Gentle Exercises for Optimal Health

In March and April of 2010 Robert Bates is teaching Healthy Joint Qigong.

To Sign Up for Classes: (360) 398-7466, or email

Days: Mondays and Fridays. Take one or both days for the same price.

Dates: March 8 through April 16

Time: 12:00 to 1:00

Cost: $60 for the 6-week series

Location: Robert’s Healing Studio: 1095 E. Axton Road, Bellingham, WA 98226

In Healthy Joint Qigong You Will Learn

• Joint Rotation exercises for clearing the joints and increasing range of motion
• Joint Expansion practices for increasing the space between bones
• Joint Pulsing practices for building Qi in your joints
• Joint Strengthening exercises to add more resilience to your joints
• Joint Massage techniques for bringing blood, Qi, and lymph through joints
• Bone Breathing meditations for clearing the joints and charging them up

Joint Motion Exercises Can

• Lubricate the Joints through motion
• Help you feel better. Joint exercises can decrease arthritic and creaky pain
• Decrease calcium and other mineral buildup
• Help you stand and be taller: Expand the body, rather than be compacted
• Decrease the chance of injuries
• Be used as a wake up in the morning
• Be used as a warm up before being physically active
• Increase your flexibility
• Restore much lost joint health

Some Reasons for Qigong Joint Exercises

Health is movement and movement leads to health. Stagnation, in contrast, leads to illness. Impaired joints decrease the amount and types of movement you can do. While it is important to stretch and exercise the muscles and soft tissues of the body, the joints also need to be “stretched” and exercised. As a general rule, gently and frequently moving them in through their natural range of motion, helps them heal, helps them reconfigure closer to the way they were meant to work. If we exercise our joints we will be healthier and feel better. The joints have no blood flow, so they depend upon your movement to pump the synovial fluid through, and the toxins and detritus out.

To Sign Up for Classes: (360) 398-7466, or email

Monthly Wild Goose Qigong Workshops

Once a month on Saturdays, Robert Bates will be teaching 2-hour Wild Goose Qigong Workshops. The workshops will be for both beginners and continuing students. Everyone will work on the First 64 form. Continuing students then can stay with the First 64 practice or work on Spiral, Soft Palms, or Slapping Healthy.

Time: 10:00 to 12:00

Dates: February 20, March 20, April 17, May 15 and June 19

Cost: $80 for the 5-class series or $20 per class

Location: Robert’s Healing Studio: 1095 E. Axton Road, Bellingham, WA 98226

Gain Greater Health and Have Fun Doing it

Wild Goose Qigong exercises are Chinese longevity exercises that originated in the Taoist tradition in the Kunlun mountains of Western China, many centuries ago. Long a secret, Wild Goose Qigong became widely practiced in China in the last few decades. The exercises represent the daily routine of a wild goose—a bird of longevity and high energy. Wild Goose Qigong is effective at helping treat disease, increase energy, improve mental clarity and brain functions, and maintain general fitness.

The Fabulous, Famous, Fantastic “First 64”

The “First 64” is one of the most well known Qigong sequences in the world. It is usually the one first taught in the Wild Goose system. It consists of 64 named moves of great variety that are performed in succession along a specific stepping pattern, much like a Tai Chi Sequence is done. Each of the moves has particular benefits for health, wellness, and healing. The movements flow together in a flowing, active tapestry. The “First 64” is a lot of fun to practice and has many unexpected and unusual moves. The form includes turning, twisting, stretching, leg strengthening, balance building, and spinal strengthening. There are moves to eliminate old, stuck and toxic energy from your body and fill yourself with fresh new energy.

These classes are moderately vigorous and will include warming up, stretching, Qigong drills, and instruction in the profound and fun movements of the of the long sequences.

Beginning in January I will host two 8-week Qigong classes. Both classes will run two times a week; on Mondays and Fridays. Students can choose to attend one or both classes, either once or twice a week.

