Qigong Sets (Exercises)

by | Apr 25, 2014 | Qigong | 6 comments

The Energy Arts Qigong Exercise System makes your body more conscious by increasing your internal awareness, moving chi and activating your acupuncture meridians.  Five of the qigong sets are linked to the Five Elements: Wood, Earth, Water, Fire and Metal. 

These self-healing qigong exercise programs help you to:

  • increase and feel your chi (energy) for health and fitness
  • retrain and rejuvenate your nervous system
  • develop the sensitivity and depth to be an qigong instructor and/or qigong energy healer

Learn more about these powerful qigong exercises:

Dragon and Tiger Medical Qigong

Dragon and Tiger Qigong is one of the most direct and accessible low-impact qigong healing methods that China has produced. This fifteen-hundred-year-old form of medical qigong affects the human body in a manner similar to acupuncture. Its seven simple movements can be done by virtually anyone, whatever their age or state of healing. 

These movements are easy to learn, require a relatively small commitment—just 15 minutes per day—and produce long-lasting health benefits. Dragon and Tiger Qigong’s gentle movements are especially beneficial for the joints, increasing range of movement—especially in the upper body.

Dragon and Tiger Qigong creates three major changes in the body:

  1. Releases stagnant chi
  2. Balances body-energies by increasing speed, strength, and chi and fluid circulation
  3. Raises energy levels, giving a boost to the body’s natural healing capacities 

Many qigong sets in China are named for the qualities and purpose for which they are designed. In Dragon and Tiger Qigong, the analogy refers to the agility and flexibility of a flying dragon and the relaxed power of a pouncing tiger. More specifically, in Chinese medicine, this analogy uses the Tiger as a metaphor for a healthy liver (strength and responsiveness), while the Dragon represents strong, healthy lungs (the ability to fly). Read more about Energy Arts’ Dragon and Tiger Qigong system here.

Taoist Longevity Breathing

Bruce Frantzis has developed the method of Taoist Longevity Breathing to teach authentic Taoist breathing in systematic stages. Whole-body breathing has been used for millennia to enhance the ability to dissolve and release energy blockages in the mind/body, enhancing well-being and spiritual awareness. Incorporating these breathing techniques into any other Taoist energy practice will help bring out its full potential.

Breathing is vitally important to your health. Both Western and Eastern medical practitioners consider good breathing habits essential to leading a healthy life. However, most people have poor breathing habits. Many hold the breath when nervous or tense, while others breathe shallowly and oftentimes without an awareness of how the lung is being engaged during the breathing process.

Currently, in the West, there exist two main breathing systems: pranayama or yogic breathing, and Taoist breathing. These systems were brought to the West via Eastern medical systems, and while there are many similarities between the two systems, they remain fundamentally different.  Read more about Taoist Breathing here. 

Energy Gates Qigong | Water Element

Energy Gatesâ„¢ Qigong is a 3,000-year-old self-healing qigong (chi gung) system from China. This qigong practice is for those who are serious about learning tai chi, qigong or any form of energy work.

Energy Gates Qigong is a part of our core qigong program because it teaches the fundamentals of how to activate and harness chi, your life-force energy, to improve health, reduce stress and reverse the effects of aging. 

Energy Gates Qigong will help you integrate and practice components of internal power, known as neigong, such as breathing, alignments, weight shifts, spine activation, and dissolving.

You won’t find a more efficient qigong set for going internal, releasing your nerves and boosting your energy than what Energy Gates Qigong offers in just six exercises. Practicing Energy Gates Qigong can increase your health and vitality,  while building a stronger, more connected body. Read more about Energy Gates Qigong here, or click here to access Energy Arts’ Energy Gates products.

Heaven and Earth Qigong | Wood Element

Marriage of Heaven and Earth Qigong helps heal back and spine problems and is especially effective for mitigating repetitive stress injury (RSI) and carpal tunnel. You learn to pulse joints (open and close) without muscular tension and more complex Longevity Breathing techniques.

You won’t get a better initial introduction to qigong/chi gung/chi kung or tai chi than Marriage of Heaven and Earth Qigong.

As the most popular exercise in the Energy Arts Core Qigong Program, Heaven and Earth Qigong provides a real taste of what tai chi can do for you without the time investment tai chi requires. This simple, repetitive exercise is great for getting your chi moving.

Heaven and Earth Qigong has the signature internal work of Taoist chi arts yet the exercises are easy enough to keep you from feeling overwhelmed. Heaven and Earth exemplifies how qigong can:

  • Open up your mind to entirely new possibilities
  • Challenge you internally 
  • Keep you from getting bored with practicing

Bend the Bow Qigong | Metal Element

Bend the Bow Spinal Qigong is an advanced program that focuses on strengthening and regenerating the spine.

In Bend the Bow Qigong, you learn to embody advanced neigong (nei gung) components to control, strengthen and regenerate the chi energies of the spine and heal severe back problems, such as as scoliosis. Bend the Bow Spinal Qigong teaches you to have the ability to control the movements of individual vertebrae–techniques not believed to be possible in Western medicine.

In effect, Bend the Bow Spinal Qigong is the second part of the Marriage of Heaven and Earth Qigong.

Spiraling Energy Body Qigong | Fire Element

Spiraling Energy Body Qigong is an advanced neigong practice teaching you to dramatically raise your energy level and master how chi energy moves in circles and spirals throughout your body.  It helps you increase the speed with which chi is circulating in your body. It is also necessary for psychic practices and can be used to channel an overactive mind into stable pathways.

