The Ba Duan Jin Teacher Training course – Teach true Qigong

The Ba Duan Jin Teacher Training course – Teach true Qigong

Our Ba Duan Jin Teacher Training course has optional captions (English, French & Spanish).

Welcome to the Ba Duan Jin Teacher Training course. Up until Covid 19, all of our Instructor courses had been live, but the pandemic forced us to run the second-half of a Shibashi Instructor course as an online course. We were amazed, absolutely astounded at how successful this was. The most common comments were along the lines of……….. “This is like one to one tuition”.  With the recordings available, every one of the participants learned at a quicker rate that we would have expected from a series of weekend workshops. Those recordings proved to be a very valuable resource as a number of the overseas participants used them rather than the live-streamed lessons because the broadcast times were unsuitable.

Why choose this Ba Duan Jin Teacher Training course?

If I take The Wise Owl Looks Backward as an example. This Qigong is almost always taught as a physical exercise accompanied by a few flowery terms that are meant to give the practitioner an insight into the Qi. Here are the first two examples I came across online: –

• ”The movement of the arms activates all yin and yang organs to build immunity. We must be careful not to loose our centre as we move though the inhale.  The exhale is brief but grounding.”
• “This is a stretch of the neck to the left and the right in an alternating fashion”

One after the other, page after page, on the Internet it is the same fluff! Where is the focus? Just turning your head will certainly affect your neck muscles but what about the Qi? This is a Qigong that uses the Control Cycle of the Five Elements. It uses Metal to control Wood. It is a fabulous Qigong. It is very powerful and efficient……………… but it must be practiced properly. You need to know where your focus should be at all times. You need to listen to the Qi so that you know that you are having an effect.

This Ba Duan Jin Teacher Training course provides you with all of that and more. That use of the Control Cycle is the primary function of The Wise Owl Looks Backward but that does not mean that the only benefits are to these two Elements. There is an effect throughout the entire meridian system via the Nurturing Cycle and the Controlling Cycle of the Five Elements. However, the initial effects will be on enhancing the Qi in the Lung and Large Intestine meridians while dissipating (clearing) stuck, or stagnant Qi from the Liver and Gallbladder meridians. It really is a simple choice of “Do I learn how to use the Internal movements of the Ba Duan Jin, or am I content with arm waving and vague sound-bites about Qi?”

Ba Duan Jin Teacher Training course one-to-one session options

The course includes a one hour on-to-one session that can be held, in person, or as an online Zoom meeting. A lot can be done in an hour if you have prepared tour questions and planned what you wish to cover. These and any additional sessions you may wish can be booked online and details of how to do this are supplied on enrollment.

Ba Duan Jin Teacher Training course – Live assessment

With these two options, you now have the choice of one assessment a year that will be live and held, here, in Scotland. The date for next live assessment is Saturday 24th May 2025.

Ba Duan Jin Teacher Training course – Online assessment – Choose your own date

The second, online, option is that we can arrange a date and time that suits. If you choose this option, you will be allocated a one-to-one session (1 hour) that we can schedule for the run up to the arranged assessment. This gives you the opportunity to clarify anything that you are unsure of and ask Des any questions regarding the Ba Duan Jin. The assessment will on a one-to-one basis and take in the region of an hour.

The prerequisites for the online assessment are that you have a webcam set up so that your entire body can be seen as you teach and describe each Qigong. Your microphone needs to be clearly audible and you must have broadband that is capable of transmitting and receiving a video meeting. The, practical, assessment will be on your ability to practice and teach the Ba Duan Jin accurately. Knowledge of meridian theory, Five Element Theory, etc. is not required. For further information please use our Contact page.

History of the Ba Duan Jin

The Ba Duan Jin is one of the most commonly practiced Qigong In the world. These Qigong have a variety of Anglicized names. Among them are: Eight Pieces of Brocade, the Eight-Section Brocade, and the Eight Silken Movements. All of the movements featured in the Ba Duan Jin course are also contained in the Ten Fundamental Treasures and in the Qigong that are known simply as the Silk Exercises (there are four sets of Silk Exercises). But each of these contain Qigong with different focus and different benefits. They all share a common source and as these Qigong were passed from Masters to students…… some of whom then went on to become Masters, there are now variations seen. Some of the variations are acceptable and some are not. The acceptable variations are still Internal exercises with the focus on the Qi.

Those variations are on where the focus is, what meridians are being stimulated and what Element is are being worked with. The unacceptable variations are where these Qigong have been watered down to the point of being purely physical in nature………. and that takes them out of the realm of true Qigong. The use of the word “silk” in the name imparts three pieces of information. Firstly, it tells us that these Qigong were/are perceived as being of great value. Secondly, the process of making silk was regarded as a state secret of Ancient China and like making silk, the true nature of these Qigong was hidden from the outside world. Thirdly, it tells us that the movement within the exercise is strong and smooth like silk.

The movement I am referring  to isn’t the physical movement, it is the movement of the Qi. The goal of having strong, smooth, Qi flow is there to improve our health. Physical health, psychological health and spiritual health. The exercises in the Ba Duan Jin Teacher Training course are primarily a form of medical Qigong. However, the history of this set is martial and it is mentioned in several books that were written during the Song Dynasty (960 – 1279 CC). As with all Qigong, the aim is to enhance the Qi through the use of the Yi (that is the cognitive, reasoning, brain). This is not done through imagination. It is done through focus and, when the body and Shen (the consciousness) are quiet, there is tangible feedback. You can experience the flow of the Qi. With that feedback your skill and ability to stimulate and enhance the Qi will grow. To attain that stillness, when standing, proper posture is required. In the Ba Duan Jin the stances used are Wuji stance and Horse Riding stance. Once these have been covered we will move on to the individual Qigong where the basic physical movements will be taught before the focus, where you should be focusing, is added.

In the Ba Duan Jin Teacher Training course: –

• You will learn what meridians are being stimulated and have downloadable diagrams of these.
• You will be learn the proper stance for each Qigong exercise.
• You will be learn how to identify flaws in the stances and how to rectify them.
• You will be learn the proper posture for each Qigong exercise.
• You will be learn how to identify flaws in the postures and how to rectify them.
• You will be learn methods of how to stay sunk (the Qi) and rooted (the weight, the physical).
• You will learn what acupuncture points need to be focused on.
• You will be given guidance on where to listen (passive awareness) and increase the awareness of Qi.
• You will learn some additional Qigong that is used to help build up awareness of and differentiate qualities in the Qi.
• A one-to-one session, with Des, is included.
• You learn at your own pace and book the assessment when you are ready.

There are four lessons for each exercise:

• What meridians are being worked with.
• The physical movements and focus.
• The Internal movement, focusing on the Qi.
• The follow me video that highlights where you should be focusing.
• Common errors and how to address them.