Energising qigong flow

[Dani Cullen stands in a white room on a yoga mat, facing the camera.]

[Upbeat, bell-like music]

[Text on screen: Energising Qigong flow]

Dani: Qigong is a really great way to shift and move energy, to help you find more balance and flow with life with more ease.

This is a qigong flow to help you move stuck or stagnant energy and to help you awaken your vitality so you feel more energised, awake and alive, and to help you get back into flow.

[Text on screen: Advice: While Qigong is generally considered safe, pregnant individuals should speak to their health care provider before participating this practice]

[Dani standing on a yoga mat indoors]

Find yourself a nice quiet place, either indoors or outdoors in nature, or just know that you can do this practise anytime, anywhere that you feel like you need a little bit of shift in energy.

Let's get started and move some qi.

Feet shoulder width apart and just start by placing your hands over your belly and taking a few nice deep breaths.

And you can just let go of the cleansing breath through the mouth, breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose and let go of a big sigh.

Sink into your body.

Feel your feet on the ground, soften your knees, draw your tailbone or your pelvis forward and the tailbone down towards the Earth.

Lengthening your spine, tucking your chin in a little bit towards your neck, and lifting up the crown towards the heavens.

Letting those shoulders relax, feeling nice and loose and relaxed in the shoulders, nice and loose and relaxed in your arms, your wrists and your fingers.

And just take a nice few deep breaths down into the belly.

Really dropping that belly down into your centre, starting to activate that energy centre that is stored down in our lower dantian. Activating our energy with our breath.

Dropping into a more relaxed state where our body can just relax.

And start to gently move the arms, just letting the arms hang passive.

[Dani starts swinging her arms and torso from side to side in standing position]

We're going to keep our knees nice and soft, our hips forward and we're going to just start to twist at the spine.

Twisting at the waist, opening up the spine, letting the hands just flop over the body like they're windmilling around the centre of the body.

Feeling nice and grounded. Get loose in the top of the body.

And as we start to awaken our energy, awaken our qi, activate, we're also starting to release energy.

So, if you feel like needing a big breath, take a nice big breath in and you can do those cleansing breaths, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. Just let it go.

[Dani breathes in and out]

Then we're going to get a little bit more specific with the tapping.

So, coming back to centre, tapping on the hips and also tapping opposite the belly button on the back.

This is called our 'door of life', so we're actually knocking on the door of life, waking up our qi, and again cleansing breaths when you need.

Otherwise, just in and out through the nose.

[Dani breathes in and out]

Breathing in fresh new energy, fresh new life, letting go of the old stagnant qi.

[Dani breathes in and out]

Letting the hands come up, up the front to the lung area. Tapping over the lungs. Just underneath the collarbone near the shoulders is ideal.

You can tap all over the lungs. Great way to release any stuck emotions. Let them go.

Then taking the hand up over the shoulders, releasing tension in the neck and shoulders, clearing our mind.

Keep tapping on the back, Ming Men.

Then we're going to just take a nice light fist and we're going to just pummel from the base of the neck, just lightly up to the base of the skull, and then taking the fingertips, we're just going to tap at the base of the skull and then tapping all over the skull.

We're just stimulating, activating acupressure points all over the body, waking up our qi, coming down over the forehead, around the eyes, coming into the jaw, tapping into the jaw, and just opening up the mouth, stretching the door and then coming down the neck and tapping over the thymus.

It's a qigong flu shot.

Tapping on the thymus, boosting the immune system, and then take a nice big breath out.

Take one arm out, breathing in.

Sorry, breathing out, tapping down the inside of the arm, stopping at the elbows so the wrists all the way down over the hands, turning the palm over and tapping up the outside of the arm. Tapping over the chest again.

Another big breath in.

Take the opposite arm out, breathing out, tapping down inside of the arm, breathing in, tapping up the outside.

And then tapping down the side body, around to the back of the kidneys, down the back, lower, back to the sacrum, down over the buttocks, all the way down the backs of the legs.

Bending the knees to come down if you need to, down the sides, backs of the legs, over the feet and the toes, and then tapping up the insides of the legs, over the choir, over the hips.

