Welcome to the Zhineng Qigong community podcast Wisdom Qigong Uncovered. My name is Torsten Lueddecke, and this is today’s story. Something is going on in the tiny country of Slovenia, where suddenly 4,000 people start practicing Qigong. Inspired by a simple idea to use the concept of breathing and nature, Andraz Purger is introducing basic Zhineng Qigong exercises to the public. In today’s story, we explore the importance of nature in
our practice. And we hear from Andraz how he managed to get the government to fund this incredible initiative. He does a lot in terms of community work, and he is actually running a project currently that is supported by the government of Slovenia, which is an unusual thing these days, that governments support these projects. So I’m very interested to hear about it. It’s called Breathing with Nature. So maybe
Andraz, you would like to say a few words about what this program is and how it came about, please? Yes, thank you for inviting me, Torsten. I’m really glad I can share more about this project. First thing, I want to explain how is this possible that we got a tender from the Ministry of Health to support this project? I work as head of the Educators Association, which has
a humanitarian status, and it’s called the School of Health Association. We have more than 5,000 members across Slovenia, and we are active in 90 municipalities, which means that we are all across our country. And because we gained the status of a humanitarian organization, we could apply for another tender, which is only for humanitarian organizations. We were positively accepted with this program, Breathing with Nature, in the middle of
the COVID era in 2021. We focus on the mental health of citizens of Slovenia. So when this tender was announced, we, as a big organization, started to think about it. And I got the idea, of course, I’m a general Qigong teacher. I know about mental health, anxiety, depression, and all these emotions which are held in people’s lives, and we can offer something. With the support of the Ministry
of Health, we can do it for free. So the idea was born, and we got the green light to do it. In short, over the last three years, we were really active, and we also got an extension of the tender for another three years. So, until 2025, we are doing it. That is wonderful, that’s wonderful. Andraj, maybe congratulations for the extension. First of all, I didn’t know that.
Maybe you want to explore just briefly what you are doing in this program. What actually does “Breathing with Nature” mean, and how does it tie into Zhineng Qigong? Yes, so the main idea is that the exercises are led by volunteers who are educated through our programs. And I’ll give you an example. So, we meet at a park outside and we go for a walk, like a 5–10 minute
walk around nature, connecting with nature. Then, we go to a spot in nature, make a circle, and here I can explain some parts which are the base of Zhineng Qigong. We organize the Qi field, so we connect to each other and to nature on the information level. Then, we add simple breathing exercises which activate our stomach breathing, like the basic natural breathing of humans. After that, we do
three exercises for our spine. When our mind is really calmed down, we connect ourselves to nature and start these exercises, which are part of Master Liu Yuantong’s Qi Core improvement. Some exercises are from Body and Mind, and one is from Tai Chi Ball from Zhineng Qigong. After that, we tap along meridians, which we call this method “Tapping Body,” a technique from Body and Mind. And we connect all
these exercises into a 40 to 50-minute long session, and it’s really well accepted. The people that participate, are they always the same, or do you get different people? Is it a one-off for them, or do they come on a regular basis? These exercises are free for anyone to join; there is nothing to be paid or any commission. For us, it’s because we are already financed, and the main
participants, or I mean people who are joining, are females from 50 to 70 years old. But we also have children, as well as younger and older people coming. Over a period of 12 months, the group becomes more organized, and then more of the same people keep coming, but there are also some visitors, because we are constantly publishing through the media that everybody is invited. Very good. So what
you’re doing is using some basic Zhineng Qigong exercises, very powerful ones, as I’ve just heard. But you are kind of tuning people in by taking them into nature first, which obviously is a very good environment to do these exercises and to calm them down through simple breathing exercises. So, is that, in summary, what you are offering to the people? Yes, I mean, our goal is to bring people
out and help them relax, you know, to have one hour per day for themselves, disconnecting from the crazy world around them and just be more mindful. Yes, and that is a good, that’s a good point because I also would like, you know, our listeners to benefit from it. Not everybody will be able to physically participate in what you offer there. But what is your advice to people? You
know, how can they use what you’ve learned there and what is obviously working so well? How can they use it in their daily life if they’re living in Australia, the US, or Mexico or somewhere else? How would you advise them, you know, to use your experiences here? Interesting question. And I could say that first, you need to know why you are doing this, you know, what is your
intention for relaxing or what do you want to achieve? Right. And I usually explain it like this: imagine you have two types of brain. One is a red brain, which means that it’s fully active and full of emotions like fear, anger, and sadness. You know, all the daily challenges we have, you know, in this red brain, it’s kind of vibrating inside. And then we have a green brain,
which means a relaxed nervous system, slow breathing, and being in one of these two brains makes a whole difference to body health, right? So what we want to achieve is the green brain, right, a relaxed state, which opens our mind and heart to connect to our daily work, to our family, to our life intention, and escaping from the daily routine and crazy schedule. We offer this path to