Taoist Yoga

Mondays and Fridays from noon to 1:00 will be Introduction to Taoist Yoga: Stretch your muscles, ligaments, tendons, and joints using the principles of Chinese movement.

The cost for this course is $80. You can take it once or twice for the same price.

Prevent Colds and Flu

Mondays and Fridays from 1:00 to 2:00 will be Qigong to Prevent Colds and Flu. Use vibrating healing sounds and slow, rhythmic, repeating movements to knock an incipient sickness off it’s trajectory.

The cost for this course is $80. You can take it once or twice for the same price.

Expanding and Contracting the Rings

Here are photos of one of the Qi-refining exercises that will build the strength of your immune system.

Pull Qi up from the Ground

Flow Qi over the Head

Descend Qi into the Earth

Here is basic list of Qigong Workshops that I offer. Click the hyperlink to get the 20-page PDF document of more detailed descriptions of each workshop listed below.

• Five Flows Qigong Set: Two-hour workshop
• Qigong to Prevent Colds and Flu: Two or four-hour workshop
• The Delightful Dozen: Four-hour workshop
• Healthy Joint Qigong: Two, four, or six-hour workshop
• Empower Your Breathing: Four-hour workshop
• Six Healing Sounds with Color Radiation: Four-hour workshop
• Qigong Self-Massage: Two or four-hour workshop
• Swimming Dragon: Four-hour Workshop
• Taij Qigong (Tai Chi Chi Kung): Four-hour workshop
• Chakra Tuning and Auric Butterfly: Four-hour workshop
• Five Animal Frolics Qigong: Two or four-hour workshop
• 36-Movement Snake Qigong Set: Taught in a pair of four-hour workshops
• Introduction to Medical Qigong Therapy: One-day or two-day workshop

Strengthen Your Immune System with Qigong

Qigong has earned a reputation for being a powerful illness-prevention practice. Qigong can and often does prevent many acute illnesses from arising. While there is no guarantee you won’t get sick if you practice Qigong, your body will stand a much better chance of fighting off sickness. In my experience, there is something even more than prevention that sometimes goes on: The oncoming illness is waylaid, knocked out like a boxer with a glass jaw.

Qigong Workshop

On November 14, which is a Saturday, I will offer a 4-hour workshop on Qigong methods that can prevent acute sickness from taking effect in your body.

Workshop Details

When:              Saturday, November 14 , 2009
Time:               10:00 pm to 2:00 pm. Bring a Lunch.
Cost:                $60. 
Location: 1095 East Axton Road, a few miles north of Bellingham, WA.
To Sign Up: (360) 398-7466, or rbbatesdc@comcast.net

First Clear the Organs with the Six Healing Sounds

First we will warm the body up and begin the purging of stagnation. The Six Healing Sounds clear the organs, tissues and cells of stagnant Qi; open blocked Qi channels; and reinvigorate sluggish lymph.

Then Engage in Slow, Gentle Movements that Move the Qi

For this we will practice the set known as Hun Yuan Qigong. I find this set to be a marvelous way to stave off getting sick.

Move Qi Stagnation

My Own Experiences with Vaulting Past Colds and Flu

Over the past two or three long, cold, wet Washington State winters, whenever I start to feel run down—maybe on the verge of getting sick—I practice the slow motion Hun Yuan set for about 30 to 40 minutes. By the end of the practice I can feel a pulsing, whole-body empowerment. There is a balanced magnetic warmth in my hands, ease in my breathing, and calmness in my heart and mind. I get a strong sense that the healing forces in my body have been renewed and reinvigorated.

So far, it has worked and I haven’t gotten ill when engaging in my preventive Qigong practice. This idea of staving off illness is a very common one in the Qigong literature, a universal notion of the value of the art.

Proved Once Again

Again,there is no guarantee, but I proved to myself just the today that it works. I’ve been very busy lately, with little down time. I thrive on a certain minimum of time off to rest my mind and body. Last night I began to get fatigued-feeling and overly-sweaty. I went to bed early and slept in, feeling even more tired in the morning.

