Qigong Balance Series – Mimi Kuo-Deemer
In Qigong and Chinese medicine, anxiety arises when the flow of qi, or life energy, through our organs and meridians becomes stuck, stagnant or caught in chaotic whirlpools.
Mimi has been a student of yoga since 1995 and an avid lover of dance since 1978, when her mother put her in ballet school for walking with turned-in toes. Mimi mainly teaches a breath and alignment-based vinyasa yoga that is cross-pollinated with aspects of Daoist and Buddhist teachings.
She champions meditation as the answer to just about all of life’s most pressing questions, and never underestimates the strength and clarity that yoga can provide at times when life turns grim corners. Her two main teachers in the yoga world, Erich Schiffmann and Donna Farhi, continually humble her with the idea that yoga is the art of living, listening, and learning to embody a deeply spiritual tradition.
In 2002, Mimi co-founded Yoga Yard, Beijing’s first and leading yoga studio, which she co-directed for seven years. She now lives in London, and teaches classes, workshops and retreats in the UK and internationally. She is the author of the DVD “Vinyasa Yoga: A Steady Mindful Practice”.
Yoga for Sacroiliac Stability
Qigong for Anxiety
A Qigong class with gentle movements to help to calm, ground and ease anxiety. In Qigong and Chinese medicine, anxiety arises when the flow of qi, or life energy, through our organs and meridians becomes stuck, stagnant or caught in chaotic whirlpools. In this class we’ll do practices to support our qi to flow in more natural, balanced ways. When this happens, the tendencies towards restlessness, worry and fear – all things that can trigger anxiety – can gradually start to fall away. All you’ll need is some comfortable clothes and some space to stand.
Qigong Balance Series 3: Emotional Balance
Qigong Balance Series 2: Energetic Balance
Qigong Balance Series 1: Structural Balance
The first class in this series explores your body’s structural capacity to balance. Movements are gentle, slow and mindful, and this qigong class is an ideal daily practice as we move through the years, to keep our balance and strength. Through yoga and qigong postures that target the feet, legs, and a concept called cross-lateral connectivity, you will discover ways to more easily and gracefully stand on one leg! This is a good series for those who don’t wish to weight bear on their arms, hands and wrists. No props are needed, not even a mat!
Buddha’s Teachings: Yoga for Equanimity
This gently flowing yoga and Qi Gong class explores the fourth of the brahmavihārās, or boundless states, known as upekkha, or equanimity. This fourth abode is often the most misunderstood, as equanimity can easily be written off as indifference and not caring. The Buddha’s teachings suggest this is far from the truth. His description of upekkha is that it is a perfect, unshakable balance of heart and mind, rooted in insight. When we cultivate equanimity, we cultivate a state of being even minded and calm. In this state, we learn to trust, meet and respond to life in ways that let us care deeply and fully about what truly matters. We make room for joy, pain, sorrow and challenges. We learn to meet life in ways that neither opposes nor demands more from it, and can remain steady, trusting and open to whatever grim corners we may turn in life.
Buddha’s Teachings: Yoga for Sympathetic Joy
This yoga class focuses on the third aspect of the Buddha’s teachings to awaken the heart, Mudita. Mudita means finding joy in the happiness and success of others. It is the third of four boundless states, or brahmavihārās. This well-rounded class has a particular focus on the hips and the hamstrings, two areas where many of us are tight due to either a sedantary lifestyle, or strengthening workouts. Being happy for others when they are happy are we are not, or they achieve things that we haven’t not the easiest practice. Indeed, ours is a world where comparison, judgement, envy and aggression are rife. Learning to be happy for someone when they are truly happy and shining usually requires a deliberate effort. When we can summon sympathetic joy, the rewards are magnificent and freeing. Through a cultivation of mudita, we can pull out the weeds of pettiness, envy and comparison. We become less selfish and self-centred, and grow into more tolerant, generous and compassionate individuals. Our actions can then create a chain-reaction, where a joyful and charitable heart ripples out into the world. You will just need a mat.
