Embryology Qigong Practice April and May 2022
With Bob Lehnberg
10:30 - 11:50 am
Mondays
April 4, 11, 18, 25
May 2, 9, 16, 23
April Classes 2022: Simultaneous Condensing and Expanding Yield
Simultaneous Condensing and Expanding Yield is a whole-body pattern of fetal rhythm that underlies unity of movement of the trunk, arms, and legs. It incorporates movement in all three planes: bowing, wrapping, and spiraling. Expanding and condensing is an underlying principle in the practice of qigong and tai chi. Within a whole-body pattern, the principle of “pulsing” engages the joints and soft tissue for a fuller body sense. Principles are applied to a variety of simple-to-do qigong movement forms.
May Classes 2022: Yolk Sac, Sea of Qi
During our embryological process, we created our yolk sac and external sea of qi. It invaginates to form the front body, the gut tube and related structures, lungs, liver, and pancreas. The small intestine is the location of our dan tien or internal sea of qi. Breathing into the abdominal spaces, particularly the omental bursa, yields a pathway into the dan tien. This embryological breathing practice will be included in some simple-to-do movement forms.
Embryology Qigong weekly practice description
Description:
Qigong, energy cultivation, is a simple practice. Embryology is an act of re-membering, of listening to the echo of our formation and growth. Principles underlying our embryological development can enrich our qigong practice and embodiment.
Our embryological development is based on universal principles including expanding & condensing, inner & outer, and earth & heaven. Minding basic embryological principles, breath and simple forms take on new depth and meaning.
We will begin and end each class with opening and closing sequences.
The main topic of each class will focus on one or two forms to provide a container for embodying embryological principles. These principles apply to any form with some more in expression and others more in the shadow. Either way, experience is borne, and body-mind / mind-body aspects of practice can come forth.
No embryology or qigong experience is needed. The principles and movements of embryology can serve as a basis for future study. These principles are universal and underlie many practices of energy and cultivation.
Benefits:
- Gain an experiential understanding of the embryological process.
- Deepen and enrich your understanding of the embryological process through direct experience.
- Develop your "go-between" of structure and function, stability and mobility, container and contents, form and vitality, fluid and membrane.
- Learn basic principles of qigong at their embryological origins.
- Develop your own psychophysical "body-mind" and "mind-body" understanding on a personal basis.
- Gain greater understanding of the health in your system, and sovereignty of your own embryo within.
Embryological processes and body-based qigong practices we will consider include:
- Egg and sperm; stillness - movement
- Early cell division; membrane - fluid balance
- Yolk sac and amnion; internal and external Seas of Qi
- Primitive streak; onset of our mesoderm, sense of weight and width
- Allantois; our lower dan tien
- Notochord; our soft spine
- Blood vessel formation; spatial support for our heart, middle dan tien
- Caudal eminence; grounding our spinal cord and central nervous system
- Limb buds; sprouting and spiraling our arms and legs
- Releasing our coccyx from our lower limbs; lateral weight shift
- Pro-kidneys; lengthening our back and easing energy expenditure
- Embryonic breathing; abdominal organs and membranes
- Neuroenteric canal; balancing front body and back body
- Central channel; seated meditation
Your Instructor
In 1990, Bob Lehnberg received his certification as Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering® (BMCsm) and in 2002 Teacher of Body-Mind Centering. Since then Bob has received teacher certifications for BMC Yoga, Integral Yoga and Supreme Science of Qigong. He has been teaching in schools of massage therapy and programs of somatic training since 1990 and has had the good fortune to teach BMC and somatic practices throughout the US and internationally in Europe, Canada, China, and Taiwan.
Bob is a co-founder of Kinesthetic Learning Center in Durham, NC and has been on faculty teaching and coordinating the BMC Somatic Movement Educator (SME) and Practitioner certification programs since 2007. He is coordinator of SME courses for Esprit en Mouvement in Montreal, Canada and is Co-director of the SME program in Taitung, Taiwan.