Long White Cloud Qigong – 2019 Year In Review

Its time for the Long White Cloud Qigong 2019 year in review report. I like to think that Long White Cloud Qigong is more than just a school, but a community as well, so this is an opportunity for all of us to look back at the achievements within our Long White Cloud Qigong community over the past year, and also look forward to what is coming up in 2020 as well. Its an annual tradition, and a great way to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of the year that has been and where we are headed in the future. If you would like to check out 2018’s annual report and compare it to what has occurred this year, you can find that one here.

Building Qigong Community

One of the big themes of this year has been to provide avenues to build community between our qigong practitioners. Some of the key achievements in this area have been: A renewed focus on blog writing, the new Qi Life vlog, and a Facebook group.

27 New Qigong Blog Posts

After a quiet patch in 2017 and 2018 I have put a renewed focus on writing regular informative blog posts on a diverse range of topics in 2019. These blogs help to fill in little pieces of qigong theory for students and practitioners, and also to provide a way to stay up to day with what is happening at Long White Cloud Qigong all over the world. Posts included everything from what the best footwear is for qigong, to qigong related words that people commonly get confused, to experiences in some interesting parts of the world.

If you click here you can scroll through and see all of the different topics that have been covered during the year, in case there are some that you would like to catch up on.

Qi Life Vlog

2019 also saw the start of the Qi Life vlog series on Youtube. This is a way of providing updates of what is going on at Long White Cloud Qigong, and also to discuss different aspects of theory and practice in an informal way. To date there have been 84 vlogs published in 2019! They have covered a wide range of topics. Some of the most popular have included:

• Should you put your left hand, or right hand on top on your dantien?
• Five Waves Qigong Practice
• How do we know the meridians are real?

There have also been a few guest appearances from some Long White Cloud Qigong instructors and students, such as here, and here.

Qigong Everyday Facebook Group

We also started a new Facebook group in 2019 for qigong students and practitioners to interact together, to motivate, encourage and inspire each other in their qigong practice. While the group is open to qigong practitioners from all different styles and backgrounds, there are a lot of Long White Cloud Qigong students in there, which can lead to some good supportive interactions. This group has been moderated by myself and two of our level three instructors Clayton Crosley, and Louis Hammer. Thankyou so much for what you do to help facilitate this forum for qigong sharing. If you’re not already part of that group, you can find it here.

International Qigong Workshops

While I was not able to travel as extensively as I had hoped during 2019, I did visit a few places for some international Long White Cloud Qigong workshops in Savannah in USA, and Montenegro. It was great to meet up with old friends and meet some new ones as well while sharing qigong together. I am hoping there will be the opportunity for much more of this in the coming year – more details about that later in this review.

World Academic Society of Medical Qigong Conference

In my travels I was also able to attend the World Academic Society of Medical Qigong conference in Beijing. This was a great experience for a number of reasons. It gave me a chance to really get a good up close perspective on some of the issues qigong practitioners are experiencing specifically in the area of medical qigong within China. It has also provided the opportunity to make connections with qigong practitioners and researchers around the world which may provide some worthwhile opportunities in the future. One of my long term goals has been to contribute to the world of academic research into qigong, and the WASMQ organization seems to provide some good avenues for doing this. I would like to start on this sooner rather than later, and there may be some opportunities for other Long White Cloud Qigong students and practitioners to also participate in this research once it is underway. You can read my report about the conference here.

Wim Hof Breathing and Yoga in India

I also had another opportunity to delve into some different mindfulness practices earlier in the year in India of all places. I think it is always valuable to see and experience different points of view and approaches to working with energy and mindfulness, so it was great to be able to spend some time exploring the Wim Hof breathing technique, and also traditional Hatha Yoga. As we explore different approaches to practice it helps to give us new perspective and better understanding of all of the practices that we may already do. It also helps us to develop a common language to better understand and communicate with other people from other backgrounds also working with energy and mindfulness. There are more and more people within the yoga community taking an interest in qigong and incorporating its principles into their practice, so I think it is valuable to develop broad understanding of the connections between these two ancient practices. Wim Hof breathing has really caught a lot of people’s attention and become quite popular in the last few years, so it is interesting to reflect on what has made it so appealing. You can read some of my thoughts about the comparison between yoga and qigong here, and my experience with Wim Hof breathing here.

