by Jocelyn Watkin | Jul 15, 2022 | Information |
Nurture yourself with healing qigong so you can blossom with good health.
Qigong (pronounced ‘chee – gong’) is an ancient, Chinese exercise programme of deep, meditative breathing and flowing movements.
This is your opportunity to learn qigong in an interactive, online series of three sessions, which have been designed to improve your overall health and wellbeing, release tension, calm your mind and stimulate energy flow (qi) throughout your body.
Each session will include:
- Quietening your mind
- Comfortable ways to align your posture to allow free movement of healing qi (energy flow) throughout your body.
- Deep, mindful breathing to stimulate your qi and influence your body.
- Gentle physical exercise
- Qi and energy awareness exercises
- Tranquil meditation and contemplation
- Explanations, discussion and guidance with Jocelyn
Session 1, Online, Thursday 21 July, 6.30pm: Playing with waves, relaxing and calming breathing combined with gentle movements to feel the qi (flow of energy) in your body
Session 2: Online, Thursday 28 July, 6.30pm: Swimming dragon in the mist, graceful yet powerful movements to cultivate more qi and to tap into the energy that surrounds us.
Session 3: Online, Thursday 4 August, 6.30pm: Enter the flow, learning to form a ball of energy and to guide it to help soothe your body and support its healing process.
Pricing for “Nurture yourself with healing qigong” (all in $NZ):
- Session 1: $20 per person, including the video replay
- Sessions 1 & 2: $15 per person, per session for a total of $30, including the video replays.
- Sessions 1, 2 & 3: $13 per person, per session, for a total of $39, including the video replays.
Jocelyn’s evening class students in Manurewa can choose to use 1, 2 or 3 of their prepaid class fees instead of making an additional payment.
PayPal, credit card and online banking options are all available. Note: payment by credit card and PayPal will attract a processing fee of up to 3%. Please use the form on the “Contact Us” page to request the payment option of your choice. We’ll reply with all you need to know to easily arrange your payment.
Are you looking for an in-depth opportunity to learn more qigong? I offer a rare 3-day/2-night retreat experience on the healing power of qigong.
Are you ready to blossom into better health?
Where: Aotea / Great Barrier Island, Hauraki Gulf, Auckland
When: Friday 11 to Sunday 13 November 2022 (3 days/2 nights). Places limited to just 10 participants.
How magical would it be to have the key to even greater health and wellness with qigong? Absolutely, you too can enter this enchanted place.
This retreat is for anyone aged 18+ who is seeking to vastly improve their own health, self-healing and well-being and/or wants to de-stress and have a better life/work balance.
Find out more: https://www.kiaorataichi.nz/gt-barrier-island-retreat/
by Jocelyn Watkin | Jul 5, 2022 | Information |
Are you wanting to boost your overall health and well-being? If you feel a little lost, flat or frustrated with not knowing what steps to take or if you’re keen to know more about self-healing, please join me to learn one of the secrets of qigong. (Pronounced chee-gong.)
Login for a free, online 30-minute session with me (on Zoom) on Thursday evening, 14 July 2022 at 6.30pm, so you can learn a simple, natural and instinctive qigong practice to help you with healing and to boost your health. Beginners are welcome.
Afterwards, you’ll be able to do this qigong exercise at any time, any place to feel calmer, reduce discomfort and pain and to help you to sleep.
Please contact me no later than Wednesday 13 July to receive the Zoom link to attend. You can get in touch using the contact form on my website or phone/text me on 027 493 9851.
Who is the instructor? Jocelyn Watkin is the founder, director and lead instructor of Kia Ora Tai Chi. She has trained and qualified in taiji, tai chi and qigong since 2003. You can find out more about her here: https://www.kiaorataichi.nz/about-us/
What is the secret of qigong?
For thousands of years the Chinese have had a secret. A secret that helps to increase longevity, a secret that assists the body to heal from injury, illness and trauma.
That secret is qigong, a deep meditative breathing exercise that connects the mind to the body.
One of the main reasons people want to learn qigong is that it helps with overall well-being and healing. Fortunately, those of us in Western counties now have access to this secret.
How does qigong help your body to heal from injury, pain or illness? A number of clinical trials have confirmed that qigong is proven to increase blood oxygen saturation in your body. That alone is excellent for healing.
(Clinical trial: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8328418/#:~:text=This%20preliminary%20study%20of%20Qigong,may%20have%20useful%20therapeutic%20value. )
There are many different aspects to assist the body and mind to heal, such as:
- Medical treatments and interventions
- Sleep and rest
- A healthy diet
- Moderate exercise
- Reducing stress.