We're going to do a little bounce in the legs, slapping the thighs and knocking the hips.

Cleansing breath and then around the belly and stopping underneath the belly button and then holding over the belly and just taking a nice deep breath.

Feeling your body dropping the hands, we're just going to shake out anything. Anything. That's one last little shake.

So, it’s bouncing into the legs, letting the hips go loose, letting the shoulders relax, letting everything go loose.

Cleansing breaths.

Just imagine old fruit on a tree just dropping back down to the earth. Anything that doesn't serve, just let it go.

[Dani breathing in and out]

Really flicking the wrists and fingers, really dropping the shoulders. And as we bounce into the legs we’re building, cultivating energy.

And then slow it down. And just come back and centre yourself into qigong stance.

Relax your shoulders, drop the tailbone down, feel your feet and feel your body.

Feel your body start to awaken and come alive.

Just enjoy that feeling for a moment, breathing fresh new life into your body.

You may start to feel tingling around the hands or new sensations in the body. This is your chi awakening.

And then raise the arms up. Just let the palms come together above.

And then we're going to smooth that chi out.

Just giving ourselves a nice beautiful yin massage, smoothing out the chi all the way down the body, kidneys, buttocks, backs of the legs, down the feet, rolling up, the hands drawing up the insides of the legs, around the belly.

Just placing the hands over the belly, taking a nice deep breath. Letting the hands find the tops of your thighs. And we're just going to bend the knees until the hands find the knees.

And then we're going to tuck the tailbone in. And we're going to tuck the chin in towards the chest. We're going to roll up, looking all the way up, chin up.

Then we're going to take the chin forward and again, bending down, tucking in and rolling up. Rolling, breathing in, breathing out as you squeeze, roll up.

This is called the wave. Imagine moving your body like a wave on the ocean, this soft, finding that flow, finding your own rhythm.

I'll do one more. Coming up and again finding your centre, finding qigong stance.

Again, noticing your body. Feeling different sensations. You may feel heat, your breath may be working a little harder, maybe starting to feel a bit lighter.

Just notice and be aware of all the feelings, all the sensations, and accept them with love and kindness.

I'm going to circle the wrists.

I'm going to place the wrists and the hands over the hips and we're going to sink down into the legs.

We're not squatting, we're drawing that tailbone all the way down until you can find it a posture that's comfortably challenging.

We're going to take the hips all the way out, all the way forward, out to the other side as far as you can, and then all the way back.

And we're just isolating the hips and we're going to turn that into a nice hip circle.

So smooth it out into a big circle. Starting to open up the hips, open up the lower back and massaging those internal organs of the belly. Keeping the upper body straight and then going back the opposite direction. Nice and slow.

Just become aware about how it feels in the hips. So, you open them up. I'm just making smaller and smaller circles, keeping those knees bent, coming back to centre.

I'm going to hold down. So, you start to really feel that energy building in the legs.

I'm going to tilt the pelvis all the way forward and then all the way back. All the way forward and back, forward and back, and hold in the centre.

Hold, hold, hold, hold, breathe. Feel that intensity in the legs and then gently come up.

Take a nice big breath. Breathing, feeling that energy in that opening in the legs and hips, base, the low back and the spine.

Then bringing your feet together, bamboo in the wind.

We're going to open up the neck, so just isolating the neck, lifting the chin all the way up, taking the chin out and forwards, bringing the chin to the chest and then rolling it up the neck. Lifting the chin up, out, down to the chest and up.

Just isolating the neck, opening the neck. And then take that movement back the opposite direction, so chin in towards the neck, down to the chest, out in front, lifting chin up and then bringing it back in towards the neck.

Relaxing your shoulders. Bringing your neck, head back to centre, relaxing the shoulders.

Just taking a moment to feel that opening around the neck, the brain, shoulders, the whole chest area so energy can flow smoothly and freely all the way up from the legs to the brain and the opposite direction.

Taking the hands to the heart, clasping interlacing the fingers and lifting up towards the heavens.