Introduction to Qigong Healing Course

The Introduction to Qigong Healing course was made available for the first time in 2019. This was a very significant step in beginning to offer training in this valuable area of qigong application. Qigong Healing takes qigong beyond being just a self practice, into a tool that you can use to help others in a very direct way. It is also opens up new windows of understanding for the practitioner as they learn to harness the skill and understanding they have developed with their energy and put it to use in direct application.

Course Graduates

And of course, lots and lots of people have completed Long White Cloud Qigong certification courses in 2019. With the release of the Introduction to Qigong Healing course, this has also meant the graduation of our very first Level Three qigong instructors as well. This represents a long period of dedicated study and practice for each of these instructors, giving them a high level of knowledge and experience to share with others around them. Our community of qigong instructors continues to grow all over the world. You can find many of them listed on the website here.

Coming Up In 2020

Life threw up a few obstacles in 2019 that meant that some of the things I had hoped to see start to be implemented by the end of the year are not ready yet, instead we will see these start to unfold in 2020:

Long White Cloud Qigong Syllabus Restructure

There are currently 10 different qigong courses available from Long White Cloud Qigong, and a variety of other practices also being taught without being included in any formal courses, and… there is a lot more that I would like to share. To facilitate introducing some of the new courses and practices that have not yet been made available, I am currently working on restructuring the Long White Cloud Qigong syllabus. There are a few of you that I have shared the big picture of this restructure with in private conversation – and… I think its exciting! It is going to open up some really interesting and useful aspects of qigong theory to make available a much more comprehensive range of practices. To make both this new material and the old material accessible and easy to understand how the different pieces fit together, it will require some significant changes to how the courses are currently organized… It’s a work in progress – but I hope to be able to share the new syllabus structure with you soon.

New Online Learning Platform and Learning Materials

In addition to the restructure of the syllabus as a whole, it is time to update the learning materials in the current courses as well. Technology has progressed a lot since the online courses were first made available on Long White Cloud Qigong. You will notice that the sound and picture quality in the earlier courses – while usable, is not up to the standard that we expect these days. Also, the method of hosting the courses on the website is not as user friendly as it could be. So 2020 will see the start of re-recording and re-writing all of the existing courses, as well as new ones, and moving them to a new Learning Management System (LMS) which should provide a much better learning experience for everyone who uses them. I have also learned a lot over the years about how people respond to and interact with the online material, so these will not just be a straight copy of the old courses, but rather “new and improved” versions, often including more in depth detail about the practices being taught.

Regular Online Qigong Classes

Another new avenue for learning qigong that we will be exploring in 2020 is regular online qigong classes. These classes will be a great way for students and practitioners to keep their practice fresh and interesting, as well as providing the opportunity for live q&a on a regular basis. Thankyou to everyone who responded to the recent survey about these classes. As you might imagine, the survey results pointed to a few different opinions about what the best format for these classes should be. While it may not be possible to please everyone with all of the details of how the classes will be run, we will do our best to incorporate the feedback we have received and come up with something that will work for the most people.  We will make a few test runs of the classes early in the year to both finetune the technology and try different times and formats before settling into a regular routine for these later on. Look out for more information on these soon.

Live 200 Hour Qigong Instructor Certification Training

Long White Cloud Qigong will hold our first ever live 200 Hour Qigong Instructor Certification Training in Thailand in May 2020. If you haven’t already seen the details for this, check them out here. This will be an awesome opportunity to go deep into qigong theory and practice in a beautiful, peaceful, tropical setting. We will also be running a 200 hour Qigong Healing Certification program in parallel to the Qigong Instructor Certification Training. This Qigong Healing training will only be available to experienced Qigong practitioners who have already completed all of the level one qigong courses which will act as a foundation for the Qigong Healing practices they will explore. This will be an amazing opportunity to gain a solid foundation in qigong healing techniques and develop the experience needed to share these with people in your local community with confidence.

International Qigong Workshops

I am also planning to be available for a lot more international qigong workshops and possibly a few retreats in 2020. I have plans to spend some time in both the USA and Europe, and possibly a few other parts of the world as well. My itinerary is still in the planning stages at the moment, so if you would be interested in hosting a workshop in your area, let us know now, and we can see when it might be possible in 2020. These workshops are always a great way to of course learn some qigong, but also to make personal connections as well.

Conclusion

I hope you have had a great year of qigong in 2019, and are looking forward to even more personal learning and development in 2020. Thankyou for being part of our Long White Cloud Qigong community. We have exciting changes and developments ahead, and I look forward to spending time with each of you as you continue on your qigong journey, whether that be digitally – or at some of our live events in 2020.

Yours in qi!

John Munro

Founder – Long White Cloud Qigong