Spiraling Energy Body is emotionally and energetically challenging and should be learned only after you have developed a good foundation in the physical and energetic practices of Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body and have a stable grasp of both the standing/dissolving and the moving techniques.

Mastering Chi Flow

Neigong aspects of Spiraling Energy Body Qigong program shift your attention to:

  • Directing the upward flow of energy
  • Projecting chi along the body’s spiraling pathways
  • Neutralizing and transforming negative energy (both your own and that imposed by the environment)
  • Delivering or projecting energy at will to or from any part of the body
  • Activating the body’s left, right and central channels and then the micro-cosmic orbit

Gods Playing in the Clouds Qigong | Earth Element

Gods Playing in the Clouds Qigong is an advanced program incorporating some of the oldest and most powerful Taoist rejuvenation techniques. This program amplifies all the physical, breathing and energetic components learned in earlier qigong programs and completes the process of integrating all 16 neigong.

Gods Playing in the Clouds Qigong is the only qigong program that Taoist Lineage Master, Liu Hung Chieh, practiced daily to enhance his personal longevity after the age of fifty.

Energizing and Strengthening

Practicing the movements from Gods Qigong can make your bones stronger, cleanse your emotional body of negative energy, open and stabilize your heart center and central energy channel, release spiritual blockages and energize the brain.

Advanced Energetics

Gods Qigong amplifies all the physical, breathing and energetic components of the Energy Arts core qigong programs and completes the process of integrating all the components of neigong. It is also the final stage of learning to strengthen and balance the energies of your three tantiens, central channel and spine.

Bridge to Meditation

Gods Playing in the Clouds Qigong also serves as a spiritual bridge to Taoist meditation.

Qigong Tui Na Energy Healing

Qigong Tui Na Energy Healing is a special branch of Chinese medicine designed to unblock, free and balance chi in others. In qigong tui na, you learn to project energy from your hands, voice and eyes to facilitate healing.

In order to learn to heal others, you must first learn to unlock and free your own chi and learn to control the specific pathways through which it flows. Learning qigong energy healing typically comes after you have a stable foundation in qigong or tai chi to develop the sensitivity to feel and work with your own chi before working with the chi of others.

Bruce’s Training in Qigong Tui Na

Part of Bruce’s Taoist training was learning to apply chi gung/qigong tui na techniques to patients in medical clinics in China. During a five-year period, he worked with more than 10,000 patients to balance their chi and help them heal from such diverse illnesses as organ and nerve damage and cancer.

Today, he no longer works as a chi gung/qigong doctor, either privately or in clinics, in order to have the time to write books, teach workshops and retreats, and train Energy Arts Instructors.

Balancing Chi in Others

In order to learn to heal others with chi gung/qigong tui na, you must first learn to unlock and free your own chi and learn to control the specific pathways through which it flows. You must learn to develop chi sensitivity in your hands. That is why it is so important to learn Energy Arts core and advanced programs before you study chi gung/qigong tui na.

Self-regeneration in Healing Work

A vital part of chi gung/qigong tui na training involves learning the regenerative chi practices that keep you from becoming physically, spiritually or emotionally exhausted when healing the chi in your patients. This includes:

  • How to protect yourself from absorbing the energy of your patients
  • How to regenerate your own energy after you put it out on behalf of your patients
  • How to prevent burnout
  • How to retain compassion for your patients and not get “compassion” fatigued.

The rule of thumb is that if you spend a certain number of hours working on patients. Ideally, you should spend as much as a quarter of that amount of time doing regenerative practices to avoid burnout.

6 Comments

  1. Annie

    Hi Bruce,
    Is there a good/better/best process of choosing which courses to do in what order. For instance, what course is the best way for everyone to start their qigong journey, and then, what’s the next course to explore, and so on.
    I know that some people will be more keen than others, or some will have a health project to work on so that’s quite specific, etc, but in all your courses, what order would make most sense to follow?
    Many thanks
    Ann

    Reply
    • Energy Arts Team

      The trainings are circular, so it’s easy to start anywhere in the system as we progressively layer on more internal sophistication and there’s no time like the present to begin! That said, the most fundamental chi courses are anything to do with Dragon and tiger, energy gates and/or breathing. Thanks for your question and interest!

      Reply
  2. Charles Huffman

    Hi Bruce! I just wanted to ask how frequently you teach the Spiraling Energy Body practice? Thanks!

    Reply
    • Energy Arts Team

      Hi Charles. Due to the complexity of this practice, Bruce only teaches the Spiraling Energy Body in person. We plan to teach this and other in-person classes as soon as Covid restrictions ease up.

      Reply
  3. cb brooks

    thank you. where can i learn a basic practice that I can use a little everyday to help open up energy channels for health.. have 20 years of chronic lyme disease and very small enegry. thank you

    Reply
    • Energy Arts 2

      Hi, thanks for reaching out. We would recommend Dragon and Tiger Qigong or our Breathing programs. If you have very little physical experience and not used to using your body a lot, Dragon and Tiger Qigong is a good way to get used to the concept of Qi. For Taoist Breathing, we we would recommend one of two programs. The Breathing Audio Program (Taoist Breathing for Tai Chi and Meditation) is more comprehensive and goes deeper into breathing, but the Video Program can be helpful because it contains visuals. A lot of people prefer to have both although there are some overlap in the lessons. Breathing course are a good in between on the meditation and qigong and some just start with that.

      Hope this helps you on your practice journey.

      Best,
      Energy Arts Team

      Reply

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