41 - EP41 w/ Tevia Feng: The Healing Art of Qi Gong, Fascial Network's Role in Disease and Living Charged With Natural Energy

Very good. Well, Mr. Tibia Fang, thanks so much, uh, for joining me on the Solcast. Um, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Thanks so much. And now I, I read something on your website, uh, recently, which this is your ethos, I guess, and I just thought it was so great, so I wanted to start the podcast with this. Is your mission, uh, through White Tiger Qigong is to open the pathway for people to ignite transformation and maximize potential, scaling across communities, creating a global movement of a shift in consciousness to create a global healing. And that is a very, very cool paragraph that summarizes a lot of the stuff, or the same themes that, you know, it's just such a great thing to be doing. And I just wanted to say that I appreciate that you're doing it in this world.

Well, thanks for, for noticing that, and I'm happy that you resonate with it as well, because I feel that we're in a day and age where Nothing is more important now. The time is so critical to begin this now, as we know, as we can all see what's happening in the world.

Yeah, and it's that shifting consciousness, the level of awareness of everyone. It needs to hit that critical mass so that, you know, at an energetic level, we're all linked in that sense, at the population level. And as, as long as Enough people can kind of see through the lies and, you know, hopefully practice more of these high vibrational things in their own lives, it'll all tip. And, you know, I guess that's what they call, uh, the Golden Ages, right? In terms of the, uh, how do you say, kind of macro level astrology terms.

Is that right? I guess.

And what do you see as, you know, that is your objective. What are you doing day to day in terms of, you know, your background, what you do with White Tiger, and just for people at home listening, could you go into a bit of detail about that and your story so far?

Well, I mean, first people should understand why I got into qigong, and I was born with chronic illness. My grandmother died an early death of a respiratory disease. My sister was born with pneumonia. My brother was born with rickets. I have colon cancer in my family, heart disease in my family. You name it, we've got it. I was born with pretty much 3 strikes against me. And so my father wanted me to have a healthy life. He didn't want me— my parents didn't want me to be on medication and hospitals. With doctors my whole life. So they introduced me to an alternative form of health and healing called Qi Gong. And my father had been doing it since before I was born, and they chose a master for me. And that's how I got into it. It helped me concentrate my mind, it helped me strengthen my organs and my body. And that was what set me on my way. Now fast forward years later, I was in a brutal car accident when I was a teenager. Doctors told me I had to have surgery on my spine and my knee, and I was really scared because I was a young guy and I didn't want to have to have a very invasive surgery that can have permanent lasting consequences on your physical body and also your mental health. So I went to my master and I told him I'm going to have to have surgery, and he said, No, just try this first. Try this simple Qigong movement. It's called the wave. It's this simple undulation of the spine. It's very gentle. It's very nice. It's very soothing and relaxing. And I was in such pain all day long. If I sat in a chair for more than 30 minutes, I had aches and pains in my back, and it was debilitating. And this Qigong helped relieve that back pain. Now, it took about 4 years to completely heal, but 4 years is a drop in the bucket compared to a lifetime if I had that surgery of what it would have brought potentially.

Yeah.

And so I'm such a believer in this Qi Gong from that. And then move forward, years later, I had completed a training with a medical qigong master from China, and he asked me to go work in his clinic as part of my training for free, teaching cancer patients, people with difficult-to-treat illnesses, people with, yeah, people with like Tourette syndrome, and working with them with qigong. And so that's how I started actually doing my first work in qigong, and My first patient, he was dying of liver cancer, couldn't eat, couldn't smile, couldn't sleep. After 3 days of teaching him these medical Qigong exercises and treatments, he was able to eat, he was able to sleep, he was able to smile. And it was at that point that I knew this is what I want to do the rest of my life. I just felt this connection with this human being who was suffering, and to be able to show him a way to alleviate the suffering, and then the way he treated me like a family member after and just brought me into his life. It just felt so rewarding, and it just felt like this is what I want to do. And so I continued on that path, and I wanted to bring away— you know, people are like, what is qigong? What is this qigong stuff? People don't even— you know, you look at it, you don't even know how to pronounce it. Qigong, qigong, quagong. I've heard a million different interpretations.

I did. I will admit I Googled it before I to properly pronounce it.

Yeah, well, I mean, that is to be expected. I mean, everybody's heard of tai chi, right? But nobody's heard of qigong. And tai chi is originally one of the 3,000 kinds of qigong. So you have over 3,000 kinds of qigong. And I mean, first, you know, you have to define what is qi. I'm not sure if your listeners know about qigong, Do you talk about qigong in other podcasts?

