Qi Gong
What Is Qi Gong?
Qi Gong is an ancient Chinese mind-body practice that combines gentle movement, posture, breathing and focused attention. Some practices move continuously. Others may involve standing, seated movement, visualization or stillness.
The movements can look deceptively simple. The practice is less about how hard you work and more about how deliberately you move, breathe and pay attention.
Within Traditional East Asian Medicine, Qi Gong developed as one way of cultivating and regulating qi, the vital activity or life force described within Chinese medicine. Modern research approaches the practice differently, studying its effects as a combination of gentle physical activity, breath regulation and meditative attention.
For Sarah, both perspectives have value. You do not have to choose between the traditional language and modern physiology in order to experience the practice.
More Than 25 Years of Practice
Sarah’s relationship with Qi Gong runs much deeper than a weekend certification.
She is a certified Qi Gong instructor who has trained with Lee Holden, an internationally recognized Qi Gong teacher, licensed acupuncturist and herbalist known for making traditional practices accessible to modern students.
Sarah has also studied Qi Gong and Chi Nei Tsang with Grandmaster Mantak Chia, founder of the Universal Healing Tao system, whose work has brought Taoist movement, breathing and internal cultivation practices to students around the world.
Her broader study of Daoist medicine includes Jeffrey Yuen, an 88th-generation Daoist priest and internationally recognized teacher of Classical Chinese Medicine, Tai Chi and Qi Gong. Sarah has also trained in Golden Shield Qi Gong, adding another traditional perspective on cultivation and physical practice.
These teachers represent different expressions of the same larger tradition. Sarah has spent decades absorbing those perspectives alongside her clinical training in acupuncture, herbal medicine, functional medicine and conventional health care.
Qi Gong, Taught Through Sarah’s Clinical Lens
Sarah does not think of Qi Gong as a sequence everyone performs for the same reason.
Her clinical training influences what she notices in the way someone stands, breathes and moves. At times she may emphasize a particular exercise or quality of movement because of what she is observing in the person in front of her. That same pattern-based thinking runs through her acupuncture practice and the larger Adaptive Longevity approach.
The class gives you an opportunity to learn those practices directly from Sarah and, over time, develop tools you can use outside the clinic.
You do not need to be flexible, athletic or experienced with meditation to begin. Qi Gong can be practiced gently and adapted to different levels of physical ability.
Why Qi Gong Belongs in Longevity Medicine
Sarah believes longevity is ultimately about capacity: having enough physical and internal reserve to continue participating in your life as you age.
That makes Qi Gong different from many of the technologies associated with modern longevity medicine. It is something you can practice yourself. It requires no laboratory, injection or device. Over time, the practice asks you to become more attentive to how you use your energy, how you recover and how your body responds to changing demands.
Research into Qi Gong is still developing. Studies have explored its potential role in balance, physical function, quality of life and several chronic conditions, with encouraging findings in some areas and mixed or limited evidence in others. Sarah teaches it because of both that emerging evidence and the much older medical tradition in which her own practice is grounded.
Begin a Practice
You do not need to understand Qi Gong before you walk through the door. Come ready to move, breathe and learn how a practice that has been part of Sarah’s life for decades might become part of yours.
