Improve Your Balance - Taiji Qigong

19/09/2025

🌿 Integration and Rewiring

As you continue to practise - moving, breathing, noticing - you begin to rewire the brain and body.

The old reactions lose their grip.
The amygdala shrinks.
The nervous system regulates.

You move from survival… to connection.
From chaos… to calm.
From habit… to conscious choice.

This is where Tai Ji and Qigong shine.
They are not just exercises—they are deep integration tools for the whole being.

You begin to remember who you are beneath the conditioning.

10/09/2025

🌿 Feeling to Heal

When we feel safe enough, the deeper emotions rise to the surface.

Grief
Anger
Shame
Fear
Longing

These are not enemies to be avoided.
They’re messengers - showing us what still needs care and compassion.

The key is not to drown in them, but to feel them consciously. To allow them to move through, rather than get stuck.

This is how we release what’s been held for too long.
And this is where healing happens - not by force, but through presence.

What we feel, we can heal.

04/09/2025

🌿 Creating Safety in the Body

Before you can shift deep emotional patterns, you need one essential thing:

Safety.

Not just mentally, but physically—in the body.

Tai Ji, Qigong, breathwork, and mindful movement all create this sense of safety. They ground your energy, calm your nervous system, and give you something solid to return to.

The body holds all the stories, all the pain.

And it also holds the medicine.

As we practise, we remind our system:

“I am safe. I am here. I am enough.”

From that grounded place, we can finally face what we’ve spent years avoiding.

26/08/2025

🌿 Recognising the Pattern

As adults, those old childhood protections start to surface -especially in close relationships or moments of stress.

Examples?

• You feel abandoned when someone takes space.
• You panic at gentle criticism.
• You lash out or shut down when someone gets too close.

These aren't flaws or character defects.
They're automatic survival responses -
still running in the background of your life.

And the good news?
Once you start noticing them, you can begin to change them.

Awareness is powerful.
It creates a space between stimulus and response.
And in that space, healing begins.💚

20/08/2025

🌿 When Things Get Worse Before They Get Better

Here’s the honest truth: once you start living more in the present, things often get worse before they get better.

Why?

Because you become more aware of your own inner world -
your thoughts, habits, insecurities, and long-avoided feelings.

This is actually a sign of progress.
Awareness is the doorway to healing.

Most of us developed survival strategies in early childhood. Between the ages of 0 and 6, we live mostly in Delta and Theta brainwave states—a kind of open, hypnotic state where we absorb everything from our environment.

In this stage, we learn to mask emotions and change behaviours to get our needs met.

These strategies get buried deep in the unconscious. They protect us - but later in life, they can block growth.

10/08/2025

🌿 Present Moment Awareness – A New Way of Being

One of the most powerful things Tai Ji and Qigong gave me was the ability to connect with the present moment.

When we practise mindful movement, we come into the now - and from there, something else opens up.

We begin to sense a connection that goes beyond the mind, beyond the body, beyond our emotions.

With regular practice, this connection grows—like a muscle that strengthens over time.

And here’s the amazing thing: this practice doesn’t just feel good… it actually changes the brain.

The amygdala, which governs fear and stress, physically shrinks.
That means we experience less fear, less stress, and more clarity, ease and confidence.

That’s what present-moment awareness can do.

07/08/2025

Why I Began Practising Tai Ji and Qigong.

For most of my life, I suffered from anxiety.

I wanted to learn how to meditate—to feel stillness, to find some peace. But I gave up quickly. I had a major misunderstanding of what meditation was really about.

I thought the goal was to quiet the mind completely.
(Which may happen to some degree... eventually!)
But trying to force stillness actually made me feel worse.

In the late 90's I discovered that my friend Jan Scott, taught Tai Ji (Tai Chi). I started one-to-one classes with her....

Almost immediately, something shifted.
I began to feel calmer, more grounded.
The anxiety began to soften. I felt a sense of ease I hadn’t known before.