I've discussed the kind of universal energy field, but I'm sure you would do it a greater justice if you wanted to explain it now.

Yeah, sure. So I wanted to find a way, you know, qigong is like, you know, this, as you might say in a generalized way, it's the working, working with energy, but it's much more than that. And I wanted a way to break it down in a non-esoteric way that is something people could grasp. So first you have to understand the word qi is literally just energy. You know, the character, the Chinese character, is a rice kernel popping with gas. So it's like this alchemical process. You put two and two together and boom, you have combustion. And that is the— that is qi. So you can— you breathe in air and that oxygen now gives you energy. So you you, before you push something heavy or, or do something with, you know, a lot of exertion, you're going to take a big breath in to generate qi. Okay, now gong is just the refined skill of working with energy. So you can— anything can be gong that's a refined skill. Uh, you know, you have qigong, uh, you have anything that— you have kung fu, which originally comes from gong fu, which encompasses martial arts, qigong, anything that is a real skill that you've practiced. So what really sparked my interest in the modern science is when I read Thomas Myers' book Anatomy Trains, and he had found what he calls myofascial meridians with these connective tissue lines that run throughout the body. It's the fascia. And for those who don't know what fascia is, it's the spidery, gluey, fibrous web that's just underneath the skin that wraps around the organs, wraps around the bone, and then goes in and becomes the bone. And the bone is actually the hardest part of the fascia. So this is the thing that holds you together. Yeah. And they say we're going to have to rewrite anatomy books because in anatomy books they show us as just individual muscles. Where actually all those muscles are actually connected and the organs are connected and everything's connected through this fascia, which is a communications network. So Thomas Myers found these, these connective tissue lines. He didn't know anything about the Chinese meridian maps. He went and compared them to Chinese meridian maps, and lo and behold, they were almost identical.

Yeah.

And he found that when you coil and uncoil these fascia connective tissue lines, it generates an electrical charge that he could measure with a scientific instrument. And that is what my master had said all along, that when you— tension to relaxation in the meridians generates chi. And what he was literally talking about was this coiling and uncoiling in the fascia that generates electrical charges. Now, when we use specific techniques, we can now move those electrical charges through the body. And the purpose of that in our Qi Gong is for circulation. Now, Qi is the catalyst for the movement of blood, okay? And without Qi, blood wouldn't move. So without these electrical charges, the blood would be stagnant and still. And that's what happens in the body when we have— let's say you've been sitting at a desk all day and you haven't got up and you feel this ache and pain in your lower back, and that is the qi and the blood can't circulate into the lower back very well. There's a blockage, and you need to move that and open it up to allow the qi and the blood to circulate inside, and then you feel relief. And it's actually that simple.

Yeah.

So that is how I got into, to make a long story short, of what qi is actually and what it's doing in Qi Gong.

Yeah, no, that's, that's incredible. And I think it's, you know, those ancient wisdoms that they may not have had the exact scientific instruments to measure what's going on or theories of it. And so they give it these, you know, in our Western point of view, we— these kind of mystical explanations. And because it's not, you know, you can't see it in lab, even though you've obviously just said that you can, you can measure it with electrical currents and things, but like in terms of the meridians and all of that, it seems rather out there to people that don't understand what they mean. So I think all of them though are referring to, you know, people figured out how the human body works. We've been around for thousands of years now. People have written down what they've found, you know, mentally, spiritually, but this Qi Gong is like a— I think I you know, innately been doing it just when you stretch and you kind of almost like a stretching meditation where you really delve into the muscles and feeling good afterwards. Yoga obviously was a pathway into that for me, but I'm really now more getting into the, the idea of this energy field and its relation to optimal health and disease being kind of caused by this energetic blockage wherever it is in the body. It's all obviously like correlated to some areas of the liver, some areas of the heart, things like that. But what would you say is like, is that the main cause of disease? And you've obviously had great success. I'd love for you to talk about what kind of movements you were doing for the guy that had a liver disease and how, you know, Qi Gong and the energy field relates to health now. That Western audiences might not really be aware of?