Buddha’s Teachings: Yoga for Compassion
This yoga class focuses on cultivating a strong and resilient heart that awakens karuna, or compassion. It is the second of four boundless states, or brahmavihārās. Compassion means to be with another’s suffering. It is the opposite of cruelty. It can be conflated with pity, which it is not. Compassion is born out of a selfless desire to stand in solidarity with those who experience misfortune. Misfortune does not have to be starvation, physical pain and loss; it can be as simple as wanting something to be other than it is, which the Buddha described as creating clinging as well as a pushing away of experience. When we begin to cultivate compassion, we start with extending compassion towards ourselves. By forging self-compassion, we create a springboard for extending compassion towards others and all beings in the world. This well-rounded yoga class focuses on heart opening and brings in qigong movements.
Buddha’s Teachings: Yoga for Loving Kindness
This is a practice centred around metta, which means goodwill, care, or loving-kindness. It is the first of four boundless states, known as the brahmavihārās. The brahmavihārās are the Buddha’s primary teachings on how we cultivate an awakened heart. In this yoga class, we’ll do some heart-focused practices and gentle movements (including some inspired by Qi Gong) to explore metta, which is the wish for true happiness that you can direct to yourself and towards others. In Buddhist teachings, metta is the foundations to our heart’s love and strength as it is what guided the Buddha along his path to care for a world that was in so much pain. As we learn to cultivate metta, we can learn to support our capacity to extend care to ourselves and the world, and send wishes for true happiness to all.
Meditation: Intimacy with Being Here
In this mindfulness-based meditation, we will cultivate the intimacy of being here – continually present and awake. Sounds good, right? The problem is, we’re usually anywhere BUT here. Usually we are caught up in various stories, or contracted around our own set of problems. This is what the Buddha described as the I, ME, MINE condition. When we train our minds to recognise this happening, we can shift this state. When this happens, experience can open up again. We hear sounds around us, breath moving, body sensing and feeling. We can suddenly be here again, in the intimacy of things; awake to the miracle of being alive.
Yoga 3D
Yoga is a practice about seeing more clearly. In Sankrit this is known as vidya – seeing through the avidya and maya – the misunderstandings, ignorance, delusions and illusions of the world to the truth of what is within and all around us. To support this process, I’ve developed a concept and practice called Yoga 3D. The Three D’s stand for Decelerate (slow down when you’re going unnecessarily fast); Deaggrevate (soften what is tight, tense or makes you aggrevated) and Disentangle (simply and disentangle from anything unnecessary complex). We’ll theme these ideas through an active flow!
Qigong and Restorative Yoga: Finding Ease
Qigong and Restorative Yoga: Finding Balance
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This is the second class in the three-part series, Qigong and Restorative Yoga. The first part of this class is a qigong elemental practice that will help balance the Chinese Five Elements of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water in your constitution. We will then do some quieting restorative practices to finish. You’ll want to have a yoga bolster or sofa cushion and a blanket.
Qigong and Restorative Yoga: Finding Harmony
Finding Harmony is the first of three classes in the series of Qigong and Restorative Yoga. It focuses on harmonising breath, body movement and the balance of yin and yang. It can be hard to find harmony in our lives of conflicting needs and priorities. Class starts with active qigong and then go on to a relaxing restorative yoga class. Ideally, have a yoga bolster and two blankets. Alternatively, you can also use a sofa cushion and two bed pillows.
Swimming Dragon Qigong
This Qigong class a version of Swimming dragon which moves through the Chinese five elements and builds strength, balance and focus. It is based on the work of Gerald Sharp and is one of Mimi’s favourite qigong sequences!
Gentle Yoga to Nourish and Support Series: (5) Effortless Ease
In this final class of this series of yoga/qi-gong moves to nourish, support and revitalise the body and mind, we orientate our practice toward effortless ease. In Chinese this is a concept known as wuwei, or effortless effort. It is something we cannot strive toward but rather a quality that arises spontaneously through steady cultivation and practice. As such, we will take the ideas of rooting, rising, aligning and balancing and see what is possible in working with the fluid flow of effortless ease.
Gentle Yoga to Nourish and Support Series: (4) The Yin/Yang Balance
With this class we take the ideas of rooting and feeling our body aligned between the skies above and earth below into a more full balance of yin and yang. This session will build a combination of strength and softness in the arms and hands and upper and lower body. When the energies of yin and yang come into balance in our bodies, it is known as the Tai Chi Axis.