Qigong can help and support the body with all of the above.
Qigong’s deep, meditative breathing supports your parasympathetic nervous system (also called the ‘rest and digest’ system). The movements, when co-ordinated with your breath and awareness of energy can help you to slow down, relax and to release tensions in your body.
If your body needs energy to repair and heal from injury or illness, qigong breathing can help to increase oxygen level and flow (energy) right down to your smallest cell.
Qigong exercises will massage and stimulate internal organs, which can also help with healing.
Qigong is about releasing stress, not suppressing it.
To reduce inflammation, you need to reduce the damaging effect that constant stress has on your body. Qigong breathing can help you to let go of stress so you can settle your mind and body.
Healing is multi-faceted and we need a number of different things to help us to heal our minds and bodies and to recover from illness, injury and trauma. Qigong can support this process.
If you’d like to learn one of the secrets of qigong, I’d like to teach you online on Thursday 14 July at 6.30pm in a free, 30-minute session. You will learn a simple, natural and instinctive qigong practice to help you with healing, to release stress and to boost your health.
Please get in touch no later than Wednesday 13 July to receive the Zoom link to attend by using the contact form on my website or phone/text me on 027 493 9851. Beginners are welcome.
Are you looking for more in-depth qigong? All welcome to attend my self-healing qigong retreat on Great Barrier Island, November 2022. It is called, “Discover your power to live well”: https://www.kiaorataichi.nz/gt-barrier-island-retreat/
This is a retreat to rebalance and rejuvenate your body, soul and strength with sensory, sacred qigong and restorative journaling.
This retreat is for anyone aged 18+ who is seeking ways to improve their own health, self-healing and well-being and/or wants to de-stress and have a better life/work balance. Find out more: https://www.kiaorataichi.nz/gt-barrier-island-retreat/
by Jocelyn Watkin | Feb 6, 2021 | Information |
This is a post from February 2021.
Here’s your chance to fall in love with tai chi and qigong. Your heart and health will thank you you for it.
If you want to feel healthier, live stronger for longer and get fitter without puffing, then tai chi and qigong can help you.
The team at Kia Ora Tai Chi are looking for adults of any age and ability, who are keen to make a regular commitment to their health. Come along to learn tai chi and qigong in our new classes for beginners . You can join any time up to (and including) Wednesday 10 March 2021, 6.30 – 7.15pm. Please arrive no later than 6.25pm.
We will be in the Manurewa South School hall, on Totara Road Manurewa, Auckland 2102 (refer to the map further below). Please note that the entrance to the hall and free parking is off Totara Road, which is a different street to the main entrance to the school.
If you’d like to try tai chi, there’ll be a warm welcome at one of the free introductory sessions on Monday 22nd and Wednesday 24th February, 6.30 – 7.15pm.
If you miss the introductory sessions in February, you are still welcome to join the February beginners up until Wednesday 10 March 2021. Your first class is free. After 10 March, anyone who hasn’t already joined the beginners class will need to wait until the next intake. The date is still to be confirmed but is likely to be July 2021 and/or February 2022.
If you’d like to attend, please text or phone Jocelyn Watkin on 027 493 9851 or please use the Contact Form.
After the free classes, you will be encouraged to attend two nights per week on an ongoing basis. However, if you are committed to practicing between classes then it is OK to attend just one class per week. Learning tai chi and qigong takes time but you if keen to gain all of the health, wellbeing and fitness benefits then this investment in your future good health will be worth it.
Here at Kia Ora Tai Chi, we are all constantly amazed at the health improvements that our students tell us about once they attend our classes on a regular basis:
- sleeping better at night
- feeling better all over and less stressed
- improved breathing, with less wheezing or feeling like they’ve ‘run out of breath’
- finding it easier to go up and down stairs
- playing with their children or grandchildren for longer without getting tired
- lowering their high blood pressure
- feeling more flexible and moving better with less aches and pains
- better balance/less falls
- toned muscles.
The map below shows you where to find us. Please note that the entrance to the Manurewa South School hall and the free parking is at 18 Totara Road (please don’t go to the main entrance to the school, which is on another street). Please aim to arrive no later than 6.25pm.
To RSVP or to ask questions about the classes, please use the Contact Form
Cost of classes: Your first class is FREE. After that, prices start from $9.50 per class. A discount is available for those who are referred by ACC and Age Concern for the Community Group Strength and Balance Exercise programme (“Live Stronger for Longer”). You must be aged 65+ to be referred.
What to wear: Please wear loose comfortable clothing and flat-soled shoes (such as sneakers, trainers or tennis shoes). Please also bring a drinking bottle of water.
