Workshops

Oregon Medical Qigong workshops welcome beginners and experienced practitioners.

The International Institute of Medical Qigong (IIMQ) exercises, meditations, and sets that are taught in these workshops are used in Chinese medical hospitals and clinics today. They are effective supports for holistic wellness and the care of various illness syndromes as understood in Chinese medicine, provided that they are received from an authorized IIMQ instructor and used correctly.

Authorized faculty and practitioners at the IIMQ do not claim to treat diseases or illnesses in the Western allopathic sense with these medical qigong exercises, meditations, or ancient Chinese medical practices. For the treatment of diseases in the Western allopathic sense we refer you to your MD, Acupuncturist, Osteopath, Naturopath, Psychotherapist, or other licensed caregiver. Please click on our "Disclaimer" page below for further clarification.

Individuals learning these exercises in medical qigong workshops or private therapy specifically agree not to share them or teach them to others.

Self-Healing for Caregivers

These workshops teach qigong self-healing skills for caregivers.

By taking care of ourselves with medical qigong, we are refreshed and strengthened, which expands our ability to care for others. To sustain a high level of compassionate action, we need to clear personal obstacles and utilize special skills that can increase life force energy, mental clarity, tenderness, and energetic boundaries. We offer you these special skills in our Caregiver Workshops.

The Level 1 workshop teaches a highly effective Emotional Clearing exercise and meditation to calm the mind. Level 2 teaches the Golden Ball exercise, to gather pure energy deeply into the body. We will also teach a practice of unconditional loving kindness to open the heart of tenderness for oneself.. Subsequent levels will introduce Energetic Structure and Energetic Boundaries along with further topics and their integration.

Secondary skills that will be taught as time permits are:

• contemplative deep listening
• Stretching the Tendons and Opening the Joints
• Daoist breathing.

No prior experience is necessary. If requested, energetic therapy will be demonstrated for an interested volunteer. Please contact us for details.

Daoist Five Yin Organ Exercises

Daoist 5 Yin and Yang Organ Exercises stimulate, energize, and regulate the body's Five Element organ energies. The Yang organ exercises strengthen peristaltic action, which is a support in healing digestive illnesses. The Yin organ exercises gather energy in the Yin organs, whose function is energy storage. Each of the Yin organs controls whole systems of meridians, channels, and corresponding zones and functions of the body. The gathering of Five Element energies with the Daoist Five often results in increased personal vigor and health balance. The set may be practiced as a whole, or exercises may be used individually to fulfill a specific prescriptive need.

6 Healing Sounds

Vibration of the ancient Healing Sounds as directed strengthens, harmonizes, and re-energizes the organs and their corresponding systems, clearing away stagnant energy and inviting optimum health. This simple set of methods employs sounds, stretching, breathing and visualization to cool, relax and heal the body's organ systems.

One of the easiest medical qigong sets to learn, the practice of the Six Healing Sounds is very flexible. The sounds may be used individually to treat specific conditions in the body, or one may practice all 6 sounds for an overall "tune up". These exercises cleanse the body of toxins, negative emotions and stagnant Qi.

Golden Ball

This potent exercise tonifies and balances the Eight Extra Ordinary Channels, understood to house the body's prenatal, or primordial energy. Because of the depth and profundity of these vessels, which underlay and nourish the Five Element Organs and the Twelve Terrestrial Meridians that lie on the surface of the body, tonifying and balancing them with an initial five to ten minutes per day may result in movement toward one's original nature, and feeling healthier. When Golden Ball is combined as a set with Tendon Stretching and Yi Chuan, it serves as a remarkable support and accelerant for sitting meditation and health.

This system of standing qigong forms, also known as Zhangzhuan, translates as "Intention Fist". Yi Chuan has spiritual and martial applications, works through subtle vibration and structure, and encourages a sense of "space" in the body and mind. Although it is completely counter-intuitive that such simple exercises could effect so much healing and growth, when learned correctly from an authorized IIMQ instructor, it is one of our most effective methods to restore vibrant internal energy. The IIMQ approach to healing with Yi Chuan encourages a potent and engaged sense of body structure and recommends limiting use to an initial 5 to 10 minutes per day. This may bring noticeable benefit when used correctly and regularly.

Tendon Stretching

Called "Band Warming" in the Yang style Taijichuan tradition as taught by Professor Jerry Alan Johnson, this set of stretching exercises opens and lubricates the sinews, tendons, fascia, and joints. It is the warm up exercise used to prepare for the Taiji workout. Because much of the body's energy travels in the sinews, tendons, and fascia, stretching and opening them can deeply shift, regulate and balance the body's energy. The Wood Element of the Liver easily stagnates under stress, and the Liver controls the tendons. Because of this relationship, the Liver and many issues associated with it may be positively affected through 5 to 30 minutes per day of Tendon Stretching.

Balancing Emotions

Challenging or uncomfortable emotions felt in the present often have links to early life traumas, which can be held in the cells and tissues of the body.