Well, that's a great question. And for me, the, the crux of it all is really the Taoist concept, and of the spirit is intrinsically connected to the physical body. And that means the emotional state, your mental well-being, is directly connected to your physical well-being. And when I say Taoism, I'm not talking about religious Taoism. There is religious Taoism, but I follow the natural Taoism, which is what we call from the Tao Te Ching, or in English we say Tao Te Ching from Lao Tzu. But in Chinese you got Lao Tzu. And this, yeah, that's a—

it's a—

that's like, you know, a non-religious Bible. It's, it's all about nature, and it's all about this following nature. That's what it's all about. So there's no hierarchy. There's no deities, there's no— it's, it's just nature, you and nature, and, and the interconnection between it all.

Yeah.

And so when we just think about it like this, if you get really angry or have deep anxiety all day long, that is going to affect your digestion, you know, and you go into fight or flight. So I'll give you an example, um, when you— if you're in a— you're driving in a car and you're stressed and you're late and you're driving fast, right? Your heart starts to pump and you're nervous. You— maybe you're missing a deadline. Maybe, you know, something else is going on. You have all these thoughts going through your head. Your heart starts to pump. You start to breathe more shallow, more intensely. And you're, you're going into what's called the— in neuroscience terms, this— you're having a sympathetic response. So this is putting you into fight or flight. You're getting, you know, surges of adrenaline. You're releasing cortisol, which is, uh, you know, some people might term it as the stress chemical. And now this can be a good thing when you need it. But the thing is, is you should only use this in real terms of fight or flight. Like thousands of years ago when we were running from tigers or something like that, or some predator chasing us, we needed— but we're— the average human being is going through this on a daily basis.

Yeah. When they're in the office. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the average person and, you know, then you need a cup of, you know, your second— you need a cup of coffee to wake up. You need your second cup of coffee by 11:00 AM just to keep the motors running. And then by the time you get home at the end of the day, many people are so wiped out, they've got nothing left because they're burning the candle at both ends. And you're literally burning your life force away and you're losing years of your life. And the Taoist qigong way is about nurturing yourself, nourishing yourself, about living in balance, living in emotional balance and physical balance in harmony with nature. And so how it ties in is when I've worked with multiple people with cancer, one of the things that I've noticed, they're holding on to emotions so intensely, they're not able to let go of it. And that is a real danger. And that was a wake-up call for me in my life. I better get good at letting go of emotions because emotions in excessive amounts become toxic not only to your mind but to your physical health. Because when you're releasing these chemicals from the brain that are telling the body, go into fight or flight, what's happening is the body starts to actually react like that, and you're using up your energy systems. So you're using up your reserves, and it takes a toll on your health. You have less energy, you have fatigue. Maybe lower sex drive, you have less energy to exercise, you have, you know, you lose focus easily, you might have brain fog frequently. These are the types of physical effects. And then it actually, you go into that tension state where you're in a hypertension state. So your body's tense all day, which then puts further pressure on the organ systems because the fascia starts to harden. Around the organs. When a baby is born, your fascia is so malleable, the baby can drop into a split without any pain or warming up. Whereas we got to— most people can't do splits, and then most people who can do splits got to warm up and go through a whole routine to get there. I'm not there yet. And so we want to get that youthfulness back. Everybody wants that youthfulness once you get over 30 years old. We're all looking for that. Fountain of Youth. And Qi Gong, you know, while it's not a, you know, a silver bullet or a magic pill, but it's going to give you a solid practice on how to bring years to your life back and how to feel that youthfulness again, not only physically but also mentally and spiritually, in being able to let go of emotions and move on more quickly and be more free ultimately. Free in your body and free in your mind. And that's what I want. So you had asked what we did with the guy who had liver cancer. Well, we worked on exercises that would wring out the liver meridian and coil the liver meridian and also work on the liver itself by through gentle movements that massage the liver. So gentle dynamic movements. So kind of imagine yoga meets tai chi. You know, that's what this qigong is. You know, that's— so it's, it's got more— it's, you know, in tai chi you have, you know, total softness, whereas this qigong you're gonna have like a deep coiling in the body, like a stretch. Yeah, but it's dynamic, so it's not stagnant. Whereas yoga, you might sit in a posture and just stay there for a while, where this you're going to continue to move from one posture to the next. So there's continuous flow, the way Tai Chi has the flow, but yet it has the stretching and strengthening that yoga has. So I mean, that's the best analogy I can give for the average user, but it's much more in-depth than that. But that's just a general analogy.