This was the beginning of a new path for me.

What have you discovered that helps reduce your stress and anxiety levels? Please comment below.

29/07/2025

Hello Balance Seekers 🌿

I have some space available this August for individual Zoom sessions — a great opportunity to start learning the fundamentals of Qigong in a relaxed and supportive setting.

These sessions will help you:
✨ Build strength, mobility, and balance
✨ Reduce stress and anxiety
✨ Deepen your connection to the present moment

To help you get started, I'm offering 3 sessions for the price of 2 throughout August. This is a great way to lay a solid foundation before my group Zoom and in-person sessions resume in September — where you’ll be very welcome to join us.

Send me a message on Messenger if you'd like to book or ask any questions.

Looking forward to sharing the Qi with you!

Martin💚

15/04/2025

How time flies! It’s almost 10 years ago that I completed my 18 month teacher training program in Qigong with the amazing Clara Apollo. Since then I have taught well over 1000 classes. We have a zoom class on Tuesday mornings UK time and in-person in Christchurch Library on Thursday mornings. Let me know if you’d like further information.

07/04/2025

🌿 Origins of Qigong: Ancient Roots

Qigong is a Chinese healing and energy cultivation practice that dates back over 4000 years. The term “Qigong” is relatively modern (20th century), but the practices it refers to have ancient origins

Qi (氣) means “life energy” or “vital force”

Gong (功) means “work,” “skill,” or “cultivation”

So, Qigong essentially means “working with energy” or “cultivating life force”

🐉 Early Beginnings (Prehistoric to Zhou Dynasty)
The earliest forms of Qigong were shamanic dances and breath practices used to harmonise with nature and heal the body

In ancient texts like the Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching, ~500 BCE), concepts of qi and flow are already central

Archaeological findings from the Mawangdui tombs (168 BCE) show silk scrolls with illustrations of people doing movements similar to Qigong

🧘 Daoist & Buddhist Influence
Daoism emphasised longevity, balance with nature, and internal alchemy (neidan). Qigong was used to balance yin and yang within the body

Buddhist monks, integrated Qigong into their martial and meditative practices (e.g., the famous Yi Jin Jing – Muscle-Tendon Changing Classic)

These spiritual traditions focused on cultivating inner peace, health, and enlightenment

⚔️ Martial Qigong
Over time, Qigong became a foundational element in Chinese martial arts

Internal martial arts like Tai Chi (Taijiquan), Bagua, and Xingyi incorporate Qigong breathing and energy flow into their forms

⚕️ Medical Qigong
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Qigong became a therapeutic method to balance organs, clear energy blockages, and strengthen immunity

Doctors would prescribe Qigong exercises for healing specific conditions

📚 Modern Era (20th Century to Now)
In the 1950s, the Chinese government began promoting Qigong as a scientific health practice

It gained popularity both as a public health movement and a spiritual practice

Today, Qigong is practiced worldwide – as a form of moving meditation, for emotional healing, trauma recovery, and chronic illness support

29/08/2024

A great explanation by Damo Mitchell - of the various depths that are attainable through the different types of Qigong practice 😎🙏🏻

Chatting about the process of changing the body in Qigong. Damo is explaining how he views the moving exercises of any traditional Qigong system as being too...

26/08/2024

EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. It is a very simple yet powerful technique for releasing the grip of fear, anxiety, pain, phobias, etc. You gently tap on specific meridian points on your body and noticeable changes begin to show very quickly in your mind and body. It is also possible to uncover and transform unconscious core beliefs with recent developments in EFT. Plenty of evidence has been documented and Dr. Peta Stapleton has been at the forefront. Have a look here - https://s3.amazonaws.com/kajabi-storefronts-production/file-uploads/sites/2147597324/themes/2151516842/downloads/e145dba-d04-8f50-ffa7-7c7f5c6ced5_EBEFT_Overview_of_Research_2022.pdf