the green brain, and by joining exercises like this or practicing Zhineng Qigong, we are developing a new state of mind which, in the beginning, it’s not so usual. So our brain starts to have a lot of distracting thoughts. But more and more you practice, your mindset gets calmer, quieter, more transparent. And here, you have a base for development, better life, healthier life. My name is Leila Cupido, and
I’m the project manager of the Students Hub. Our team is constantly adding events, teachers, videos, and other resources to take your practice to the next level, improving the quality of your life and the life of the people around you. We do this work for you, so please use it. Hunyuan Ling Dong, and is it mainly the connection with nature that supports you in that? Or is it more
the breathing exercises? Or what would you say is the key to, you know, to… To get on that path of moving towards the green brain? Yeah, we actually, the title Breathing with Nature, if we go behind this title, is actually the basic theory of Dr. Pang. So, connecting with nature, exchanging energy with nature and the human body. So, this is the connection that, if you’re often living in
the city, is cut off, right? Yes. Or because our mind is too busy, and breathing with nature means we go out, we connect to the nature. We also had, like, when we stop before making, before organizing a Qi field and organizing information for the practice, we give a simple task for participants to connect to nature in their own way. So, you can hug a tree, you can touch
the earth, you can smell the flower. You have five minutes to explore. You know, you just do it in your own way. And after the practice, we do it again with a calm mind, mindfulness, and tension. And hugging a tree again or smelling the flower, it’s a whole different experience. And, you know, people who have never practiced before, now they have experienced the difference between a calm state
and a busy mind. I mean, like, the busy mind experience, you know, before and after. And they see how they benefit from them. I can share that one of my participants said, you know, she’s a lady, like 65 years old. And at the beginning, she said, you know, I have trouble sleeping. I never sleep the whole night. This has been happening for years. And then, after two months,
she came and she said, you know, after each Tuesday practice, I sleep all night, and then the whole week I wake up again. But only on Tuesdays do I sleep. You know, how is this possible? And I said, you know, because you consciously relax your nervous system, and the body responds, the mind responds. And you create an environment for good sleep. You can do this every day if
you want to sleep well. And I think you’re saying something very important here because I picked up the word mindfulness before and making a conscious choice, also. So, it is, I mean, a lot of us know what it means to walk through nature, enjoy it, and feel much better afterward. But very often, our mind continues to be in the other state. You call it red state, or what
is the color that you attributed to it? Did you say red brain? Yes, yes. So, my mind is still thinking about all everyday troubles and problems, and so on and so on. So, I am in nature, but I forget to connect. Well, what you’re inviting people to do here is either in their own way or with some guided exercises from you, but to actually put this aside for
a moment and make a conscious effort to connect with nature. And I think that makes all the difference because that is the time you have where your mind can then calm down. That is the time you have to get into a totally relaxed state. And I think that is what most of us are forgetting. I think this is what your training can actually teach each one of us
here and remind us all of: it’s not just about having a walk, but also, you know, shifting your mind from everyday thoughts to actually, you know, appreciating nature, connecting with it, being one with it, and being in touch with what’s going on in nature. I think that is, that seems to me, you know, what you achieve through these trainings there, right? Yes. Maybe I can add that it’s
a difference when we say, you know, “I go to meditate and I will like Zen meditation, you know, I will just empty my mind, you know, and observe the thoughts.” This is one kind of meditation. But what I really like in Zhineng Qigong is that our awareness is always led by some instructions, right? Visualization, which pushes my mind to focus on just one thing, right? So from my
busy mind, I start to imagine the center of the head, you know, I start to go through all my physical body. Then I start to become aware of 1 meter around me and back in, going out and connecting heart to heart, mind to mind. And all this process leads my awareness back inside and out. Inside out. It calms my brain frequency to the state of, like we say,
Qigong state, right? So to be in perfect calmness and using these tools, these methods, it’s actually beneficial, right? And this is Dr. Pang’s idea of how he serves this information, which is really, really amazing for us. Would you suggest, I mean, when I practice at home, I do what you say, but I don’t connect to nature explicitly beforehand. And I just had this thought: why don’t I just
open the window, you know, listen to maybe a bird singing or just, you know, look at some leaves, at a tree, or look at the clouds if there’s no tree around? So to get this connection with nature set up before I actually start my, my, my exercise. So that could be an easy way of using some of the things you’ve learned there with your practice, using it with
your daily practice and, through that, enhancing the practice by making a conscious effort to connect with nature. Is that something that, you know, could be useful, or how do you feel about that? Yeah, actually, what we use in Breathing with Nature is forest bathing, which comes from Japan. And they actually did a lot of scientific studies on this, how you connect with the sounds of nature. Just looking
into the river, looking through the leaves, you know, when you just look to the trees and you know there are a lot of leaves, and your eyes get, like, lost inside. They discovered that looking at these kinds of nature scenes relaxes the nerves of the eyes, which relaxes the whole brain, right? So it’s a really powerful method, connecting with nature just by our hearing, smelling, tasting, and looking.
