Changes…

There are some big changes coming at Long White Cloud Qigong. The main change that is immediately relevant, is that the upcoming enrolments in July/August for the online qigong courses are the last time that the courses will be run this way.

A big change I know, but read on for practical implications of this, what the further changes are going to be, and the reason for them.

First off – this last enrolment for the courses.

If you like the current format of the courses, I suggest you make the most of this. I don’t suggest that you overload yourself with more courses than you can handle, but if there is one or two courses that you would really like to get done in the near future, maybe to finish off one of the levels, or just because it is something you are really interested in, then this is your chance to do it! Courses will be available online again in the future, but there may be a bit of a wait until enrollments open for them again.

Now, the reason for the changes, and what they are going to be. But first, some recent history.

I first started offering online qigong courses through Long White Cloud Qigong with the Qigong Foundation Practices course in September 2012. My motivation for offering that first course was to make resources available for people all over the world who did not have access to qigong instruction. At the time I was serving as secretary and registrar of the New Zealand Qigong and Traditional Chinese Medicine Association, and I would regularly receive emails from people stating that they could not find any teachers in their area, and asking for recommendations. In most cases there was no-one I could recommend, so I created a solution that they could use to get them started on their qigong journey.

When that first course was well received, I produced further courses on other aspects of qigong practice. I also realized that while some people are able to learn online very well, others simply find an online format difficult to engage with. So as a way to bring more instructors to the people seeking them, I implemented a program where by having their progress assessed and completing tests, students could become certified in the practices they had learned, giving them confidence and credibility to share the benefits of qigong with people in their local community on a live basis.

I have been pleased with the result of this. I have had the pleasure of travelling and meeting with quite a few of the instructors who studied with Long White Cloud Qigong in this way, and have been proud of the way they have been able to share the essence of this art with people in their communities.

At the time, this online training from Long White Cloud Qigong was quite ground breaking. There was very little qigong available online when the courses first launched. But times are changing. Awareness of qigong is growing massively, particularly in the last couple of years. It is becoming easier for interested students to find a live teacher in their area, and there are more and more qigong certification courses being offered, which is… FANTASTIC! More and more people are benefiting from qigong practice, and the quality of teaching is improving too!

Changes

So Long White Cloud Qigong also needs to move with the times. Currently there are 10 different online courses available from Long White Cloud Qigong, and while the content within them is still very good, the mode of delivery can be improved greatly. There are also so many other areas of qigong that I would like to provide training in, but simply cannot unless there are significant changes to how the current courses are run. Keeping the current courses running takes so much of my time, that it is difficult for me to be able to put the necessary work in to prepare new material. While the Long White Cloud Qigong courses are generally succinct in presentation, a huge amount of time goes into planning and preparing each one to decide what to include, what not to include, and how to present it. This is why there needs to be a temporary hiatus in the offering of the current online courses, to allow the time needed to both improve the current courses and also develop the material for further courses.

The changes ahead can be grouped into three main areas which I will discuss one by one:

• Improved course delivery
• More support for existing teachers
• Course content development
• Economic sustainability.

Improved course delivery

As mentioned, the content of the existing Long White Cloud Qigong courses is very good, but there is much that can be improved in the delivery. Some of this is technical, such as improving the process of logging in to the course material. The system we have at the moment with individual passwords for individual pages, has worked ok, but was only ever intended as a stop gap measure and becomes quite cumbersome when you have several courses you are enrolled in or wish to look back at material from. So the plan is to move the courses to a new platform that will allow users to simply have one login, and then have access to all the courses they are currently enrolled in, as well as all the courses they have previously completed. As you would expect, there is significant time and expense involved in shifting platforms like this, let alone rebuilding the courses to improve them in other ways.

When the current courses were first created, teaching this material online was a new experience for me. But now over the last seven years since those first courses were offered, I have gained a lot of experience and knowledge of the details of the practices that students are more likely to miss or become confused about, commonly asked questions, and how to present information for an easier and more effective learning experience. For this reason, I believe it is worthwhile to completely rebuild and record each of the courses with these improvements in mind. This will also allow for things like better sound and image quality, which makes the learning process that little bit more enjoyable.

In addition to this, there are some students that simply want to learn the practices for themselves, while others are wanting to study and practice in a more in depth way so that they can become certified to teach others in their community. The current system does not cope with these different student objectives well. The plan is that the new platform will provide the opportunity for different levels of engagement depending on student goals, and in particular to allow for substantially more direct interactive contact, feedback, and correction for those seeking instructor certification to improve learning outcomes.

More support for existing teachers

Improving the learning experience and outcomes for students going through the courses is one thing, but I feel there is also a need for more ongoing support for instructors after completing their training. So the plan is to offer specific resources for graduated teachers on an ongoing base, including forums where they can connect and discuss issues and ideas with other teachers, marketing and promotional resources for the classes that they run, much more extensive resources with ideas of how to structure and teach classes, and ongoing q&a with myself to deepen knowledge and resolve questions that may arise as they transition between the role of student and teacher.

