Zhineng Qigong became a transformative path for Yoann Regis, offering him a profound journey of self-discovery during a challenging period of his life. In today’s Qigong podcast, Yoann Regis talks about his struggles with feeling out of place and how his spiritual journey through Qigong opened up new possibilities of healing and connection. This feeling of disconnection and separation propelled him to slow down and reflect on his life, ultimately guiding him towards the transformative power of Qigong.

The Huaxia Centre holds great importance for Qigong practitioners and students alike – and it was no different for Yoann. It is here that he learnt that joy, was not something to be achieved, but a natural state to be rediscovered by reconnecting with one’s inner child and the fundamental energy of life with the help of a fellow Qigong student who faced a life threatening illness.

Dr. Pang’s philosophy that we are all both students and masters in our own right – resonates with Yoann. It shifts the traditional hierarchical dynamic. This perspective encourages oneness, another foundational principle of the Zhineng Qigong practice, community and collaboration. Connecting with your true self is essential. Yoann mentions that it’s an important step to personal growth, when we have self doubt we often create separation and therefore anxiety. Ultimately complicating our lives instead of embracing simplicity.

Openness is a cornerstone of the Qigong practice. He encourages individuals to start where they are without the need for perfection. This creates a community where everyone can share in each others wisdom through sharing the Qi field and enabling self discovery.

Yoann’s wisdom remind us that while we may face challenges along our paths, embracing our authentic selves and trusting in our abilities can lead to profound transformation and joy in life.

Facing a life crisis at the age of 25, Johan left home and joined a Qigong master in a foreign country. After three years of deep insights and learnings, he discovered that there is more to it than just following a master. It is learning to trust yourself, as we are all students and we are all masters. Here is what he has to say. My name is Torsten Lueddecke and

this is the Wisdom Qigong Podcast. Today I’ve got Yoann Regis with me, and Yoann is going to share about his own personal experience and his experience at the center of Hainan, the beautiful island of Hainan, where Yan Chi is teaching. So, Yoann, welcome to the show, and let’s get started. Tell us about your experience, please. Thank you so much, Torsten, for having me on your podcast, and thank

you for your beautiful work in the community. So that’s the first thing I wanted to share. So maybe a few people might know me, might have seen me working in some online events with Teacher Jianshe and other people maybe saw me sharing things on the different Facebook groups there in Zhineng Qigong. But basically, I’m just a 31-year-old guy from France and Holland, and I’ve been discovering the magic,

the new life, the magic life of Qi energy and just the Qigong way since I’m 25. So it’s still fairly recent. And I did study a few years, three or four years in Spain with a teacher, a Malaysian teacher, who is a Qigong and Tai Chi master. And there I was with a community, growing vegetables in Spain and just enjoying deepening with nature and discovering the spiritual path

connected to Tai Chi and Qigong. It was a very intense experience for me and yes, very transformative because before this, when I was in my 20s, early 20s, I was really doing a lot, but I was quite lost in myself. So I had no particular health issues, but my mental health was not great and my self-esteem had a lot of things to transform in myself. It came from

a background for me where I was, as a child, not always finding my place in the human world, where I really found it difficult to be myself around other people and to be accepted as such and accept myself. So this was really the core of a lot of pain that just flourished in a lot of different directions. And it all boiled down when I just had no choice

but to stop and slow down when I was around 24, 25. So I was fortunate that my family, my cousin, my Dutch cousin, was already studying with this teacher for a few years, and when I was talking with him, it felt like the way he answered me and the things he was saying resonated with me even much more than any psychologist I was talking to. And all the

things I was looking for in myself. So I was so happy to find this. And when I went there to discover, really physically in person, what it was to practice Tai Chi and Qigong together, it was so special that I just left everything behind to go on this journey. And I made a lot of friends, a lot of young people, people who were there in this community from

my age, a bit older, English people, Dutch mainly. And we were just learning a lot with this teacher. But over the years, I found that in my heart, something was still missing. And this is the openness and the horizontal way that I see is happening in Zhineng Qigong community. So when the teacher, our time with the first teacher stopped, we all looked into ways to continue this journey.

