Embodiment and Integration: how students land the practice
Dimensions 16 to 20 of the 25 Dimensions. This group is about what actually gets absorbed, which is not the same as what you covered.
The five dimensions of embodiment and integration
16. The body as the primary teacher
Do not teach ideas about Qigong. Teach the practices and let the body learn.
The body has no interest in an explanation of the Lower Dantian. It is very interested in feeling the Lower Dantian activate. Guide people into direct experience and then get out of the way of it.
17. Creating safety in the nervous system
Nobody drops into deeper work until they feel safe, and safety is built out of unglamorous things.
Show up on time. Keep the space clean. Begin and end the same way every week. Respect privacy. Never make jokes about bodies. Make room for everyone.
None of that sounds like teaching. All of it is what lets the teaching land.
18. The role of silence and rest
Do not skimp on rest and do not fill silence.
Silence is where integration happens and where people hear their own bodies instead of your voice. Most new teachers are frightened of it and talk over it.
And if you budgeted 5 minutes of rest, honor the 5 minutes. Cutting it to finish on time sends people back into their day overstimulated rather than settled, which is the opposite of what they came for.
19. Repetition and deepening
Nobody understands a practice the first time they do it.
The first time, the body learns the shape. The fifth time, it starts to feel the energy. The twentieth time, something else is available that was not there before.
So build classes people can return to for a year. Repetition with deepening is how change actually happens, and each time you teach the same class you are teaching it from further in.
20. Knowing when to progress and when to deepen
Not all progress is forward. Often the deepest progress is staying where you are and going further down.
Someone who can perform every movement does not necessarily know the practice. Someone who has done Hip Spirals 50 times knows something that someone who has done them 5 times does not.
A good curriculum has both new material and deepening, and deepening matters more. Some people are ready for the next thing. Others need the same thing again. Honor both.
Next: Sharing as Service. On the after-effect of a well-closed class, see why people feel different after Qigong.
Part of the 25 Dimensions of Sharing Qigong.
On what the practice is doing physically while all this lands, how Qigong regulates the nervous system.
By Christopher Grant, Great Energy.
Frequently asked questions
How many times does it take to learn a Qigong practice?
The first time the body learns the shape. Around the fifth it starts to feel the energy. By the twentieth something else is available.
How do you create safety in a class?
Through unglamorous consistency. Show up on time, keep the space clean, begin and end the same way, never joke about bodies.
Is it better to learn new practices or go deeper into old ones?
Deepening matters more than breadth. Someone who has done a practice 50 times knows something someone who has done it 5 times does not.
Where to go next
If you have never practiced Qigong. Jump Start Your Energy is a free beginner class. No background needed, nothing to buy, and it is the fastest way to find out whether any of this does anything for you. Most people know within one session.
If you practice and want to go deeper. We teach live classes online every week, and there is a self-paced Introduction to Qigong if you would rather work through it in your own time.
If you want to teach this. Everything in this library is drawn from the Great Energy Qigong Teacher Certification. The frameworks are here in full because they are more useful shared than withheld. The training is where you learn to deliver them.
Keep reading. The rest of the framework library is at the Library, and our longer articles are on the blog.
Great Energy is an independent educational organization founded by Christopher Grant and Daniela Hess.