Gentle Yoga to Nourish and Support Series: (3) Between Heaven & Earth
Building on the last class’s focus on rooting to rise, this yoga qi-gong class builds a combination of strength and softness in the arms and hands and upper and lower body. Bring energy upward from stable roots to the spine. We will work to lengthen it and feel how our bodies can become a healthy and nourished axis between heaven and earth.
Gentle Yoga to Nourish and Support Series: (2) Rooting to Rise
In Chinese, there is a saying ‘gen shen di gu’, which means when the roots and deep the foundations are strong. From Moving with the Breath, we shift the focus to rooting firmly down in the earth and allowing our bodies to rise from this firm root up toward the sky. We will practice some more dynamic standing poses after an initial warm-up we practiced in class #1 to feel this connection more fully in our body.
Gentle Yoga to Nourish and Support Series: (1) Breathe and Move
Start to move with your breath in this beginners yoga class. Feel supported, nourished and revitalised. This first class in this series begins with finding the breath, so the body and breath move together in simple sequences that help condition our respiratory and circulatory systems. This will allow you to feel more invigorated yet also relaxed, clear and calm. As well as being an accessible starting place for many students, this yoga class is also a nourishing standalone class for when you need to calm jangled nerves and return strong and grounded to your breath.
The Jewel of the Lotus Heart – Yoga,Qigong and Mindfulness
In Tibetan, there’s a mantra known as Om mani padme Om, or Hail the jewel in the lotus heart. The mantra suggests that through our practices, we can begin to polish a jewel that resides inside the lotus petals of our heart. When this polished jewel begins to reflect radiant light in all directions, we begin to awaken our innate qualities of wisdom and compassion. This mindfully paced gentle practice will integrate vinyasa yoga, qigong and mindfulness practices that can help the jewel of our lotus heart shine.
Harmonising Effort and Ease – Yoga, Qigong and Mindfulness Meditation
The Buddha emphsised using right effort in our actions and intentions in meditation and life. This practice looks at how we can approach strength building practices, especially in the legs, using right effort so that we create more space for awareness and less reactivity. We’ll also explore the idea in qigong of using intention, not force – or yong yi, buyong l – and apply it through a blend of yoga and qigong forms to explore how we can harmonise effort and ease.
Turning Toward Awareness: Yoga, Qigong & Mindfulness
Feel centred, grounded and start to fine tune your awareness with this gentle and beautiful fusion of yoga, qigong and mindfulness class with a focus on twists and forward folds. With a gentle start, working with mindful movement, this is a practice exploring how we might work with twists as a way to discover greater ease and space in our physical, mental and emotional experience of being human. With twists, we are invited to curve our awareness inward and we grant ourselves space to learn to respond to whatever experiences arise. From this, we allow ourselves time to build better resources to meet the business of our outward lives.
Vinyasa on the Soft Side of Life
This well-rounded full body stretch, gentle yoga class has a focus on luscious side bends. Side bends are a fabulous way to move the whole body. They help open space in the lungs and respiratory muscles but are also highly therapeutic for the spine, back, and core. When these areas are less tense and more free, maybe you might feel that you can slide into that precious soft side of life. Although the class is gentle, you may find the moves tough!
Mindfulness Meditation on the Elements
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This beautiful, simple meditation class focuses on mindfulness of the body as experienced through our elemental constitutions of earth, fire water and air, space and consciousness. The Buddha taught about elemental practices as a way to train attention but also to wake up the fluidity of our changing experience. Just as the elements of the natural world dance in an ongoing interconnectedness and ongoing state of change, we can also begin to become aware of our body and our experience of it through the elements with us and all around us. Enjoy! Clothing by Rumi X.
Morning Practice: Fluidity and Flow
This morning yoga and qigong class is focused on circular, smooth movements through the body and joints to set you up for the day. With some beautifully awakening qigong forms such as variations of swimming dragon followed by active sun salute variations and fluid movements through standing poses. Enjoy waking up all your senses in this awakening flow!
Morning Practice: Awaken with the Elements
This morning flow class focuses on a connection to the natural elements. It is an awakening yoga practice with some qigong. The ancient yogis, Buddhists and Daoist sages believed that we are made of the elements of the natural world. This practice will help us awaken to this connection within ourselves to the elemental world around us. It’s very much like a shorter version of my morning practices, integrating yoga and qigong into mindful movements that help me harmonise my inner body with the outer world. This has a bit of everything – abdominals, hip work, backbends, twists, forward folds and arm balances. Enjoy!
Take a Break: Yoga & Qigong Part3: Renew and Revive
The third in our work break series includes deep twists and standing poses to energise and get the blood moving again In qigong, it’s believed that energy flows where intention goes (yi dao, qi dao). This active practice combining yoga and qigong will revive and renew your body’s circulation and prana/qi flow. It’s a great one to do if you’ve been at at the desk and want a more active break, or as a morning practice to do before work. Clothing by Rumi X. ”
Take a Break: Yoga & Qigong Part2: Focus + Clarity
The second in our series to provide a constructive break during work or study. These Yoga and Qigong practices all provide you with renewed clarity, and will help clear the cobwebs, also focus on clear alignment through the spine and limbs. It’s great to bring a mental focus and concentration back into the body when we’re too in our heads. With some precision in our alignment as well as intentional practices from qigong such as ‘clearing the cobwebs’ (one of my favourites!), we can move forward with our day more embodied awareness and presence.
Take a Break: Yoga & Qigong Part1: Exhale + Sooth
Take a short break from studies or your work. Much of our body’s tension is muscular, but actually, what the muscles and our body crave when we feel tight is deep, satisfying breaths.This short practice releases tension by focusing on exhaling fully and uses Burmese qigong, chest and shoulder openings and forward folds to calm and sooth the mind. Perfect for taking a break to release tension during the day, but also great after a hard day’s work. Clothing by Rumi X.
Effort Without Struggle
In doing yoga, we can learn from the Buddha’s wisdom of working with right effort. This practice will look at how we can move through a practice and learn to identify when we’re putting in healthy effort, or when our effort feels a bit more like a struggle! There will be some strong arm balances like one-legged crow (eka pada galavasana) where we can play our edge, but also moments of surrender. Hope you enjoy it.
Cultivating Our Inner Light
A beautiful flow to open the heart, warm the back and still the mind. In the Yoga Sutra, the busy mind is described as quieting down through a number of ways: lengthening the breath, concentration on objects, or on experiences in deep sleep or dream states. It is also suggested that the mind can be quieted by concentration on the ever-present source of light that is believed to dwell inside the human heart. This light grows brighter when we do practices – like polishing a jewel that begins to shine and reflects the light all around it. We’ll look at ways to work with sunlight and moonlight in this fluid vinyasa-based sequence, and help awaken the source of light within each of us.
Metta: Care for Ourselves and Care for Others
Featuring moon rather than sun salutes, this more nourishing practice is a beautifully nurturing slow flow and a nourishing sequence for the heart and soul. Great for when your body needs a little extra support, but you’d like to keep your movement practice. The human heart circulates the most oxygen rich supply of blood to itself first before it moves it out to the rest of the body. As humans we can also learn to care for our own bodies and experience, and use this care as a springboard to cultivate greater care for others and the world. “It is not arrogant or egotistical to feel good inside. You had nothing to do with it. It’s simply the honest response to clearly perceived Reality.” – Erich Schiffmann
Devotion: Practising Hanumanasana
Hanumanasana is a challenging pose – it’s the “splits” – but named after the monkey king Hanuman, who in one giant leap stretched across the continent of India to help save his Lord Rama’s wife, Sita. His act is one of devotion. When we practice Hanumanasana, it can feel really challenging, but if we consider what makes us act in the service of our highest self, or our volition in life – like Hanuman’s devotion and love inspired him to take that immortalized leap – the pose can perhaps be understood in a new light. In this practice we’ll look at Hanumanasana and consider the ways in which can embrace its difficulty with skill and insight.
New Year Refreshing Sequence
A short sequence that will leave you refreshed and energised. Includes twists, stretches, side plank for strengthening and backbends to open your heart and help you look forward.
Qigong Breathing
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