A year of qigong – 2017 in review

Hi everyone

I hope you are enjoying the holiday season! As we draw close to the end of the year, I thought it would be a good time to write a brief review of all that has occurred in Long White Cloud Qigong this year.

New Instructors
2017 saw some changes to the way the Long White Cloud Qigong Online Instructor Certification courses are run. As you know, these are now run on a scheduled basis, with people enrolling in groups that are all taking the course at the same time.  This allows for more followup and feedback with additional videos and Q&A where students are able to receive the answers to questions from everyone in the whole group. As well of course as that extra motivation of knowing you need to send a progress report in each week to help to keep you on track.

This has been quite successful, with students reporting that they like the extra accountability and all the insights that they gain from doing the courses along with other students. This has led to an increase in instructor numbers, with 81 certified Long White Cloud Qigong Instructors now spread across 24 countries all over the world, up from 21 at the end of last year (and I know there are some more still working on their exams at the moment).

It is wonderful to hear from time to time from some of these instructors about the experiences some of them are having as they begin to teach qigong classes in their communities.

To check out upcoming course dates go to the website here.

New Team Member
Running the courses in this way has meant a lot of extra admin work, so many of you will have become aquainted with the lovely Tihana Nikolic who joined us at Long White Cloud Qigong this year to help with all the extra followup needed to make the courses run smoothly. Tihana has been a great help in supporting the students in this way.

Workshops
During 2017 I travelled extensively teaching qigong workshops in:

• USA
• Canada
• Finland
• Israel
• Sweden
• Czech Republic
• Montenegro
• Scotland
• England
• Mauritius
• India
• Australia
• Hong Kong

In total there have been 82 workshops in 34 cities, sharing qigong with hundreds maybe even thousands of interested people all over the world.

It has been wonderful to be able to come and meet so many of you in person for the first time during this past year, and visit again with old friends as well.

Books
2017 saw the publication of three new qigong books:

• Waking the Qi
• Between Heaven and Earth
• Enter the Flow

These short instructional books help to support students in their understanding and practice of the Long White Cloud Qigong practices. Many people find that they really help, as they present the information in a different way to the online material, and you can carry them with you to refer to whenever you want.

You can find them on Amazon.com in either hard copy or electronic form here:

I am sometimes asked when I am going to write a book on this course or that course, or this topic or that topic. The answer is that I plan eventually to have books available to support each of the Long White Cloud Qigong courses, and probably a few on other topics as well. Writing and publishing books does take a lot of time though… so you may need to be patient about when these will be finished.

Shirts
This is perhaps only a small accomplishment, but I think its a pretty cool one. During 2017 we now have available a new Long White Cloud Qigong t-shirt (and sweatshirt), and it is available all over the world too!

You don’t need any particular clothes to practice qigong, but it is nice to be able to have something that helps you to feel part of the Long White Cloud Qigong community. If you want a shirt you can get the t-shirts on Amazon here, or t-shirts AND sweatshirts you can get from Inktale here

Summary
It has been a whirlwind year. As I look back on what has been accomplished, some of it seems like a lifetime ago. It is amazing that all of this has been just in the last year.

It has been a challenging year for me personally, both with working hard to continue to develop the Long White Cloud Qigong school and community and achieve all that has been accomplished this year, but also particularly in the second half of the year out of financial necessity needing to divide my focus and put a lot of time into other work as well. This has made it difficult to keep all of the courses running, and develop further course material, and it has often felt like burning the candle at both ends and in the middle as well. But I am committed to continuing to spread and share this wonderful art with as many people as possible, so we have some exciting things to look forward to in 2018…

Coming up in 2018…

Retreats
The first exciting announcement is that Long White Cloud Qigong will be having our first ever residential retreat in the mountains of Northern Thailand. We have a beautiful venue arranged, and the rest of the planning for this event is ongoing, but so you can save the date – the retreat will run for 7 days, from 13th-20th May 2018.

We will need a minimum of 10 participants to run the retreat, and from the survey many of you answered recently it seems like we should be able to get enough people to make this happen. Full details of the retreat and booking information will be sent out soon! This will be an experience not to be missed!

If Thailand was not your pick of places in the survey, please don’t be disappointed. Thailand will be the first retreat, and if it goes well we hope to be able to run further retreats in other locations, possibly later in 2018, or otherwise in following years.

Courses
The existing Long White Cloud Qigong courses will continue to be available in 2018, and in addition to this the Introduction to Qigong Healing will also be available – I don’t have a date for when this will be available yet, but I am working on preparing materials for it right now.

More books!
I am planning to have finished at least one new book this coming year. It’s title will be kept a surprise until it is released… In addition to this we also have 2 foreign language editions of some of the existing books which are being worked on too. So that will be exciting to have these available to readers of other languages soon!

Conclusion
I hope that 2017 has been a fulfilling year for you in your qigong practice. We are glad to have you along with us on this journey of discovery and self development. We look forward to continuing to share this with you in 2018 and beyond!

Seasons greetings to you and your loved ones…

John Munro
Founder – Long White Cloud Qigong