Yeah. Do you think that, um, the concept of holding on to our mental issues and then the energy kind of burns us out every day, we have these negative thought loops that we go back on, whether it's a mistake from the past that we can, you know, judge ourselves over and over again. And I found that and read that, you know, certain emotional issues— say you hold a pigeon stretch yoga pose for a long time— some people have particular emotions and thoughts that come up, and that could be those long-held emotional issues and mental issues, you know, literally being held in the fascia of your kind of hip girdle. Do you think that people's inflexibility in terms of a physical level, and they can't stretch, causes them to more tightly hold on to things? Or is it the other way around, that that kind of mental block— I feel like it's more so the physical, you know, everyone's sitting in an office chair, they're not moving their body, they're never stretching, never doing these, you these good exercise movements, so it gets tight, and then that impacts you to be in a more, how should we say, you know, mindset that is you're going to hold on to things more and let those issues affect your life more.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's kind of like what came first, the chicken or the egg. It's hard to say, you know, and each individual has their own story, you know, so it's hard to say what came first to you. The emotional effect on the physical body or the physical, uh, you know, the way you are handling yourself physically. But what we do know is that they, they have a mutual effect on each other, and they both can lead— so physical, you know, being in physical pain and immobility can lead to emotional pain and emotional immobility, and vice versa. Now we look at the fascia in terms of fascia science. Fascia shows that to keep your fascia healthy, it needs to be elastic. And in Qigong, we say you want to develop what we call the bamboo body, where it's strong but yet flexible and elastic-like. So we have a very identical philosophy to fascia science. What we're doing is moving through these deep twists and turns and movements to really bring back that elasticity and mobility in the body. And then also then after we bring in a meditation for emotional release. Now if we look at it from scientific neuroscience, neuroscience perspective, we know that those, what you might call an emotional block or a repetitive emotion where you're going through this habitual pattern of dwelling on something that we're actually, from a neuroscience perspective, we're hardwiring into our brain this emotional loop. Now, this emotional loop, what happens is if it's like, say, you know, somebody hurts you and you're in grief, or you have deep anxiety about something and you keep replaying the, the traumatic incident in your head, you've now hardwired it and you've hardwired that chemical release in the brain telling the body how to react, because the brain ultimately guides the body how to react.

Yeah.

And what we need to do is we need to break that cycle and get you out of that tension state and bring back the mobility. So yes, absolutely. You had mentioned like the pelvic girdle. I look at it from a Chinese medicine perspective, which is the Dai Mai, which is the girdle vessel, which is an actual, what we call an extraordinary meridian that wraps around the body like a belt in the pelvic area. And from a fascia perspective, it is literally a, like a belt-like band of connective tissue that wraps around the pelvic girdle. And that has direct relationships with your emotions, and all the fascia does, because we're always— the fascia reacts to your emotions. So when you're driving in a car and you almost You know, you get into a near car accident, your whole body tenses to brace itself. And so that's the body, the fascia reacting to the brain telling it what to do. So absolutely, I totally agree with you there.

No, it's so interesting. And you know, this conversation's sparking so many different issues. Obviously, I think I have to get more into this practice myself. Um, in, in terms of kind of covered the, the short-term benefits of the practice. What are the, you know, say someone commits to this for as long as you have, what are the longer-term benefits that you've noticed through, you know, practicing this for so long, uh, in terms of the way you feel compared to before, or even your spiritual kind of connection?

Well, first I wanted to say that You know, I have studied over 50 different styles of qigong and martial arts, and one of the things I found is that many styles are not effective in the short term. And many, you know, I wanted something that somebody can get tangible results immediately, something that's going to be really effective, because most of us are not living in the day and age where We have 8 hours a day and we just, you know, you maybe like a few times a week you get your— gather your food and then you have the rest of the day to play. So most of us are, you know, working 9 to 5s or if you're an at-home entrepreneur, you're working a lot. You're not going to have more than say an hour a day at most and some people even less than that. So what could we do that we're going to get the most tangible results immediately? And so I found 3 different systems of qigong out of all the different styles I did that can bring those tangible results effectively immediately. And so that's what I created is the Trinity System, which is a compilation of these 3 different systems of qigong with White Tiger Qigong. And, um, so you don't need to practice as long as I have. Uh, so you would ask What are the results that, you know, I get after practicing all the years that I get? Well, I, I say there's 3 stages in, in White Tiger Qigong. You have first is healing, so you need to start to heal those emotional wounds. You need to heal the physical wounds, um, the injuries, the traumas. Then the next stage is transformation, where we start to reconfigure ourselves, remold ourselves. And the third stage is maximum potential, where we're discovering what do capable of in this life? What is it that they didn't teach us in school? And one of the things that I'm interested in is, you know, I, I do neurotech experiments. I was in a, um, in a neuroscience lab, and we, we had me hooked to some neurotech on my head. And we have a lot of video where they video that you can see the brain activity in my brain and the different areas of my brain And with the White Tiger Breathing Qi Gong, I was able to completely shut down all brain activity and enter into like a state of bliss. Some people might call that enlightenment. Um, I, you know, I say like enlightenment's subjective because everybody has a different experience and opinion of what enlightenment is. But I believe you can find enlightenment in moments, in that moment of bliss where you're, you're, you've let go of everything, all the stresses of life, and you can you can really tune into a deeper energy. And that is what I was doing, and I can do that on will. And that is like one of the results of practicing for many, many, you know, years and, uh, over 3 decades, you know. So, and dedicatedly, and many, many years I spent training up to 11 hours a day. But anybody can achieve what I can do, uh, with practice, with the right kind of practice and a dedicated practice, most importantly.

