recall Cat and Little1 having had some good conversations. But it seems that the threads can get flushed down the board rather quickly.

 

So I'm trying a slower paced conversation here Others will notice us eventually

[EagleShen]

Thanks for the review Immortal_Sister, I'm wondering how your further studies have gone?

 

I've been considering getting the book and DVD of the women's practices for my lover, she's interested in finding out more about women's QiGong practices, she's already done a fair bit of women's yoga and QiGong (she's a TCM practitioner too) but is looking to expand her knowledge beyond the teachers she's had over the last 2 years.

 

After reading your review I'm inclined to get it for her.

 

I love it when Taobum members put up reviews of teachers work on here, super helpful.

[Ten Thousand Methods]

i wrote this review and figured i should share it in the general forum. i would love to hear from anyone that has taken classes with liu he or knows people that have. the seminar i attended was really good, and i am about to enroll in that school's two year self-cultivation and teacher training program. i couldn't be more excited!!!

Thank you for posting this!

 

I am also interested to hear more about your experiences with that organization. I read somewhere that the organization has many gongs including an Iron Shirt method. Did you learn any additional practices?

[RiverSnake]

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the review.

[Fu_dog]

Ditto what other posters have said... very interesting info on some female centered qigong, thanks for posting.

 

I hope you stick with it and update the board from time to time with your progress.

 

Good practicing!