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Qigong entered my life alongside the horse—both quietly reshaping how I understand presence, awareness, and the flow of life force cultivation.
What began as two separate experiences has revealed itself as a connected path. Through formal Qigong practitioner training in 2022 and later Equine Facilitated Learning in 2024, these Qigong practices have continued to weave together—forming the foundation of how I move, listen, and guide others.
Returning to Shen is where this practice lives within my ecosystem. It offers a grounded, accessible way to reconnect with your body, regulate your nervous system, and begin cultivating your own life force—whether you are completely new or returning to yourself in a deeper way.
Below, you’ll find more about what Qigong is, why we cultivate Qi, and how this work connects with the presence of the horse through the lens of Qigong and horses. You’re also invited to explore my video library as a way to begin practicing in your own time and space.
Qigong (Qi - life force, energy; Gong - to cultivate, to develop) is a gentle, intentional movement practice that focuses on life force cultivation through breath, body, and awareness. Qigong teaches us to feel and to be present, enhancing our connection to ourselves and to others, including Qigong and horses. This practice supports energy flow, emotional balance, physical vitality, energetic protection, and mobility and flexibility of both body and mind through various Qigong practices.
Regulates the nervous system, builds internal energy (Qi), and supports emotional processing, all of which are essential for life force cultivation. Engaging in Qigong practices increases presence and clarity, helping to reconnect you to your body and spirit while enhancing stress resilience. Furthermore, Qigong and horses can deepen this connection, allowing us to access a more grounded, calmer, and clearer state of awareness through a consistent practice.
Horses and Qigong practices converge at a fundamental level: the body. Both invite us to slow down, to feel, and to become aware of the life force cultivation that is moving beneath the surface. Horses respond to what is real—not to our performances. Similarly, Qigong helps us access that same internal truth. Together, Qigong and horses create a bridge between our inner awareness and our outer relationships.
Qigong is a practice connecting mind, body, and spirit through gentle movement, intention, visualization, and loving presence. This approach creates a container within ourselves to crystallize the wisdom of our hearts into an embodied, courageous expression in the world. By engaging in Qigong practices, we can enhance our life force cultivation, which is essential for personal and collective well-being.
Rooted in the lineage of Medical Qigong taught in the hospitals of China as a branch of Chinese Medicine, these self-healing practices and energy cultivation techniques increase Qi (life force), create more space for what is, and improve stress resilience during difficult times.
Qigong is founded on the belief that individual liberation leads to collective liberation. Strengthening oneself ultimately strengthens the world.
While Qigong can be practiced anywhere, my work is deeply informed by time spent with horses. Horses live in a state of attunement and respond to subtle shifts in breath, tension, and presence—mirroring the internal landscape we cultivate through Qigong.
Practicing Qigong alongside or in relationship to horses enhances our awareness, bringing the practice out of abstraction and into something tangible, relational, and alive. This unique integration of Qigong and horses invites a deeper level of connection and understanding.
In this video, I guide you through a Qigong flow while sharing reflections and insights that came through in real time. The practice became both movement and message—an expression of what it feels like when the body, breath, and environment are in relationship. This is another side of practice—when energy feels light, open, and in flow. Not something to chase, but something to receive when it’s there. The land, the horses, and the natural world are all part of this container, supporting a deeper return to presence.
In this 15-minute practice, we begin by grounding in Wuji stance, moving into Taiji stance, followed by purging, tonifying with the Five Yin and Five Yang exercises, and flowing through a Wuxing (Five Element) form learned from my teacher Lorie Eve Dechar. We close with breath and grounding. This is what my personal practice often looks like -spontaneous, woven into daily life, and done when I feel the need for support. My horse Po, who you’ll see throughout the video, loves when I practice Qigong. Horses are deeply sensitive to energy, and he naturally joins in - sometimes clearing, sometimes receiving, sometimes simply being present. You’ll see all of that here, along with his curiosity as a young gelding.
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