And I found the online training from Huaxia Center. And this is where, yeah, we just decided to enroll with a few other students from our first teacher. And yeah, we were amazed by the depth and, yeah, the wisdom that was in Dr. Pang’s teachings and the way Huaxia Center presented it was very, yeah, very open. That was amazing because this online training, we were maybe hundreds of people

following it. So it was very successful and very inspiring for me to see such a big group of people practicing together, elevating their consciousness and just seeing life from a whole different perspective. It was very, very transformative because beforehand I was only in a group of 10, 15 people. So, yeah, this is my background and how I discovered Zhineng Qigong. My first teacher also was introducing Zhineng Qigong.

He himself studied in Huaxia Center a long time ago when the center was at its peak. And it was given to us in his teachings also next to Tai Chi and a lot of different things. And yeah, I thought it was very interesting also the healing part, because I have also along the years, accumulated a few health conditions with my ears. I am a musician, a pianist, and

I had tinnitus for a few years. So I was really motivated to find a way to heal it and transform my relationship with my ears, basically. And yeah, when I started to practice in depth, what I was learning with Huaxia Center, I really found it. It was one of the most peaceful and enjoyable places where I have ever been. And that’s where I found Jianshe. Because he was

teaching in this Huaxia Center training, he was sometimes just giving a talk. And yeah, I was immediately touched. My girlfriend also. We were immediately touched by his purity, the way he shares from his heart in simplicity. Because when I look at myself over the years, my biggest hindrance to my progress, I would say, is that I tend to overcomplicate things. I make things too complicated, get stuck in

my head. And yeah, just to see how Teacher Jianshe was very simple, like a baby, just here on his chair, just buzzing in his Qi energy and just sharing such simple words. But you could feel it, not only understand, it was for me, wow, amazing. And I recognize this quality in all of us when we really sit in our hearts. It’s not only the teacher Jianshe, it’s everyone.

It’s in all of us. And this is why I wanted to get more of this. And I worked with Jianshe. I met him first at a workshop in Spain. And in this workshop, we met amazing, inspiring people. And it was just a very beautiful human experience to be there together from all kinds of backgrounds. And for example, there was a person with cancer, and he had final-stage cancer,

prostate cancer that had spread everywhere. And he was so weak that the doctors told him, “You should never go to Spain, or you should always stay where you are.” And it was during COVID also, so there was still this possibility that he could have COVID and all these fears. And he just took his courage, and he was there in this workshop. His name is Jonathan. And unfortunately, he

passed away. But just the way he was… And the human experience, to see someone like this, to be there in his full joy and to touch our hearts. He played some piano, he sang, and we saw him transform over the time of the workshop. He came very weak, but he came out such a vibrant, bright man. And it was so touching. So, yeah, this is just from my

heart what inspired me in Jianshe’s meeting. Yeah. Now you’ve come quite a long way on your journey already. I mean, the first thing to notice is that you have discovered Zhineng Qigong at a rather young age, because most people discover it later, you know, when they get serious health problems here or there. But it seems that you had, you know, some kind of life crisis already in your

mid-20s, and you were fortunate enough to have someone in your environment that you trusted who knew about Qigong at that time. And then, yeah, I think it’s also quite remarkable that you made a commitment, you went to another country and it seems you stayed with this master for quite some time. Is it? So how long have you been there? Exactly three years. It was three years with his

name is Master Choi. That’s how we called him. And yeah, it was quite an interesting experience because even though he did teach us a lot of things about Zhineng Qigong, his approach was still quite traditional in the way there was one teacher above and the students kind of under and kind of following his directions and totally trusting and giving, totally opening themselves to transform by the guidance of

the teacher. It’s like as if he’s a kind of surgeon operating his work into your life. And it’s quite a lot because to totally give up something like this and you know, you have to really trust that person. And it is. I discovered that there is no person on earth that has all the wisdom in his own to decide all the aspects of someone else’s life. So this

was the conclusion, even though it helped me a lot this time in Spain with this teacher. And I’m eternally grateful for this time and for this teacher. I really understood why it’s very beneficial the way that Dr. Pang framed it, that we are all students and we are all teachers, all masters, and there is no hierarchy. There is, though, a natural respect and openness towards each other and