You mentioned your martial arts training, over 50 different types. Um, what— I know you were doing some competition fights, uh, and I'm just wondering what— how would you say that's kind of played in your knowledge of physicality, uh, in violence, life, and growing up? And how does your fighting style compared to the average guy because of the practices that you've done?

Well, I was a tournament fighter when I was young, when I was in my early 20s, and I had a really bad hip injury from kicking really, really hard.

Yeah.

And, and I couldn't walk right for 6 months. And I went to my Chinese medicine doctor and he says, you know, you're going to die an early death. And I said, why do you say that? He says, you're going into extreme fight or flight adrenaline rushes on a weekly basis.

Yeah.

Where you should only be going through this like a few times in your life to that extreme.

Yeah.

And you are burning up your life force. And I was, I was addicted to adrenaline rushes. That's why I did tournament fighting. I was addicted to that. That— it was such an intense rush, so addictive.

Yeah.

And it was like a drug, literally. It's like the best drug. So I, I quit all competition fighting at that point. And now, I mean, don't get me wrong, I work with world champion martial artists in Qigong to balance them. Like, I work— you know, we got the North American Muay Thai champion Sylvester Organica, who's a White Tiger Qigong Senior Instructor. We've got Nua Hussein, who's the 2019 World Female Karate Champion and who's also a White Tiger Qigong Instructor. And so while I teach them how to balance themselves and strengthen themselves in their competitions, I don't personally engage in any competition fighting. Since my early 20s because I was actually really addicted to the adrenaline rushes and I don't want to induce more adrenaline rushes. I probably burned years off of my life already from that that I need to gain back. So I then, at about 23 years old, I decided to focus and hone my skills in medical qigong. So really when I say medical, I don't like the word medical because it has a clinical connotation. But really it's all about health and longevity, this kind of qigong. So the intention is not to fight, but a fighter could use it to gain control of fear and anxiety and concentrate the mind and release that. Yeah, yeah. So that— it was how really it influenced me is in the fighting aspect, is to actually get into healing and health. Longevity qigong. And so that's why I think some world champion fighters have come to me with that in mind, because I know that, you know, some of their immune systems are compromised from their intense field of work.

I can only imagine that there's, you know, only a certain amount of high intensity, you know, literally fighting for your life that your kind of body can deal with without seeing some other things break down in the kind of system. It's all about the balance, right? And I, I try to put across that message is that, you know, you can train hard, but then you have to recover hard as well. It's the yin-yang principles, uh, that kind of pervade all areas of life. But yeah, we've talked a little bit about, you know, how to facilitate the good energy, um, in your life and in your body. How do you— how does diet fit in for you into that space? I know there are, you know, some Ayurvedic rules about eating. Do you kind of subscribe to those kind of ideas? And obviously diet is such an important part of the physical, mental, and spiritual as well.

Well, uh, so I come from you know, a few different perspectives. I come from a mix of science and, and Taoist diet perspectives. So Chinese medicine is originally a Taoist practice and comes from nature. And in Chinese medicine, you should have all the 5 elements in your diet. And what does that mean is you have the 5 flavors. So the 5 flavors affect the different 5 major yin organs. So I'll give you an example. So in the 5 elements are earth, metal, fire, wood, water, and each one of those elements is within us. And those are related to the 5 different organs, which you have the heart, the lungs, the liver, the spleen, and the kidneys. And so, like the 5 flavors, such, for example, sweet, sour, salty, these flavors affect the organs and they stimulate the brain. And so to have different flavors in your diet is really important and also in balance, like not extreme flavors. Too much extreme flavors can be too much. So everything in balance. And also the 5 colors which are related to the 5 elements. So you want to have all these different— you want to have a colorful meal. So this stimulates the organs. And then I believe in having food with a lot of chi. So food that doesn't— I want food that's nutritionally dense.

