I want to highlight something specific: the closing form — the final movement in the sequence — is remarkable. After 30 minutes of practice, this closing movement seems to seal and integrate everything that came before. The first time I did it I sat down afterward and felt a quality of stillness and settledness that I hadn't experienced in years. I'm a long-term meditator and this practice reaches something that sitting meditation doesn't. The movement combined with the breath and the energy awareness creates a state that I can only describe as deeply organised. I now do the closing form separately on days when I'm stressed and need to return to center quickly. It works every time.
I am 74. My GP — who I like very much — told me eighteen months ago that many of my symptoms were simply aging and that I should adjust my expectations. Fatigue, disrupted sleep, cold hands, poor digestion, low mood in winter — just part of getting older. My granddaughter refused to accept that and found this course. I started practicing because she asked me to. After four months I went back to my GP and told him what had changed. He ran the same blood tests and couldn't explain the improvements in my markers. He asked what I was doing. When I told him he was quiet for a moment and then said — keep doing it. I am 74 and I am not adjusting my expectations anymore.
I want to specifically praise the structure of this course. Most qigong content online shows you the movements but doesn't explain the why. The ten individual tutorials in this course — one for each movement including the preparatory posture and closing form — go into genuine depth about the meridian pathway involved, the organ being targeted, the correct technique, and the specific breathing pattern. This level of detail means you're not just copying movements — you're practicing with understanding. That understanding is what makes the practice stick. I've been consistent for six months which is longer than I've maintained any physical practice in my adult life.
I work in technology and my life is entirely screen-based — twelve hours a day minimum. I started experiencing what I can only describe as a kind of internal static: difficulty concentrating, emotional flatness, a disconnection between my mind and body. My partner who practices Chinese martial arts suggested Ba Bu Jin Gang Gong. The eight movements and their relationship to the five organ systems made sense to me even from a modern neuroscience perspective — regulating the nervous and endocrine systems through movement and breath. After six weeks the internal static started to clear. After three months I feel more present in my own life than I have since I was a student. A thousand-year-old practice turned out to be exactly what I needed.
I used to get every cold and flu that came around. Working in a primary school means constant exposure and I was sick five or six times a year — proper sick, not just sniffles. My TCM practitioner mentioned that frequent illness often relates to compromised Qi in the lung and kidney systems and suggested Ba Bu Jin Gang Gong. I've been practicing daily for eight months. This school year I've had one mild cold. One. In eight months of working with young children. I can't attribute this entirely to one practice — I also improved my diet and sleep. But the timing of the change corresponds with when I started and I notice the practice specifically working on lung energy. Whatever is happening, I'll take it.