the respect for the teachers, of course, but it’s not this kind of top to down energy that you can feel where in fact you keep yourself small. And this is something that Jianshe also repeated a lot when I talked with him about this. Even in Zhineng Qigong, even in the Huaxia Center, in many places, even though Dr. Pang insisted that no one should be put on a high

ground and everything, people still had a tendency to do this sometimes. So this is a very big question I asked myself, oh, how comes that we have this tendency to put other people so high but ourselves? We have so many difficulties trusting ourselves. And this is, I think, the essence of the spiritual path we are walking, to learn to trust ourselves. And this sounds so simple, but it’s

not. And even after years understanding this, I’m still learning a lot about how to trust myself. I’m in a period of my life where it’s been challenging to trust myself totally. So I’m still a student of this. And at the same time, it’s beautiful. I think it’s great that you discovered it with all the respect and the gratitude you have for your first teacher because you understood some

basic and very important concepts about Qigong and about how everything operates. You notice that there’s nothing wrong with trusting someone else, but there is something about owning your own power, and that is an important aspect. And I think that is also when you look in the history of Qigong, where Dr. Pang broke with the tradition of one master, you know, basically master know-it-all, and then everybody has to

follow and do exactly what he or she says. Exactly. And he broke with that and said, he said no. This is knowledge that should be available to everyone. And the power is actually not really with the master. The power is within ourselves because the healing is facilitated by us. You know, obviously the master and the teacher, you know, can support and bring you on the right track and

all of these things. But ultimately it’s always ourselves that does the work. And so I’m glad you discovered that. And it seems that it, it was already within you. You already knew that there is more than just, I’m saying, you know, just in inverted commas here than just following a master. There was more to discover. And that is probably why Zhineng Qigong and the Huaxia Center did at

the time resonate so well with you. Yes. And, and yeah, for me also, and that’s my personal view here, obviously.I am also looking at the various teachers, whether they’re from the east or from the west, and I can tell from the energy and from the way they interact with others whether they’re trying to create a distance between them and their students. Like, I know more than you do,

I can do more than you do, or whether they are eye to eye with people. And that is also the open-minded, basic idea of Zhineng Qigong. And that is the kind of people I would like to work with. And fortunately enough, we have a lot of teachers that operate that way and others might be a little bit more challenged to get there because it’s also an ego thing

for many people to be in a position of power or knowing more. But it’s not just the teachers, I must say, I must say the students are also part of this problem dynamic. Yes, because if I start to worship a teacher and say, wow, this man is so amazing and he helps me and he does that to me, then I’m contributing to this field. Right. So there’s, there’s

a fine line between having respect for what this person knows and what he does and how wonderful he is as a human being and worshiping him and putting him on a pedestal and saying, I’ll just follow you blindly because you are my master. So I’m very glad we are having this conversation here today because I don’t think we’ve touched upon this in the podcast so far. I’m glad

you’re bringing it up. We have a way you can discover Qigong. So at the Huaxia Center Students Hub, we know that understanding Qigong is very important and also that Zhineng Qigong in itself has various nuances that people can’t easily contain. So we’ve approached it in the style of a video game. On this page, discover Qigong, you can select your character. So you can either be a beginner, a

practitioner, or a holistic healer or self-healer. And you click on your character and it takes you to these different sections. In these sections, you can explore the nuances, and when you click on a card, all of the resources pop up, and we’ve made it really fun and not many people know about it. So if you are interested, have a look and discover Qigong. Let’s move a little further

to your own experience and what happened then. All right. And what it meant for you. What it meant for you. What are your learnings then? Right, yeah. Wow. Wow. That’s a big question, isn’t it? No preparation for this one? No, because it starts somewhere. It’s indeed so big. I will start where I feel now because I look back to my six years on this journey and I can’t

tell for sure. I learned a lot, I progressed a lot, but at the same time I’m more aware also of, wow, there is so much more to learn for me. I am and will never be perfect. And I think the first motivation somewhere for me was of course healing and to find back this kind of natural joy that we have as a kid, that we are open to

experience the world where everything is magical. And I was in a place in my life where nothing was magical anymore. And I found this is not right. It is magical. I just can’t feel it anymore. So how can I open myself and train myself to feel it again? How can I be in connection again with life? And over the years, it’s never been a straight line. There have

