Myofascial Qigong - Myofascial & Somatic Yoga

Dance of the Dragon Myofascial Qigong and Yoga, Dynamic movement, that is deeply rooted in traditional qigong and Hatha Yoga. The dragon in Taoist cosmology is a symbol of strength, wisdom, power and grace. In traditional Qigong, the dragon is often related to the spine. It focuses on creating flexibility, mobility and strength, while releasing tension in the body, particularly tension from bad postural habits and stress. Tension and stiffness is seen as energy that is trapped in the body and become stagnant. Using slow flowing movements, these techniques release this stagnant energy from the fascia, and joints. Stretching the meridians, it allows the qi from the organs to flow more freely in the body. Traditional Chinese Medicine recognizes stiffness and immobility as energetic (qi) stagnation where emotional and physical energy has become blocked. When this energy is released and the body’s energy can move more freely, our life becomes more effortless, because this trapped energy is using up our life force.

Dance of the Dragon Myofascial Qigong and Yoga, increase somatic sensitivity, which allows us to feel into our body, reconnecting the brain to the parts that have been neglected due to sedentary lifestyle or injury. As the body learns to move as a unit rather than a collection of isolated parts, it promotes postural integration, improving coordination and creating more effortlessness in movement, and in the rest of your life. The role of the fascia in flexibility has been recognized the last few years, and has become a buzzword in western exercise science and yoga, but the role and function how the fascia works was described in the oldest known medical text, The Yellow Emperor’’s Classic of Internal Medicine, more than two thousand years ago. 

We live in a society that is based on trapping our attention. Consequently we experience the world primarily through our eyes, and that experience is largely determined by the barrage of media we are exposed to daily. Our digital devices bombard us with distractions to which we habitually react… positively or negatively. Consequently we are in a state of constant emotional reactivity and stress. These emotional reactions become trapped in our physical body, in our cells, soft tissue and organs and also in areas of postural misalignment from the way we sit in chairs or stand and look at our computers and smart devices.  Look around you and notice how many people are walking around with forward head posture, hunched shoulders and scrunched up foreheads. These postural misalignments are not only unattractive, but they are unhealthy, creating tension and stiffness which adds to our general level of stress. In my experience most people have normalized the tension and pain held in their bodies to the point that they don’t notice it until they try to move slowly or sit still. If you have any doubt, close your eyes and spend a few minutes focusing your attention on the space between your eyebrows. Chances are that there’s also tension in your jaw, temples, tongue, lips and the space under your eyes. 

We live externally, and we have lost the ability to feel what is going on inside of us, leaving us in a constant state of disconnection from ourselves. We have lost touch with our bodies, leaving us feeling awkward, and uncoordinated. When we move, we move mindlessly and without awareness without any sense of our bodies and how they are moving in space, and when our attention is called to it, we become easily frustrated.

Dance of the Dragon Myofacial Qigong and Yoga is an antidote to the stressful lives we live.