Learn to de-stress with tai chi and qiqog
There have been hundreds of clinical studies over many years that confirm the health benefits of tai chi, especially for the Tai Chi for Health programmes that we teach at Kia Ora Tai Chi. You can read more about these clinical studies here.
One aspect consistent across all studies and trials is that none of these benefits happen overnight or after just one class. The trials take place over several weeks, sometimes several months, and the people being studied do tai chi at least 2 -3 times per week.
Kia Ora Tai Chi students attend at least one class per week, often two, and several practice between each class. Improving your health, fitness and balance is worth a regular commitment to tai chi.
Find out more about Kia Ora Tai Chi classes, how to get to the venue, and what to expect.
Discover more health benefits from tai chi.
Love your heart and your health with tai chi and qigong
Want to know even more about tai chi? Click here
Please RSVP for a free beginner’s class up until (and including) Wednesday 10th March by using the Contact Form or text or phone Jocelyn Watkin on 027 493 9851.
Come along and say kia ora. We’d love to see you. We’re a friendly bunch at a great venue that has lots of free parking.
by Jocelyn Watkin | Sep 17, 2020 | Information |
Breathing – we all do it automatically: approximately 18 times per minute, 1,080 times per hour and nearly 26,000 times in a 24-hour day. You would have thought we’d got it down to a fine art?
But, what if I told you that most of us could do this breathing thing a lot better? And, by better I mean having more more energy, less anxiety, better sleep, less stress, a better posture with less back ache, and that it was a way you could quickly calm your mind when it is revved up. Of course, you don’t have to do this type of breathing for all of those 26,000 breaths. Instead, you can try it for just for a minute or two and for 2-3 times per day – it could make a huge difference in your life and health.
Tai chi is an ancient, Chinese exercise programme and martial art that involves a series of movements performed in a mindful, focussed manner and accompanied by deep breathing.
You don’t have to know tai chi to learn tai chi breathing. I can show you how to do this so you can breathe your way to better health. You will be able do this anywhere, anytime at home, at work and even on a bus or train.
Let me show you how in this short, 3-minute video.
What happens when we don’t breathe properly? Journalist, James Nestor, and a friend decided to try it for just two weeks. He said on Radio NZ National this week, “We knew it wasn’t going to be fun, but we didn’t know it was going to be a bad as it was. Within a few hours my blood pressure shot up about 20 points. That night I start snoring and I had not snored before.”
Check out the RadioNZ broadcast with James Nestor in this link.
I’ve also written about WHY tai chi breathing is so good for you and how it can help you to bust stress in just a few minutes per day. Click here to find out.
by Jocelyn Watkin | Dec 8, 2019 | Information |
The Kia Ora Tai Chi team teaching tai chi the “He Aha Te Hauora? What the Health?” Expo in Manurewa
Most of us know that exercise can help to reduce stress and boost your mood.
Tai chi is one of the best, but probably also the most underrated exercise for stress relief and improvement in your overall health. This is possibly because it doesn’t seem to fit the Western world’s obsession with the need to ‘go hard’ or, worse, the mantra of ‘no pain/no gain’.
Tai chi works for stress relief and for many other health-related issues because it combines low-impact movements with meditation for a body-mind workout.
Dee Ogilvy, who has practiced tai chi for more than 20 years and now runs her own tai chi programme, while also teaching it as a part of Missouri State University’s Employee Wellness Program, says: “tai chi’s positive effects on our mind is mostly thanks to the meditation component of the exercise”.
A small study published in Psychoneuroendocrinology reported that brief mindfulness meditation (three x 25-minute sessions) minimised psychological stress. Ogilvy notes that the effects are even greater when movement and meditation are paired together — having to be present and focus on your movements and breathing helps bring on the relaxation.
Studies have also shown that tai chi can improve the quality of your sleep, improve cardio function, and, for older adults, can have positive effects on cognitive function and memory.
Testimonial on the calming, peaceful effects of tai chi during the “He Aha Te Hauora? What the Health?” Expo at the Manurewa Leisure Centre on 21 June 2019:
“Kia Ora Tai Chi was at the Expo! Jocelyn, Pat and Jeff led us in a demonstration. Tai chi is an incredibly powerful practice for your wellbeing. When they started the energy of the room shifted to a more peaceful vibe. It was magical.”
Testimonial from Edith of Drive Consumer Direction Counties Manukau
Note: Drive Consumer Direction Counties Manukau is a network that represents the interests of people in the Counties Manukau region who experience mental health and/or addiction challenges.
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