been periods in my last years where I’ve been totally more in this natural connection. And then, ah, again you fall or something happens where you forget for a time and then you bring it back again. So this is the first lesson I learned is I can’t expect myself to have quite a straight line like a rocket. It’s beautiful. Of course, if I can. I think some people, they

transform and have a revelation and, bomb, they are on the, on the spaceship. And for me, it’s been a kind of a, yeah, quite a long road, a journey with a lot of different obstacles. And it’s, it’s, I’m just grateful for them. So the first thing I really found magical is just the feeling of Qi in my body. It’s, it’s so simple. But this, just to feel again

your blood flow, to feel again this lightness, this grateful energy in you when you practice, and then you keep it. And if you stay focused and grounded and just have a stable system in yourself, you can still experience this the whole day and this joy that then comes naturally. This was for me, so transformative because I’m like, wow, I’m in control of this. I can rely on this,

this love, this unconditional love that comes from Qi, energy from the earth, from the heavens, like they talk about in Taoism. Just to feel that nature and Qi interacts with me in this way made me so much stronger for all the challenges in life because I was not anymore going to my mental world only, where I would find solutions for my problems on the phone. How, why, when,

exactly how, like Teacher Jianshe says. And for me, just to have this extra ally, unconditional ally, that is just, wow. Let’s connect again to who you truly are. Just the joy, just alive, just breathing. This life, being this life, is just amazing. And then, of course, I can still think about a lot of things and find solutions. But I would say things came on my path more naturally

the last years. Yeah, definitely. And it’s interesting when you describe this experience, which is inherent to who we are, how far away many of us have moved from this experience of joy and feeling alive. And I think this is also why the exercises, the physical exercise, apart from all the other benefits that they have, are so valuable. Because if I use them as a point of reminder that

this unconditional love is within me, that this flow of life force energy is within me, that is a great experience that will also carry me through the day when I’m busy just sorting out whatever I need to sort out in my life, that I constantly keep reminded it’s a joyful moment, and no matter what I’m dealing with, I can see the beauty in life, in the world, and

whatever is happening. So this is a powerful experience and I’m glad you’re making this. And the other point that you mentioned a little earlier that I also wanted to come back to is that of simplicity. Because you said we tend to overcomplicate things. And I think that’s true for most of us. But fundamentally, things are very easy and there is no need to necessarily study another book and

another discipline and more of this before we finally get to that stage of just being happy. Like Teacher Yianshe, right? I mean, he’s all about, you know, being joyful and being happy and owning this inner child within him. And that is a simple thing. You don’t need to study years and years in order to get there. But that’s my point. How do you see that? I’m totally with

you on this one, that the truth is simple. And what if I connect this to… We said just earlier that we have a tendency sometimes to make ourselves small and to look at ourselves from, oh, I am flawed. And maybe because this philosophy and the wisdom that you get from where it might be Zhineng Qigong or any other things that work on the same principles, you say this

philosophy is so beautiful and so great and nearly perfect in the way it presents life and things that you say, and I’m just here with my life, my problems, my flaws, my things, and how can I get to there? And we might then always find that, oh, I’m not there yet, I’m not there yet and reinforce this kind of feeling in ourselves. I see it in myself, I

see it around me. That, for example, a very concrete example. I’ve been subconsciously, I think, stopping myself to give Qigong lessons because I considered myself that I was not totally ready yet. Because I look at my life and I’m saying I’m not applying the principles and the wisdom perfectly in all moments, you know, and yeah, I’ve seen that around me. Like, am I authentic if I’m really sharing

with enthusiasm all these beautiful keys to happiness, all these beautiful exercises, wisdom, if I myself don’t apply them perfectly at the moment? Well, this is where I really want to challenge myself. I share this really honestly that yes, I want to challenge myself, to still keep going and still share it. And while doing this, I am reminding myself, I am teaching myself at the same time. And this

way I should not hold myself small or feel like imposter syndrome. If I involve myself in a community while I’m still so young and I still have so much to learn. And at any age, I think we can all just step in boldly and accept that we are flawed. We are maybe even laugh about it sometimes and see that, yeah, there’s just amazing things and presents to reach

and beautiful seeds to plant. And that’s already something to celebrate in itself. Why should we stop ourselves by doubting ourselves so much? And you don’t serve the people in your environment if you’re holding back your knowledge. So just because you think there’s more to learn, or you could be even better or something like that, you know, who’s paying the price for you not teaching, it’s the other people.

