Qigong is known around the world as a practice used to cultivate and balance your personal energy, or chi. But that is just the beginning of the benefits available through qigong, says Bastyr University faculty member Guan-Cheng Sun, PhD.
Dr. Sun has been practicing qigong for more than 35 years, and for much of that time, he has been teaching a specific type that he developed himself: Yi Ren Medical Qigong, which takes qigong to a deeper level by allowing you to harness your chi for self-healing.
“Everybody has an energy field, even people who don’t practice qigong,” he says, explaining that you can use that energy field for healing.
Dr. Sun will teach people how to cultivate their self-healing energy starting this fall with two new noncredit Medical Qigong Certificate Programs through Bastyr’s Department of Certificate, Community and Continuing Education (CCCE): Medical Qigong Self-Care, which is open to the general public; followed by the Medical Qigong Therapist Certificate for health care practitioners.
"What Guan-Cheng Sun has to offer is a wonderful gift to health practitioners and laymen alike,” says CCCE Director Sue Russell. “His rich blend of scientific molecular research experience, teachings from the great Chinese qigong masters, and decades of cultivating the Yi Ren Medical Qigong practice can be found nowhere else.”
The first workshop in the Self-Care series, Yi Ren Medical Qigong and Internal Qi-Energy Activation, starts September 22 and continues through December 9. Each of the certificate programs includes 45 hours of class time, all on weekends, along with 30 hours of qigong practice outside of class and about 20 hours of reading.
Open to Any Age, Way of Life
The Medical Qigong Self-Care Certificate program is open to people at all levels of qigong, from beginners to advanced, at any age or way of life, from the able-bodied to those with chronic pain or even terminal illnesses.
“It’s feasible for people with any health condition,” Dr. Sun says. You can do qigong while lying down or sitting in a chair, he says, which makes it easy for anyone to practice nearly anywhere.
Like all forms of qigong, Yi Ren Medical Qigong will help you become more aware of the connection between your mind and body. But you also will strengthen your understanding of natural medicine, which focuses on finding and treating the source of an illness.
“Instead of looking for the cause of the pain,” Dr. Sun says, “many Westerners instead focus on treating the symptom, which can actually worsen the pain.”
Through the Medical Qigong Certificate Programs, you will learn how to use that connection between your mind and body to locate the source of your pain, then turn your chi toward healing it.
Early Experience with Medical Qigong
Since his childhood in rural China, Dr. Sun has benefited from the power of medical qigong (read our article about how his experience led him to a research project that uses high-tech imaging to prove whether medical qigong works).
But he’s since discovered a need to share his skills with health practitioners and other healers.
“In our research, we’ve found that health care practitioners in all modalities start to take on some of their patients’ pain,” Dr. Sun says. While the patients heal, he says there is often an “energy exchange” that results in the doctor or other health care practitioner gradually taking on that pain.
“Every health care provider is a healer, because they have love and compassion for their patients, which often leads to this energy exchange,” Dr. Sun says.
But they can learn to use this energy exchange to their advantage — first to care for their own health through the Self-Care Certificate, and also to protect themselves from taking on their patients’ pain while healing them through the Therapist Certificate.
“Bastyr is honored to provide health practitioners a powerful set of tools to support healing with their patients while avoiding burnout that affects so many in the health field,” Russell says.
Learn More or Sign Up for Classes
Please sign up by September 5 to receive an “early-bird discount” for the first class in the certificate program, Yi Ren Medical Qigong and Internal Qi-Energy Activation.
You also can learn more about the certificate and training programs available through Bastyr’s CCCE at a free Information Session: Noncredit Programs from 6-9 p.m. September 10. Read about two of them here:
