“Five Animal Play Balances” Workshop Held In Hawaii
Amy Choi(Hongkong, China)
January 27, 2011
The first “Five Animal Play Balances” workshop was held in fun and joy on January 8-9, 2011 under the sponsorship of our teacher Carla Hannaford, Ph.D. and the support of 20 participants, who came from different islands of Hawaii as well as the U.S. mainland. Many participants are very experienced Brain Gym® practitioners and kinesiologists with more than 20 years of experiences. Some are new to kinesiology. There are also a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctor, teachers and healers. Conrad & I felt very fortunate and blessed to have the full support of Dr. Hannaford and the participants and to be able to share this work with many experienced practitioners, with old friends and new!
Five Animal Play was first developed about 1800 years ago by the most famous TCM doctor in Chinese history, Hua Tuo. Hua made use of the ancient qigong and breathing principles and animal-imitation techniques to develop a set of exercises that imitates the movements, postures and behaviours of five animals – tiger, deer, bear, monkey and bird. The many variations and streams of Five Animal Play developed throughout history have recently been summarized and re-structured by the General Administration of Sport of China into “Health Qigong – Wu Qin Xi (Five Animal Play)”, a set of movements suitable for the modern people.
“Five Animal Play Balances” make use of the forms, spirit/information, mental states and energy/breathing of each of the five animals, and blending in muscle checking, goal setting and noticing in doing balances. The before-and-after effects of the balances are obvious and noticeable to many.
The following are some of the comments from participants:
‧Very nice flow throughout.
‧It was a wonderful and playful experience, and all balances were successful. Mahalo.
‧I’d like more of this kind of stuff!
‧This workshop was a perfect fit for me at this time and balances address the needs of a contemporary lifestyle.
‧This was an exceptional workshop.
‧Amy & Conrad are very fine teachers. The animal exercises balanced me! Besides that, it is fun!
‧I love the movements and grace with which Amy & Conrad taught.
‧Amy and Conrad are incredibly experienced in integration of Edu-K and Traditional Chinese Medicine. And they walk their talk…so much fun of flowing through their classes.
‧Great Class – Great materials – Great Group
‧Excellent. Exceptional format, layout & timing for a 2-day class.
‧Conrad & Amy worked beautifully together. The timing was perfect for thorough completion of the class, a large room with mirrors would be very good.
After this experience, Conrad & I are even more determined in our belief and direction in integrating Qigong ,TCM concepts and kinesiology, which forms part of the work we are developing called Qinesiology. Trust that we will share Five Animal Play Balances and other Qinesiology courses with many others in different parts of the world.