It all has so many beneficial effects on our brain and body. So I would definitely, you know, when we are more conscious about our life, we can connect all these things all the time. You know, just operating from the green brain more and more often. Wonderful. Thank you very much, Andraz. Is there something else you would like to share about this program? Maybe how the people reacted, whether
some of them took on more of Zhineng Qigong, whether they got interested, or what is the reaction of the people? Do they find it easy? Do they find it difficult? How do you help people who find it difficult? Let’s explore that a little more, if you want. Yes, so the main effect, because we did questionnaires before and after, is that this project is limited to six months per
year, like free classes for six months, because we are dependent on the weather. So during the winter, we don’t have it. During summer, two months we have a pause because a lot of people go to the seaside. We saw this over the years, and most of them, I mean, we got the results that the quality of sleep was really improved. Right. And we see, like from comments from
the people, they really like it, they enjoy it. It’s, you know, we had one question: If the environment noticed a change in you, right, practicing. And they said yes, you know, like family members, friends, you know, they see that they are more calm, they say they are more aware of their words, of their behavior. So we have a little impact on lives and societies. And I’m really glad
that we are supported and this project is going on. And what I wanted to mention is that, if it’s like a proposal, if anybody who’s watching this has the opportunity to reach out to a humanitarian organization, which has some members, through a humanitarian organization, you can apply for the tenders and give this mindfulness approach, Qigong approach, to apply for this standard. And I’m glad to give you all
information about the projects, how we do it, what you need. And just do it in your own country. Because last year we achieved 4,000 participants in 26 locations. And it’s, we have some impact on Slovenia. We are working on it and it’s an idea that is good. And it would be nice to hear that somewhere else is also happening. That is a very, very great success. I mean,
the impact you are making there with so many people, I’ve got no doubt that it has an impact on the society of your country. I mean, your country is not big, so it’s obviously easier to make that impact in a smaller country. But it’s wonderful. And my guess is that maybe the approach you took, you didn’t say, “Okay, here’s the Qigong course.” Because a lot of people have
never heard of Zhineng Qigong, you came up with a concept that integrates elements that are familiar to people. People know what breathing means, what nature means, and it’s easy for people to imagine how that can add value to their lives. So you use these elements to make it easier for people to join you as well. I can imagine that people who read in the paper about breathing in
nature might say, “Well, that might be something for me,” which they might not have said if you had said, “We’re doing exercises of Zhineng Qigong.” Right? So I think that’s a very clever approach to open up people to these ideas and then have them experience whatever they experience when they come to you and work with you, and when they have this wonderful… This wonderful time in nature. And
I think that is something, you know, if any of our listeners out there have the initiative and want to create something for the society and the communities around them, that might be a very good inspiration to say, “Okay, let’s come from an angle that is easier for people to relate to than something they might never have heard of.” And I guess that’s also the reason why you had
so many participants, and now people are practicing Qigong exercises at home without ever having heard of it before and benefiting from it. And I think that also ties nicely into the vision of Dr. Pang, because for him, it was to have as many people benefit from the experiences and what he knows, his expertise, as possible in the world. And you’re making a great contribution here. Yes, I mean,
the challenge we have is that here in Slovenia, we’re actually just two certified Zhineng Qigong teachers. So working with volunteers, it’s a challenge because they just do it in their free time. And even if you offer education, you know, it’s their free choice, so you need to be motivated all the time to bring people together. But it’s been three years of the project, and I think we are
doing good and hope that we extend this and get more and more people involved. Okay, wonderful. So thank you very much, Andraz. That was very insightful. And maybe we have inspired someone, somewhere in the world, to take up your idea. We will obviously have your contact details in the show notes. So if somebody feels like, wow, this could be something I would like to bring into my community,
they are free to get in touch. And, yeah, I’ll thank you again for this conversation. I wish you a lot of success with the ongoing project and also on a personal side. Andraz has just become a father again, with his second child, so there are lots of things happening in his private life. And all the best for that as well, Andraj. Thank you. Thank you, Torsten, for inviting
me. I would like to join again for some topic. Absolutely. Thank you very much, Andraj. Thank you. Goodbye. We trust you enjoyed this conversation, and we invite you to subscribe to our podcast so we can stay in touch and notify you of future episodes. We will end today’s episode with the Eight Verses Meditation performed by Zhineng Qigong teacher Katrin Hendricks. Enjoy. To get your free eBook on the
Eight Verses Meditation, please check the show notes below.
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