Yeah.

Okay. So the Taoists were always in the hunt, in the search for longevity. So they were real alchemists. And they used what they had at their disposal. Like, so a couple thousand years ago, they were drinking, playing with lead— I'm sorry, mercury. They were eating mercury in the hunt for longevity, but then they died and realized, hey, this isn't working. Yeah, but I, I liked their, you know, their, their original intention and motivation and where they're— so they were just using the tools that they had at their disposal, and they were real scientists They were real, like, science and scientists in the lab experimenting. Exactly. So now we have, like, nutrigenomics, where you can find your— you can test your genes and see what food is good for your genes. You have your blood type. You can test what food is good for your blood type. So you have so much science now that you can find, uh, what's good for you as the individual, because, uh, one man's food is another man's poison. That's from the wisest naturopath who died a while ago, Dr. James De Dama. He said that one man's food is another man's poison. And he found that everybody has a different requirement. And when you look at nutrigenomics, you can see that very clearly. So I also am a believer in testing your body, like, what minerals do you need? What are you deficient in? What vitamins are you deficient in rather than a one-size-fits-all. So that's where I kind of fuse science with the, the Taoist ancient wisdom for diet.

Yeah, it's very interesting. I have to— someone mentioned this to me the other day, is that to get the blood type tested, because like you said, if you're eating something that's going to be spiking your blood sugar, but it's something that you, you know, it could be something innocuous like green beans. I think affected Ben Greenfield's blood sugar very severely. And you would think, oh, it's a healthy food, it's just the vegetables, it's not going to be doing anything. But just his genetics means his body was, you know, actually reacting very badly to this thing. So that's a very important point for, for people to kind of look into more.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm all about testing because we have so much really cool tests that we can do to to find out, you know, uh, what, what we're missing and what we need. So I would take advantage of that.

Um, what do you kind of think about the chakra system? Obviously that's, um, central to the fascia and how it relates to our energetic centers in the body, but could you talk about the chakra system a little bit and how that can affect the body?

Well, the chakras— when you say chakra, I think that's a real— I think it's an Indian term or a yogic term. Yeah, I'm not an expert in that area, but in terms of Qigong, we have the 3 Dan Tians, and Dan Tian literally means elixir field. And so those from— those are in the— you have in the upper area of the head, you have in the lower area around the heart, and in the lower— in the, in the bottom of the lower belly, which we call the lower dantian, middle dantian, and then upper dantian. And so each one is related from, you know, from a Western anatomical perspective. The upper dantian is, is the limbic system in the brain, and the middle dantian is the heart and lungs. It's the, it's the respiratory system in the heart. And then you have the lower dantian, which is the digestive system and the sexual organs.

Yeah.

And so these really are essentially the 3 major areas of the body that, uh, we work on, on bringing energy into and filling and balancing and, and using and pulsing energy there.

Right.

And this feeds the entire system. Yes.

Are you aware of the kind of meditative circulation of energy through those systems and kind of connecting to other energetic fields, whether it's you know, a tree or kind of— yeah.

Oh yeah, we— if you look at like, um, so what we do in Qigong is we connect to natural elements. So you have qi from every element. So for example, if I want to work on my liver and anger, right, I'll go into a forest with trees because wood element is connected with the liver and anger. And so I'll look at like a green forest or a lot of green, that color green helps. And so you look at that by looking at that, bathing in it. The Japanese call it forest bathing, and there's now scientific benefits from it that we know of. But the Taoists have been saying this for a long time. That's why I always say that science is finally catching up to the ancient wisdom.

Yeah, for sure.

But so we go in and we absorb energy from that area. You can The Taoists say we have more mouths than just the mouth. The nose is a mouth, the eye is a mouth, the eyes are a mouth. They feed on energy. And so your vision, when you open your eyes, that's the gateway to the spirit, and you are then feeding it by what you look at, the images you put in. And so absolutely, I'm a big proponent of doing qigong in natural elements that are balancing for you. For some people, ocean, they feel really good when they go to the ocean or a lake or a river. So that's the water element that's connected with kidneys, with the emotion of fear, and it calms the fear. So being in that element, you absorb that chi from that element and you get that. That's why I love to live like I live on the beach with the mountains behind me and in front of me. And so I have earth, I have mountains, I have water, I have trees, lots of green trees around me. And so I'm getting all these different elements that I can gather that chi into my body, and it just makes me feel so good. Now, if you're living in a city, what you can do is go to a park, do your training in a park near some trees. If you're stuck inside, you're in lockdown, get a plant and go by the window, open the window if you can, and be, you know, try to get a window with sunlight coming into it. Or, or so just, just, you know, really exposing yourself to natural elements to get that chi.