Now just share what you know. This is, I think, the fundamental idea because if you know something they don’t know and you share it, they have already won. Now, whether you are perfect already or not, it doesn’t really, you know, it doesn’t mean anything at this point because you’re giving something. It’s a bit like if you have a hungry person in front of you and all you have

is an old loaf of bread from yesterday, it’s not the perfect meal, but you know, it’s going to help that person, right? So, you know, go for it, share it. Right. And I’d like to come back to a thought. You know, the whole idea, when you talk about being flawed or being not perfect, I notice my resistance to that idea because I think this is just a belief

that, you know, somebody has put into your head and into the heads of many other people. I remember a lecture I once heard from Alan Watts, who is, many of the listeners might know him. And he’s talking about how nature doesn’t make mistakes. So if you see many, many fields full of flowers, all flowers are different, but none of them is wrong. It’s just the way this flower

is growing. And he says, now if you look in the sky and you see the clouds, now tell me which of them needs improvement. And then we laugh and say, well, obviously none of the clouds needs improvement. You know, just, they’re just the way they are. And the same is true in exactly the same way for human beings. And the, whenever you are struggling with something, this is

just part of, of us being human. And it is actually important that you have this experience. And it’s important that you share this experience because that’s what makes it relatable to people. Yeah, they need to see, okay, there is not some artificial intelligence sitting there in front of me telling me the perfect things. No, it’s another human being who’s got issues like me. And how does he deal

with it? What does he do to remind himself of how beautiful he really is, and of how wonderful life is? And that is what gets people. That’s the way you can teach and you can communicate with others. So I would say it’s an asset to have these issues and to have these fallbacks. You know, don’t see it as a liability. It’s an asset because it means, you know,

you are relatable. And so, yeah, congratulations each before you get perfect. Because once you get perfect, you won’t get through with your message because people will look at you and say, yeah, but he’s very different. So that’s very… okay, what you say. I’m exaggerating now, but fundamentally, I think it’s true what I’m saying. Yeah, I’m totally with you on this one. Yeah, it’s very great to hear your

thoughts about this and kind of mirroring to me how I feel about this in the depth of myself. And yeah, that’s wonderful. I hope the listeners will also relate to this and see how every one of us, at times, maybe holds back who we are. In some ways, we dim ourselves. And yeah, I certainly have. So, yeah, I’m grateful for this topic to be raised because it’s so

important, especially in how we can open ourselves to the essence of Zhineng Qigong. How can we totally expand ourselves and not be afraid or hold back? Yes, yes. I think this is why it’s valuable, hopefully, to all our listeners, because we all have that, and very few people are actually playing the game as big as they could. Most people are holding back. And I once heard in a

training that, you know, I was part of, something like, “You holding back does not serve the world.” And that, you know, stuck with me because it’s true. So it’s not just about us now. Many people think it’s about us, but we are really doing a disservice to the outside world by holding back. We are doing a disservice by not showing up fully. We’re doing a disservice by not

sharing what we know. And we need to understand that because that will give us the internal force to say, okay, now, you know, let me just get going. Because it’s good for everyone and it’s good for the world. Yes. And okay. Thank you so much, Torsten. That’s. Yeah. Nothing more to add to this beautiful speech. Okay, wonderful. So thank you very much, Yoann. And we also agreed before

that we would do an episode, in particular on the center in Hainan, on the beautiful island of Hainan, where Teacher Jianshe is teaching and sharing. And because there are many experiences you made there that are wonderful and that we would like our community to know. So this is going to be in the next episode that we’re going to do together. Oh, fantastic. I’m totally looking forward to it.

Thank you very much, Johan, and have a fantastic day. Thank you. Fantastic day to you, too. 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 Katrien Hendrickx. Enjoy. To get your free eBook on the Eight Verses

Meditation, please check the show notes below.