Course content development

The ten courses currently available are good, but there is so much more! I want to be able to offer further courses on yin and yang, the five elements, qigong nutrition, interacting with the energy in the environment, advanced qigong meditation and breathing techniques, and so many more! Not to mention a comprehensive qigong healing syllabus. It is my hope that a restructuring of the courses and shift to a new platform will help pave the way to giving me the time and resources I need to be able to develop these things.

On the subject of the qigong healing syllabus, while some of this may be available online, a lot of it will also only be available through in person live training, in order to give people the monitored experiential training they need to be able to explore these techniques safely and become effective in using them.

For other qigong practices, I think there is still a place for online learning to bring access to people who may not otherwise be able to receive it. And good online resources supported by interactive contact, feedback, and correction has proven to be effective in transmitting the essence of many of these practices. There still is great value in having live training in these other practices as well though, so in addition to improving the quality of our online training offerings, Long White Cloud Qigong is planning to also offer live intensive instructor trainings from time to time when possible.

Plans for the first of these is underway. It will be a 200 hour instructor training from 10^th to 31^st May 2020 in Thailand. This will be an amazing way to go deep into experiencing and understanding the practices and developing skills for teaching as well. Those of you who came to our one week retreat in Thailand last year will remember how much progress and insight you can achieve in just 7 days when you are able to focus purely on your qigong in a beautiful environment without distractions. This will be that x3, 21 days instead of 7. I’m looking forward to it myself, and this may be of interest to you as well even if you have already completed some courses online. Details are still being worked out, and there will be a big announcement a bit later this year, but if you think this might be of interest to you – you are welcome to contact us now to express that interest.

Economic sustainability

The last factor that I am hoping to improve with these upcoming changes is better economic sustainability for providing this training. As many of you know, these courses including the certification program have been offered on a Give Freely, Receive Freely basis since they first started seven years ago. It has been a challenging journey attempting to work in this way, but something that I wanted to do based on my own sense of ethics and desires for the world (you can read all about my Give Freely Receive Freely experiment here, where I wrote blog posts about my experience from time to time).  Ultimately this has not proven to be sustainable for me, and many of you will know that over the last two years I ended up needing to dedicate a large part of my time and energy to another business venture because of this. This was a difficult time for me, as well as simply being very squeezed for time and energy to simply keep the courses running while I was needing to engage in other work, it was very frustrating for me to also not be able to take the steps necessary to take the qigong teaching further, and offer new courses and more support to students.

As of early this year, all of my time and energy has been refocused on teaching qigong, as you may have noticed from the proliferation of new articles and vlog videos that were sorely missing over the previous two years. And I have also finally managed to make the Introduction to Qigong Healing course available. But still the economic sustainability for me of teaching the qigong needs to be addressed. It appears that continuing to teach purely GFRF is not going to be viable for me. I did signal that this change was likely coming in several of the posts on the Give Freely Receive Freely blog, and now is the time to start to implement those changes.

So in addition to this being the last enrollment into the online courses using the current format, it will also be the last time that they are all offered on a purely Give Freely Receive Freely basis. I am still committed to making qigong training available to people with limited financial means, and may use GFRF as a way to do this from time to time, but most of the time I will find other ways to achieve this objective. When the newly formatted courses and other training resources become available, you can expect them to have clear straight forward pricing on them, which I know a lot of people are more comfortable interacting with anyway.

Summary

Change can be hard sometimes. For myself I am finding it challenging to think about offering my teaching in a different way. It seems a shame to be letting go of the old. The courses in their existing format have served their purpose well, but without letting go of the old it will be impossible to bring about the new. It also seems strangely fitting that this change is occurring after 7 years of the current system. In case you are not aware, it is commonly thought that our whole body replaces itself over the space of 7 years. So at the end of 7 years not a single cell in you is the same as at the beginning of those years. Because of this, many philosophers over the years have associated moving into different phases of life with this seven year cycle. As I was writing this, I realized that not only does this final enrollment in the Long White Cloud Qigong courses bring to a close a 7 year cycle for them, it also marks the end of a seven year cycle for my physical body as well. How serendipitous!

So to recap a few practical matters:

I encourage you to make the most of this last upcoming online qigong course enrolment using the current format – but don’t overload yourself. The courses will be back in the future, new and improved, there will just be a bit of a wait before they are ready. Long White Cloud Qigong is not going away, and I believe that there is much value for people to receive from the unique blend of qigong practices and understanding that we offer.

When the new courses become available, you will be given access to any courses you have already successfully completed, or to the equivalent new course if it is renamed in the process of restructuring.

There are exciting things ahead! I am looking forward to producing improved course materials, further courses on different areas of qigong practice, as well as a comprehensive qigong healing syllabus. I am also particularly looking forward to starting to offer live intensive trainings. The first one in Thailand in May 2020 will be amazing! After that I’m not sure how often we will offer these, it will largely depend on demand and scheduling, but I would like to make them a regular thing. Email us if you are interested in this.

Also, if you have any questions about the changes, or this next enrollment for the courses, feel free to send them through.

Yours in qi!

John Munro