As children many of us developed patterns of suppressing emotion when feelings seemed too intense and uncomfortable, and when expressing them was discouraged by caregivers. Keeping these held emotions "down" in the body and out of the field of experience drains us of a considerable amount of personal life force energy. Releasing and clearing these emotions liberates energy for healing, creativity, and furthering one's life meaning and mission.

In this workshop we will discuss energetic psychology and examine patterns of pure and acquired emotions. We'll discuss how emotions can function as the underlying basis of health issues, and powerfully affect the body's organs and their corresponding systems. Dynamic and quiescent medical qigong exercises and meditations will be taught to aid in the release of suppressed emotions, balance the emotions, and free us to live in the brilliant present.

Stress Management

Stress is made of an accumulation of causes that include: 1) challenging and uncomfortable events; 2) "me" and my story; and 3) my reactions. These causes can be unwound and released.

Using tools offered in this workshop, we can begin to recognize habits and patterns of thinking, emotion, relating, and lifestyle that exacerbate stress.

Medical qigong exercises and sitting meditation will be taught to relax, recognize and clear old patterns. As we untie the knots, we will learn how prepare our body/mind both for joy and for the duress aspects of life. Strengthening our internal energy and clearing out old emotional and mental baggage can be a fast path to reduce stress. What a relief!!

Meditation for Health

Meditation is an important element in healing. Like qigong, it can also be used to clear the mind for prayer, compassionate relationship, or for sports or other activities.

Much of our experience originates from a thought. A tiny flicker of thought proliferates into emotion, attitude, or stress and into the strong sense of "me" and "my needs" that are disconnected from others and life. Learning to relax deeply and allow thoughts to dissolve in meditation allows us to discover loving acceptance for ourselves and an open, awakened heart. Meditation is a simple process utilizing posture, breath, and awareness. It soothes mind and spirit.

We offer meditation to join mind, body, and heart, and to balance the energetic aspects of qigong that are so effective in healing. We regard meditation and qigong as inseparable...

Some qualities that develop in meditation are:

• self-acceptance
• tenderness
• peace
• unconditional loving kindness
• compassion
• clarity
• energy of peaceful warriorship
• concern for society, rather than just one's own well being

Sitting is for short periods alternating with walking and stretching. If necessary, it's OK to sit in a chair, stand as needed, or to lie down for people who have pain. No experience is necessary.

Dr. Shaffer has been sitting since 1975. He is an authorized meditation instructor and teaches classes in the Shambhala Buddhist community in Eugene, Oregon.

Breast Disease Care with Medical Qigong

The root causes of breast disease as understood in Chinese medicine will be addressed in this workshop. We will teach medical qigong prescriptions that have been used successfully throughout China to address breast tumors, cysts, and cancer.

Medical qigong theory considers repressed and stagnant energy and emotion to be one of the main causes of breast disease. Daily use of the medical qigong exercises creates new healthy patterns which deeply alter and undermine the disease process. The set of prescriptive exercises and skills are easily learned and applied. Movement, posture, sound, visualization, and positive affirmation help release external toxins and repressed emotion held in the tissues of the body.

8 Direction Meditation

This subtle meditation releases and dissolves emotional memory and stagnant energy lodged in the body's tissues, which inhibit sensory and intuitive perception. It operates similarly on the sense of a solid "me", and of a solidly dualistic world. Said to have Buddhist origins, 8 Direction Meditation was practiced

in ancient times by masters of Taijiquan to dissolve obstacles to direct perception, increase awareness, and develop psychic ability. Sitting meditation instruction will accompany this practice.

Life Force Breathing Meditation

Another term for qi is life force energy. The Life Force Breathing Meditation, which is designed to mentally touch and energize every cell of the body, develops internal energy as a root source of health and perceptual ability.

The body as we know it, and obstructions to the smooth flow of energy are dissolved and liberated in the meditation through felt creative visualization. Then the body is reconstructed energetically, cleansing and rejuvenating the viscera, circulatory, digestive, respiratory, nervous, muscular, and reproductive systems. Finally, the body's Wei Qi protective energy is expanded and strengthened. Sitting meditation will be taught to accompany this practice.

Wu Zang (Five Organ) Meditation for Energetic Protection

This ancient meditation is still utilized in current day China to prepare medical qigong doctors to treat patients in a clinical environment. Its function is to surround the practitioner with a strong field of protective energy (Wei Qi).

When a qigong doctor enters the space of an ill patient, the potential for absorbing the patient's pathogenic qi is high. Noting this potential for harm, the ancient Chinese qigong masters developed this meditation to protect themselves from absorbing negative incoming qi. Using ancient practices of joining Heaven, Earth, and Man, and the pure animal energies of phoenix, turtle, tiger, and dragon, Wu Zang Meditation builds a strong energy field from the core and the internal organs out to the Wei Qi fields surrounding the body.

This meditation may have value for everyone, because daily we come in contact with turbid, negative emotion and energy, wind, cold, and rain, etc. Medical qigong theory understands this meditation to strengthen the immune system to fend off invading factors such as colds and flu. Caregivers, teachers, and others engaged in heroic service may be especially vulnerable to take on the pathogenic qi of clients and their environments, unless they take steps to establish and strengthen their Wei Qi.