Taking the hands so they're facing forwards and keeping the arms as close to the head as possible.

If you're out here, that's fine, just close to the ears as possible.

And then we're just going to roll down the chin into the chest, arms straight.

I'm just going to roll the spine down.

Keeping your knees straight and coming down to wherever is comfortable for you, wherever you can. You don't have to make it all the way to the mat.

I'm just coming into a nice forward bend, letting the top of the body loose, the neck and the head loose, so the forehead is facing the legs, and taking a nice deep breath.

And then engaging your legs, bending your knees. If it's too hard to rise up, just protecting your lower back if you need to by bending your knees.

Otherwise, keeping the arms straight by the head and coming back up the opposite direction, curling up as the arms come up, just letting the arms circle, just letting that energy open and keep expanding.

And as the arms circle, just circling the shoulders and just let the whole body move like a wave. It's flowing.

And there we're just going to lift up, turn the palms over the crown, and then let the hands float down the body. Taking the arms out to the side, lifting them up.

We're just going to take our feet shoulder width apart again. So turning, just relaxing the palms down, turning the right palm up towards the sky. And then we're going to roll the left shoulder forward so the left palm is facing up.

And then we're going to move the shoulders, roll the shoulders, the right shoulder coming forward, the left shoulder going back behind until the palms face up again.

Then we're going to roll them back the opposite way and rolling again, just opening up.

The focus is coming into the shoulders. We're opening up the shoulders, opening up the chest and the heart space, opening up the flow of energy from the brain to the rest of the body.

And then we're turning the head, looking to one side and then the other.

We're going to shift the weight from side to side. And we find a nice little flow.

Remember to breathe as your energy is working and cultivating.

You'll start to feel that's pretty intense in the shoulders. Might start to feel different sensations of heat, may not feel anything and that's totally okay, but you will start to feel that in the shoulders.

So, coming back to centre, holding up the wrist, activating the wrists and just breathing into that intensity.

Holding, holding, breathing. And then gently relax the elbows down to the body, bringing the palms together at the belly and start to expand the hands and then bring them back to centre. Expanding and contracting.

Noticing, imagining you have this ball of chi in between the palms of your hands.

Imagine this beautiful golden ball of chi, of life force, of energy and just float the hands out with inhalation, exhale, bringing them close together. Bring this ball closer, hands out. You're expanding this golden light, bringing it in. You're tonifying it and strengthening.

Breathing in, breathing out.

Imagine this little ball of vitality. You can infuse this ball of chi with whatever you need to bring into your day. You may even feel the ball. You may even feel the energy in between the palms of your hands.

Bring the palms closer together and just see if you can feel this ball. It doesn't, you don't need to be able to feel anything, but if you can just imagine this golden ball of light, full of energy, full of life force. And then take this ball and lift it up the spine, up the back of the spine, all the way up over the head, and let it float down the front of the body.

Breathing in, lifting it up, nourishing the spine and letting it float down.

We're lifting it up the two major energy channels in the body. More yang channel at the back and the more yin channel at the front.

And to connect these two channels, imagine lifting up your pelvic floor and putting the tongue on the roof of your mouth as you lift up and then relaxing everything. Lifting up the pelvic floor and putting the root tongue on the roof of your mouth, breathing in and then relax.

It's called the microcosmic orbit.

Feel this beautiful golden light circling and orbiting. Energy flows in spirals, in circles.

So, it's just connecting this flow of energy, this flow of harmony, yin and yang through the body.

Breathing in, breathing out. Bringing this golden ball down at the belly and storing it into the lower dantian, taking the legs together.

And imagine this beautiful golden ball of light at the belly. And with each breath that you take, it expands, nourishing every single cell of your body.

Imagining this beautiful golden sunshine. Sunlight flooding and infusing every single cell of your body. Radiating out like the sun to your energy field all around you, smiling, feeling this new wave of life.

You can stay here for as long as you need to.

Or take a moment to sit or lie down and completely rest your body.

Thank you for being here today.

I look forward to seeing you again.

[Text on screen: Great work! See you soon.]