Yeah, yeah, I 100% agree with that. It's intangible kind of feelings you don't really know how to put words to. But everyone knows the difference in how they feel before and after spending time in nature. So it's good to see that kind of explained in that way. So thank you for that. Um, you mentioned, uh, before— so I had the— a reader send me this question to ask you. Um, he was at a qigong course last month, I was amazed at how effective the slow movements are activating the rarely used muscles deep within the body. Why are these movements, you know, so much tiring, more tiring than let's say lifting? I do a lot of lifting, bodybuilding, benching, you know, you can bench, it's, I guess it's something you get adapted to, but then doing these slower movements in Qigong, you know, how is that different to lifting heavy, weightlifting.

Well, I, it's interesting you say because I've worked with world-class bodybuilders and I've taken, you know, these are guys who can, you know, bench press like crazy and squat crazy amounts of weight, and I get them to do qigong and they're like shaking and they're tired.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

And, and, um, they're just amazed. They're like, how does that work? Well, number one, when you lift weights, you're working out the muscle belly and you're working out different muscle fibers. And with qigong, these slow, deep qigong movement that you're going into these deep stances, you're working on a more holistic fascial perspective. So you're working the fascia holistically from one end of the body to the other. Whereas when you're bodybuilding, you're isolating specific muscles, right? And so when we work out the whole body together, we're also getting more of a tendon workout. One of the things I found with bodybuilders, why bodybuilders benefit so much from Qi Gong, is because they have very strong muscle bellies but weak tendons. And so this really strengthens the tendons. You're getting a tendon workout and you're getting a whole fascia workout. And so it really will bring a well-rounded balance to any bodybuilder or weightlifter out there. And that's why a lot of them now have integrated Qigong into their routine. I see some of our students who are big, big, big, super big bodybuilders and/or CrossFitters, and you see them doing our Qigong as like a warm-up or even a cool-down after their weightlifting. Yeah, so it's, it's a, it's a really nice way to to warm up for bodybuilding because— or weightlifting or CrossFitting— because when— if you just did static stretches before you do that, it's actually going to weaken your power. Sports science has shown do not do static stretches before doing something with— that needs a powerful engagement like, or explosive movement like bodybuilding or sprinting. So Qi Gong provides a very nice dynamic stretch and strengthener for the whole body to really warm you up from the inside out before you go into your intense workout.

Cool, that's very interesting because I've found that with my practice of yoga, um, as my flexibility and kind of conscious control of the muscles in that end range has improved, that has infinitely improved my kind of control when I'm translating that to lifting weights. And it's kind of I found, you know, the muscles and the definition gets better, and I can only imagine that kind of improves with, with Qigong and, you know, delving deeper into the conscious control of every part of the body.

Absolutely. But it's the whole, you know, it's the whole body engaging together and feeling. I can literally feel from my toe to my fingertips, you know. To feel that connection. And, uh, it takes— it's actually, you know, if you really look at the White Tiger Qigong forms we have, they're pretty intense actually and physically engaging. I mean, we got some deep, deep stances and movements that will challenge even the, you know, professional athletes, but also the beginner who's never done anything before can get into it. It's because we created a step-by-step method that anyone at any level can get into it.

Awesome. Um, got another question from a reader. He loved the acupuncture side of Qigong that he did. Are there any specific exercises to do for the face in terms of facial massage or to open the blood flow and radiate facial energy?

I do facial massage after my Qigong practice and once or twice a day. I'd have to show you on a video, but I teach my students in my master courses and teacher trainings online and in person as well. But yes, we do like a Chinese medicine face massage, Qigong face massage, where you rub, you knead, you pat, you tap the meridian points and all of these things help to stimulate collagen actually as well, stimulate the collagen in the face. So it really helps to keep your face young and keep the circulation going in your face. And then I do a whole body PAT as well, meridian tapping all over the body, which we teach in our master courses and teacher trainings.

