How Posture, Movement, and Breath Affect Your Body, a Beginner's Guide to Qi Gong & Nei Gong
I want to talk about something that I think gets overlooked way too often. How you carry yourself through this world is pretty much the foundation of everything. How you feel day to day, how your body functions, and honestly what you're even capable of doing.
If you've ever wondered whether practices like Qi Gong or Nei Gong could actually help you feel better in your body, this is for you.
And you don't need any experience to start!
You're Not Broken, You Might Just Be Disconnected
Here's the thing that took me a long time to really understand…
Posture and movement and breath aren't things you practice for thirty minutes and then stop and go on with your day.
They're things you're already doing all day long whether you're thinking about them or not.
You're standing, you're moving, you're breathing, every single moment, so the question I like to ask is this.
What if instead of treating your body like it's broken and needs to be fixed in some appointment once a week, you started to see that you're not broken at all.
You're likely just a little disconnected, and the good news is that connection can be relearned.
What Makes These Practices Different
What I teach comes from Traditional Chinese Martial Arts and Chinese Medicine.
One of the things that drew me to these practices in the first place is that they're principle based.
Meaning you're not just memorizing a bunch of exercises and movements that you'll forget the second you walk out the door.
You're actually learning how your body wants to move.
How to find your center(s) and move from it/them.
How to feel more balanced and more mobile and more at home in yourself.
And once you understand the principles you can apply them to everything you already do.
A Quick Look at Qi Gong, Nei Gong, Tai Chi, and Ba Gua Zhang
If you're new to all of this the names can feel a little intimidating, so let me break them down simply.
Qi Gong is a gentle practice of coordinated movement and breath that helps you build energy and calm the body.
Nei Gong goes a little deeper into the internal work, training the connections inside the body that most of us never learned to feel.
Tai Chi is the slow flowing practice a lot of people have seen in the park, and it teaches balance, relaxation, and moving from your center.
And Ba Gua Zhang is a profound internal martial art that builds mobility, coordination, and an intrinsic, grounded kind of strength.
They all live under the same umbrella of internal arts, and they all come back to the same foundation, how you stand, move, and breathe.
Who This Is For
I think that's the part that gets me excited. Because whether you're somebody who's dealing with pain right now and looking to heal, or somebody who feels good but wants to stay that way and prevent injury down the road, or somebody who just wants to keep cultivating strength and vitality for the long haul so you can keep doing the things you love for as long as you choose, it all comes back to the same place. Your center, and how you stand and move and breathe.
Come Practice With Us in NYC
If any of this resonates with you I'd love for you to come check out the schedule and find a class that feels right. We teach Qi Gong, Nei Gong, Tai Chi, and Ba Gua Zhang right here in New York City and online. There's a few different options and they all live under the same umbrella. You don't need any experience and you don't need to know anything about these arts going in. You just need to show up and be willing to listen to your body a little more closely than you're used to.
Come stand tall, move freely, and breathe deep with us.