Welcome to Pass the Flame.
The name comes from the way this practice has always traveled.
My teachers lit a candle in me. For thirty-five years I have worked to light it in others, who pass it further along. And the most beautiful part is that a candle loses nothing by lighting another. The flame only spreads. One becomes many, and eventually the whole room fills with light.
That is what this series is about. Over these two weeks I want to show you what it is like to share Qi Gong, to pass that flame, even if you have no intention of ever teaching a class. Because something surprising happens when you learn to think like a teacher, when you say a cue out loud or show a movement with your body. The practice gets deeper. It stops being something you follow and starts becoming something that lives in you.
This began as an email series I am sharing with our community, and I am gathering every lesson here on one page as it goes out, so you can follow the whole arc in one place, return to any lesson, or share it with someone who might need it.
Here is how it works. Each lesson has a quote, a short reflection, and a practice you can do for yourself. From the second lesson on, each one also comes with a small practice you can share with someone else. Move through them as they arrive, or make note of the ones that speak to you. There is no wrong way to use this.
Remember, to know and not to do is not yet to know. So do the practices, don't just read them. The words are only a sliver of the full experience.
Let's begin.
"To know and not to do is not yet to know."
Wang Yangming
The first time I ever taught a class, I started it hiding in a bathroom stall.
I had just gotten back from a month of teacher training, and a long drive across the country in a van to go study. My mom was running a workshop on yoga and psychology, and she asked me to open each morning with an hour of Qi Gong. It was my first real class. Twenty people showed up, and I was terrified.
I didn't even realize how nervous I was until I was standing in front of them. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I slipped into the men's room, found an empty stall, started knocking on the door of life, and shook some of the fear loose. Then I walked back out and started teaching, still shaking a little.
Somewhere in the middle of that class, something shifted. I stopped thinking about myself. I realized it wasn't about me at all. It was about giving these people the gift of the practice. The moment I felt that, I relaxed. The whole room started breathing together. And by giving the practice away, I got more back than I ever had practicing alone.
That was the day I actually understood Qi Gong. Not the day I learned the forms, but the day I had to hand them to someone else.
That is what I think of when I read this Wang Yangming quote. To know and not to do is not yet to know. You can practice for years and still hold it at a little distance, as something you follow, something you are fairly sure you understand. It does not fully become yours until it moves through you to someone else, until you have to lead it and it shows you what you actually know.
I have felt this over and over in the years since. When I have to put a movement into words for someone else, I understand it in a way I never did just doing it on my own. I notice where my weight actually is. I feel the breath I had been rushing. Having to say it out loud slows me down and makes me meet the movement, and my own practice is richer for it afterward, not thinner.
And this doesn't only happen in front of a room. Leading can be small. It can be guiding your own body through one movement with real attention instead of going through the motions. It can be showing someone you love how you let your shoulders drop at the end of a long day. The moment you offer the practice, even to yourself, a different kind of attention switches on. You stop consuming it and start listening to it.
That is where following becomes knowing. Not by stacking on more information, but by letting what you already have move through you and out.
Lead one movement, even if just for yourself.
Find a comfortable stance, feet about shoulder width, knees soft, arms resting at your sides.
Instead of following a video, be the guide for a moment. Raise both arms slowly in front of you on an inhale, as if lifting something light out of water, and lower them on the exhale. Cue it in your own words, out loud or silently: rising, and softening, rising, and settling.
Do it a few times, listening to your own voice lead the breath and the movement. Notice anything you did not feel while you were only following along, maybe a little tension in the neck, perhaps a breath you were holding.
Try using it any time your practice starts to feel automatic. Leading even one movement wakes it back up, and often shows you something.
If you want a video to practice with, try this one from my very early days teaching. Maybe you'll even notice where I've shifted as a teacher.
This series is unfolding right now. I am adding a new lesson here each time one goes out, all the way through August 4, so this page fills in layer by layer, the same way a candle passes from one hand to the next. Check back as it grows, or watch your inbox, and you will see the whole arc take shape: from cueing a single movement, to reading a room, to leading someone you love through a practice of your own.
Everything in this series points to one moment: when Qi Gong stops being something you do at a set time and becomes the way you move through your life. And learning Qi Gong from a vantage point outside of yourself is the best way to do just that.
On Tuesday, July 28 at 9 a.m. Pacific, I am teaching a free live class called From Practice to Purpose: How Your Qi Gong Practice Grows When You Learn to Share It, where you will feel that shift for yourself, in your own body, instead of only reading about it. It is for anyone who wants to go deeper, whether you dream of teaching one day or you simply want the calm and steadiness you find on the mat to follow you into traffic, into a hard conversation, into the end of a long day. It is free, and it is live with me.
Save your seat for the free class.
