Tuesday, 11 June 2013

Chinese Yoga - QiGong

I've been toying with the idea of yoga for, well, years now. I never seem to get around to it though. Even last month, I bought a Groupon for unlimited classes for a month but when it was two weeks in and I hadn't so much as made an attempt to go, I returned it and got my £18 back.

But when my friend asked me to accompany her to QiGong in Balham I decided to give it a go. After all, the first class is free and what else am I going to do on a Monday night? Well, preferably treat myself to some wine and a nice meal but there's always Tuesday.


Wikipedia describes QiGong as a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation. QiGong practise involves rhythmic breathing coordinated with slow stylised repetition of fluid movement, a calm mindful state, and visualisation of guiding qi through the body.

Right. Guiding qi through the body. I can do that. Sounds as easy as guiding a gin through my oesophagus.

So we get there and my first warning that this isn't going to be the giggle I thought is the fact that besides me and my friend, only one person has showed up. He's clearly popular I thought while musing over his purple outfit. 

The first thing he has us doing is swing our arms from side to side as a little warm up. Except it wasn't so little. This lasted 15 minutes. All the while I had to listen to the instructor talk about feeling the energy moving from the earth. Feel your yang. Move the energy through your chi. Um... I can't even write about this without keeping a straight face. This went on for an hour. The killer though was when a girl fainted and he said, don't worry, it happens. The chi sometimes does that. Your mind can't take all the chi energy. Just move the earth and you'll be fine. I mean seriously!

I was going to write about all the funny stuff he made us do, but I'll leave it at this: never partake in this. This was the worst hour of my life. Save yourself and hit Nandos instead.


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