Very cool. I know the sauna is a big one for me in terms of circulation to this whole body skin. I know that that's like a massive key in terms of if you're wondering about keeping that youthful energy and look about you.

Saunas and ice baths, I love it.

Yeah.

I can't get enough of it. If I can do that every day, I'm like, I feel so good. Yeah. Saunas and ice baths. The Finns, the Finland, people from Finland had it right all along.

Yeah, the Nords are doing it right out there. Sauna and then snow bath, that's the ultimate.

That is the ultimate. Yeah, yeah.

So I just wanted to touch on one last thing in terms of breathing techniques and exercises. The breath obviously being so central to physical performance, like you said, you know, we naturally hold our breath and tension in preparation for that burst of energy. Could you speak about the role of breath in the practices that you do? And what are some techniques that people at home can try out for themselves in different situations? Maybe one for calming the mind and one for activating and cultivating fiery energy.

Well, the breath is the engine of, of qigong, and breath is qi. Breath is translated as chi in qigong. Yeah, so like, uh, shi qi, which means, uh, bring in the chi, inhale, and hu qi, which means, you know, exhale, you know, push out the chi. So chi is breath, and so the breath is vital. So breath control is a core— is that the core of qigong and how it works? Different qigong requires different breathing strategies and techniques. We actually have an entire breathwork master course and teacher training coming out online in the near future. I'm actually working on it as we speak. We have 64 different breathing techniques in our qigong. You're going to use a different type of breathing technique to calm yourself, and to tap a parasympathetic response, which is the rest and digest, as opposed to an intense, what we call the wu hua, the martial fire breath, which is going to tap a sympathetic response. And so, like a controlled fight or flight response as opposed to an uncontrolled one. And so, yeah, so that's at the core of it. But one thing I, you know, that everybody can do right now that I think we all need in this pandemic and lockdowns and everything people are going through is something simple to release the tension and to calm the mind. And you take us— it's really simple, actually. Anyone can do it. But you take a deep breath in through the nose, slow deep breath in, filling up the lower belly. Up to the middle of the belly, all the way to the top. And so you have a full breath in, and then you slowly hum as you exhale out, exhaling out of the nose, closing the mouth but humming. And you feel the vibration going through your organs, going through your bones, coming out your skin, and feeling emotions release, feeling toxins release out of the body. And as you breathe in, you breathe in the fresh air, the fresh chi, If you're by the ocean, breathe in that fresh ocean air. If you're in a forest, breathe in that sweet forest air. Breathe in that element into your body and feel it filling your body. If you're in the sunrise or sunset, face that sun, close your eyes, and breathe in that sunlight into the body with each breath and release the toxins and the emotions with each breath. Okay.

Yeah.

And I'll do one round for you. So everyone could do it on your own. You, so you take a full breath out, squeezing the belly gently, and then you take a slow, long breath in, breathing in the fresh air, the fresh chi or the element. And then you, hmm, hmm.

I don't do that for too long for people in case it's annoying, but yeah. Yeah.

So you basically, you have a long, slow exhalation. Within 3 breaths, you're gonna be already more calm than you were before. Even some people after 1 breath, they start to feel more calm. Try to do like at least 15 of these breaths or for 5 minutes, set a timer for 5 minutes. You're gonna feel so good and peaceful after this. That's— it's called a vibrational cleansing breath. It's very simple, anyone can do it, and it's a real good way to get started in Qigong. We have the Primordial Breath, which on our website, the Primordial Breath online course, which is a much more in-depth breathing Qigong course. And as I said, a breathwork master course and teacher training coming out soon.

Amazing. Well, is there anything else you wanted to mention for people that are interested as I know they will be after listening to this podcast, where can people find you? Where can people get more in-depth information about Qigong?

Well, uh, whitetigerqigong.com. That's Q-I-G-O-N-G dot com. Q-I-G-O-N-G dot com. Whitetigerqigong.com. And I want to give all of your listeners a free ebook So I'll send you a coupon code that you can send to all your listeners to download a free ebook that we sell on our website normally for $20. And you can get started that way. Check us out. We got tons of free YouTube videos, a plethora of YouTube videos for free. And then we have our ebooks, we have online courses, we have teacher trainings online as well. So anyone can jump into it. And I hope to see you guys one day. Awesome.

I'm sure everyone will get into that. Thank you so much for joining me here.

Thanks for having me.

I really appreciate your time, and I know a lot of people are going to get a lot out of it. I know I have already, and I've got to get into this more.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

All right, see you, man.

Okay, take care.