Taisigong used his questions to clarify understanding of the rules, for example explaining specific scenarios where it was important to control your temper like at work.
We then performed the level 1 warm up. Taisigong said it was very important for the body to be open and warmed up before engaging in hard qigong practice.
Taisigong then demonstrated the four basic breathing exercises for us and let us practice them with him and answered questions. We then separated out into breakout rooms to practice in small groups. Each group had an instructor already highly experienced with Level 1 Hard qigong. We are really refining this online approach to learning hard qigong and some students had managed to apply the “natural sound” setting to their zoom accounts to ensure that the full range of the sounds they were generating could be heard. The quality of the assistant instructors was very high and in my case the instructor was able to pick out that I was stopping at my chest and not breathing into my stomach.
Next Taisigong demonstrated the first three movements – Dragon Emerges from the sea, Blocking the Entrance and Embracing the moon. We then tried them ourselves and then he answered questions and highlighted lots of postural details associated with each movement. We then polished the movements with senior students in break out rooms again. The breakout rooms were pretty hectic with a lot of movement and noise going on and it really demonstrated the high level of the instructors in each breakout room as they were able to pull out a lot of individual details and give excellent feedback all in a very short space of time.
Taisigong then helped us refresh and polish the next thwo movements – Dragon twists with a Pole, Two swallows Play with Water. Each movement and breathing exercise we polished had particular nuances that Taisigong explained very clearly and was then refined by the instructors in the breakout rooms.
Taisigong then revised the last two movements we had learned previously – Imortal Does Meditation and the really exciting “Hurricane”.
Again the instructors in the breakout rooms further polished both of these with us.
Taisigong then taught two completely new movements – Demon enters the Sea and Whirling Carp separates Water. These were very exciting movements and Taisigong explained how in the past the Demon entering the sea exercise had been trained over a bowl of water to eventually make the water tremble from its power. The movements though unfamiliar were soon at least initially picked up by most students with the help of the wonderful instructors in the breakout rooms.
Finally to process all of the energy generated Taisigong led us through the two closing exercises – Drunken Python Crosses over the Mountain and Guan Yin Sits on Lotus. It is truely amazing that such a rare skill can be transmitted in such a well structured way via an online class.
by Daniel Nwume