Can you learn qigong, or any movement art, online? This is a burning question for me right now. My immediate reaction is “NO!”. However, I believe there is a significant role for supplemental online material in the overall learning process, even for movement arts. Here’s why it’s a bad idea to learn movement online: Learning movement is a kinesthetic experience, not a visual one – you have to feel where you are in space and you certainly can’t get that from staring at a screen You need feedback – when you are learning something new, you need refinement and guidance, usually hands-on Some things need to be felt on another person – we get into this all the time with more subtle qigong principles and there is no way around feeling what’s going on in the instructor’s body to learn what you are trying to do in your own

Last week I got back from two weeks in the UK doing an instructor training with Bruce Frantzis on Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body, the core chi gung set in his program. We’re right back into the swing of classes now, but I wanted to post a little review before too much time passes. The Energy Gates set is made up of six different exercises – they run the gamut from standing still holding a simple posture, to vigorous shifting, turning, and swinging.