Abigail and I recently decided that after graduation, we’re moving to Oregon.

There, I’ll start a practice, and we’ll begin preparations to settle down, grow some roots, become part of a community that we care about, and raise children.

I turn thirty in a few months. Times, they are a-changin’.

My first week of qigong training is over.

My initial criticisms still stand. I think the course really works best as an intermediate training program. I find that my background in qi, Chinese medicine, and body movement help immensely to make me feel like I’m at a good baseline. Initially this was quite off-putting since I didn’t quite expect to be thrown into the deep end. It still makes me worry about what I’m missing.

As the week went on, though, I also began to see how that blade cuts both ways, and it actually started to excite me. I mean, really, would I really have wanted to sit through more detailed lectures on the Five Elements? Would I really have wanted to sit through lectures on what is qi and descriptions on how to achieve qi sensation and flow? I sure wouldn’t.

This was an information dump, no question about it. Not much time for emphasis or individual assistance; just plain turning on the fire hose full blast. But in the midst of that I start to see a pattern in the madness. There are so many details that begin to make sense. And I think I’m starting to understand that this form of healing could be really, truly awesome. All of the details point to a very systematic and refined way of using mind, body, breath, and energy to heal. It’s no less than a science of energy healing.

At the end of the week, I sat back and realized something: This is what I’ve wanted for years.

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This qigong training is rubbing me the wrong way a little bit, and it’s taking me some time to figure out why. Forgive me as I complain.

Basically, it reminds me of a Tom Brown, Jr. class. One week of being bombarded with material, to the point of information overload. Do this, do that. Got it? Good. Some inspiring stories to break up the routine. Repeat.

It’s not that it’s bad information. It’s that the quantity of the material is being presented without attention to the process of learning.

I like it when the teaching of something starts from the beginning. What is qi? What’s the experience of qi? What are the foundational things that lead to that experience? Once experienced, what are the basic ways you can direct, use, and refine it? That’s what I thought this would be like. Instead, it launched into esoteric theories followed by multiple exercises for dispersing and tonifying various kinds of qi in various organs.

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I’ve embarked on another step in this journey: Today I started a training program in medical qigong.

I’ll only note one thing right now, and that is that I feel that this, which is in some ways touches deeply into the essence of the type of healing I would like to do, has the remarkable ability to touch one of my greatest strengths an done of my greatest weaknesses simultaneously.

I enjoy the strength of being relatively sensitive to energy.

I suffer the weakness of being fairly incapable of inhabiting my body well, leading to tension and weakness and a weak constitution.

The combination means that I can command energy but it’s not well grounded. And as anyone who works with energy knows, ultimately energy and matter go hand in hand. In other words, if I want to progress anywhere with my qi capabilities, I have to allow it to flow and settle correctly in myself first.

Which touches on so much: on breathing, on posture, on emotional blocks and mental habits.

The learning, and the challenges, never seem to stop. Sometimes I like it that way, but other times … Damn, I wish I could just say I’m done learning for awhile.