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. I remember after my year in the woods, when I was casting around for a path that led into something meaningful, I really wanted to work with energy. It’s why I sampled Reiki; it’s how I ended up in massage school, thinking that it would teach me some energy healing (it didn’t). I thought about various energy healing training programs, like the Barbara Brennan school. But none of them really felt like they had the sense of legitimacy that I wanted, or the sense of depth, seriousness, and left-brained analytical rigor that’s also an important part of me. So I found Oriental medicine.

Now here comes a method of energy healing whose roots are one and the same with what I’ve been studying. I have to throw nothing away; I don’t even have to make an awkward fit. Everything I’ve been studying in school fits seamlessly with qigong theory, because they’re the same! Yin/yang, excess/deficient, Five Elements, etc., etc.

And I realize that I’ve spent the last several years laying that all-important important foundation. Only now am I ready to add this element that I’ve always wanted to perform. This type of healing is so out-there that it needs to be firmly grounded in the kind of knowledge I’ve spent my time building. And now I’m ready to take it to the next level!

I know, I seem to get excited easily. I had this reaction to Toyohari too. It’s an interesting continuum though: Toyohari was non-insertion acupuncture, kind of spacey even to “regular” acupuncturists. Qigong is even beyond that. It begins to step into the realm of spiritual or occult workings, of shamanic healing.

As such, it starts to meld with things I’ve always been interested in.

I have to be careful. The more I orient my practice to what I’m interested in and believe in, the less palatable I may be to the public. Acupuncture and herbs is weird enough for the average American. Toyohari and qigong may be too far out for some people.

But my hope is that one thing will give it legitimacy: Results.

If I continue feeling this way about this training, I’d like to take it all the way to the end, and learn how to treat cancer using qigong. The power to heal a disease widely deemed incurable in the West, except by highly toxic treatments, would be immense.

For now, I’m just at the beginning of this path. We’ll see where it takes me.