QIGONG IMMERSION TRAINING FOR YOGA TEACHERS 2021

By Yoga and Qigong teacher Mimi Kuo-Deemer

This weekend immersion will provide the foundations for how Yoga teachers can learn, adapt and incorporate aspects of qigong into their classes and personal practice. It will be a highly experiential programme designed to provide participants with practical knowledge as well as an embodied understanding of qigong. It will also establish principles for innovatively and authentically weaving qigong into Yoga āsana classes. Participants will receive a course manual with illustrated sequences as well as sections on context, theory and approaches to integrating Yoga and Qigong.

About Yoga and Qigong: Qigong is a Chinese energy healing and martial art with roots in Daoism and Buddhism. It offers a way to harmonize the virtues of trust, integrity, wisdom, and compassion in the human body and spirit. Like yoga, qigong uses deep breathing, meditation, and static or dynamic movements to promote greater health and vitality. The actions generate and revitalize the qi, or life force, in the body. As an energy-based practice, qigong employs slow, circular movements that improve the flow of qi through the body’s meridians and organs.  In contrast, Yoga āsana places greater emphasis on linear extensions of the spine, body and limbs. This works to tone, lengthen and strengthen muscles more directly. When aspects of qigong are incorporated into an āsana practice, the flow of prana and qi can be significantly increased, bringing greater energy, health and efficiency to the body. The cross-fertilization of yoga and qigong offers creative and insightful discoveries that can delight in unexpected ways.

Subjects covered in the immersion will include:

• Qigong theories and their application to Yoga such as chen (rooting, sinking), wuwei (effortlessness), yi (intention), five phase/element principles including organ and meridian theory, the affect of qi flow on physical and emotional health.
• The congruencies and distinctions between Daoist and Yogic concepts.
• Fire/yang-based qigong forms and sequences that integrate effectively into yoga classes such as horse stance, taming the tiger, dragon, bear, and bird nesting among others.
• Water/yin-based qigong forms and into yoga sequences such as clearing, filling and sealing; moving and parting clouds; etheric cleansing; hands to heart; looking for moon and sea; and swimming dragon.
• Seasonal and element-based themes inspired by qigong and Chinese medicine that can be incorporated into yoga classes.
• Qigong practices for maintaining health and energy levels as a yoga teacher.

BASIC BIOGRAPHY OF MIMI KUO-DEEMER

Mimi has been a student of Yoga since 1995 and an avid lover of dance since 1978, when her mother put her in ballet school for walking with turned-in toes. Mimi teaches vinyasa Yoga, qigong and meditation.  She champions the balance of playfulness and precision as the best way forward in practice and in life, and never underestimates how sitting, breathing and conscious movement can provide the clearest perspective on the messy, complex and often unpredictable job of being human.

Her two main teachers in the Yoga world, Erich Schiffmann and Donna Farhi, continually humble her with the idea that Yoga is the art of living, listening, and learning to embody a deeply spiritual tradition. Martin Aylward and Mark Coleman, her mindfulness meditation teachers, have helped her remember that it’s possible to be present with kindness and care in each moment. Her qigong practice, inspired by her own curiosity and love for Daoism and the Chinese Five Elements, emerged as a complimentary and distinct practice alongside her love of yoga and meditation.

In 2002, Mimi co-founded Yoga Yard, Beijing’s first and leading Yoga studio, which she co-directed for seven years before moving to the UK. She lives in Oxfordshire but teaches primarily at London’s triyoga, where she co-teaches on their two year teacher training diploma course as well as runs immersion trainings. She is also a contributor on movementformodernlife.com.

Mimi is a graduate of Stanford University and SOAS, University of London, where she earned a masters with distinction in 2016 in Traditions of Yoga and Meditation. She has published a number of yoga and qigong DVDs/videos with New Shoot Pictures, and has recently joined the London-based literary agency, Madeleine Milburn.  She plans to publish her first book in December, 2018 with Orion Spring. In addition to teaching and writing, Mimi also helps run the Glow Fund charitable trust – a charity she and her husband established that helps disadvantaged Chinese and ethnically Tibetan children with severe orthopaedic conditions receive life-changing operations.

Where: Yogadreams, Vinkenstraat 36a, Zaandam
When & What time:
Friday April 9: 13.30 – 18.00 hrs
Saturday April 10: 11.00 – 17.00 hrs
Sunday April 11 : 10.00 – 17.00 hrs
(On Sa. and Su. there will be an hour lunchbreak)
Cost: € 299,00 p.p. (tax included)

Signing Up!
Because we do not yet know what the future development will be with regards to social distancing – which may still even in 2021 prohibit us from gathering in a group indoors – we have decided to make a list of applicants in order of registration. Collecting payments will take place as soon as the rules considering social distancing is loosened, but no later than January 2021. If, by the beginning of next year, it is clear that we can still not come together in a large enough group, we will proceed to move the training to a later date.

Attendees can choose between an English or a Dutch manual with illustrated examples of the series, and explanations about consistancy, theory and methods how to intertwine Yoga and Qigong.