Over the day I practiced 20 to 30 minutes of the above type of Qigong three times. After the second practice–in the early afternoon–I began to feel a definite shift toward energy and strength. Hours later, I feel pretty good over all.

Five Flows in in the Palm Springs Area

On Thursday October 15, I will be teaching a Five Flows Qigong workshop at the Palm Desert  Chiropractic office and Qigong studio of my colleague Robert Haberkorn.

Five Animal Frolics in Monrovia, CA

On Saturday, October 17, I will be teaching a workshop on Five Animal Frolics workshop at Monrovia studio of my long-time friend Tom Hould.

Not only do I have a Delightful Dozen/Primordial Qigong Course starting on Monday, Sept 14 2009; there is also a Bellingham Wild Goose Qigong Club First 64 course. This form is a sporty, sophisticated movement pattern that take you all over the floor. It is fun and intricate, with many twists and turns and stretches and stepping and flapping and hand shimmering.

I will be teaching the First 64 on alternating weeks throughout the fall.

My Taiji and Xin Yi teacher Bob Lau is will be teaching Yang Style Taiji (Tai chi) once a week beginning in November. Of the several major styles of Taiji, Yang style is the most well-known, with it’s slow, flowing moves. Several studies have shown Taiji like this to be an excellent training for significantly decreasing falls in seniors and increasing organ health for everyone.

Here is his email

“Hi everyone,

By special request, I will start teaching Yang Style Tai Chi at the Firehouse Performing Arts Center on Mondays, beginning Monday Nov 2, 2009. Class time will be starting at 10:45AM and will be a 1 hour class. The cost of the class will be $45/month.

I hope to see you all there.

Questions: email me [boblautaiji@yahoo.com]or call 360-734-2847

Bob Lau”

p.s. Bob is a down-to-earth personable teacher with a great deal of knowledge and skill in the important healing aspects of the internal martial arts. I recommend him highly.

Regain Your Birthright Energy

Learn the “Delightful 12” Set and the “Primordial Qigong” Form

Fall, 2009

When:   Eight Mondays, September 14 to November 2

Time:     12:00 pm to 1:00 pm

Cost:      $80.00 for the course

Where:  1095 East Axton Road

Sign up: email or call Robert

The Delightful Dozen Set Empowers Self-Healing

These exercises will leave you feeling calm, together, and at ease; while gently pulsing with lively energy. The gentle movements of the Delightful Dozen are especially useful in bringing a balance to the two sides of your nervous system, which leads to your whole body being more unified. The twelve exercises of this set are a superb set in themselves and they prepare you for the flowing body of the Primordial Qigong form, below.

See an example exercise

The Primordial Qigong Form is a Movement Ritual

Primordial Qigong is a complete healing form. Done slowly, like Tai Chi Chuan, it takes about 18 minutes to perform. Primordial Qigong elegantly and effortlessly combines meditative, intricate, flowing movement with Taoist internal alchemy. In Taoist internal alchemy, natural energies are gathered, blended and circulated internally to bring about physical healing, energetic balance, emotional peace, and spiritual growth.

Primordial Qigong is a movement ritual that flows like a silent prayer. Qi is gathered from the four directions, the five elements, the earth, stars, sun, moon and other natural forces. The practitioner is charged up while achieving a balance of Yin and Yang in the body.

Qigong in the Gardens in July

Every summer for the past several years I have offered free Qigong classes. The first year I held them in Whatcom Falls Park in Bellingham. That was good, but I found it too busy and loud there by the road. And there were some crows that kept throwing down fir cones on our heads from the trees above us. Weird.

Since then I have held the free classes in my front yard amidst the natural scenery and festooned beauty of our gardens.

Axton Gardens

It is time again for the free summer classes. Qigong is such a powerful, yet approachable practice I want anyone interested to come and give it a try!

I envision a day when tens of millions of Americans are using the accessible exercises of Qigong and related arts as a primary part of their healthcare and life empowerment practices.

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