Learn the Map Behind Every Qi Gong Practice You’ve Ever Done
The Five Elements Online Course teaches the energetic system at the heart of Holden QiGong. It stands on its own as a complete practice, and it’s the front half of the Teacher Certification curriculum.
So if you decide to go further later, you’re already halfway there.
You felt the pull. You just weren’t ready to make it your whole path.
When enrollment for the Teacher Certification Program opened, something in you leaned toward it. Something in the way it was described caught you: the idea that Qi Gong could stop being a thing you do at a certain hour and become part of how you move through the day.
Then you looked at the 200 hours, the teaching demonstration, the investment. And the honest answer was, not yet.
See if any of this sounds familiar:
The path has only ever appeared as a single door: commit fully to becoming a certified teacher, or keep practicing the way you always have. There’s a way in between. One that gives you real depth now and leaves the larger path open for whenever you want it.
You don’t have to choose between all or nothing. You just have to start.
The reason a practice plateaus is rarely the practice itself
You can do the same twenty-minute flow for three years and still feel like you’re standing outside of it. You’re not doing it wrong. Movements on their own don’t tell you what they’re for.
Here’s how the cycle tends to go:
Over time that gap does something quiet. You begin to think of yourself as someone who practices Qi Gong rather than someone who understands it. And that keeps you in the follow-along seat, waiting for a readiness that was never going to arrive on its own.
“The difference between doing Qi Gong and living Qi Gong is the application. Being able to apply it in everyday circumstances, to take a pause before getting angry, before being reactive, to come from your center.”
Application asks something of you first. You can only apply what you actually understand, and understanding is what turns a routine into a resource you can reach for.
In this lineage, that understanding has a name. It’s where every teacher Lee has ever trained begins.
The Five Elements Online Course
The map behind every Qi Gong practice you’ve ever done, and the front half of the path to teaching.
A self-paced online training in the energetic system at the heart of Holden QiGong. Lee guides you through how energy moves in the body, how emotions connect to organs and seasons, and how to work with all of it deliberately. This is the same reshot, updated Five Elements curriculum that anchors the Teacher Certification Program, offered on its own.
Each element carries a season, a pair of organs, and an emotion. Learn the five and you can read what your practice is doing, and choose it on purpose.
Sense how Qi actually moves
Learn how energy travels through your organs and meridians, and how to feel where it is moving freely and where it is stuck.
Read emotions as energy
Understand which emotions belong to which element, so frustration, grief, worry, and fear become information you can work with rather than weather you wait out.
Know what each practice is doing
Work with movement, healing sounds, acupressure, and meditation, and learn what each one is doing energetically.
See your own patterns
Read your recurring patterns through the elements and understand why they repeat.
Practice with the seasons
Adjust what you do as your energy naturally shifts through the year, instead of practicing against it.
Build a practice with intention behind it
Choose what you need on a given day rather than pressing play on the same thing.
Created by Lee Holden, one of the world’s most trusted Qi Gong teachers, the course distills more than three decades of practice and teaching into the one system he considers foundational to everything else he teaches.
If you enroll in the Holden QiGong Teacher Certification Program later, the Five Elements lessons you’ve completed carry forward, and your full $1,197 investment is credited toward your enrollment.
Lee Holden
One of the world’s most trusted Qi Gong teachers · 35+ years of teaching · American Public Television & PBS
Lee Holden is known for more than 35 years of teaching, his long-running presence on American Public Television and PBS, and his ability to make ancient energy practices feel simple, accessible, and useful in modern life. His community includes more than 180,000 email subscribers, 330,000 YouTube subscribers, and 24 million video views.
Like many people who discovered Qi Gong, Lee came to the practice looking for healing. As a collegiate soccer player at UC Berkeley, injuries threatened to sideline him from the sport he loved. What began as a search for recovery became a lifelong path of study, including training with renowned Taoist master Mantak Chia and deep immersion in Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, meditation, Tai Chi, and Qi Gong.
Along the way, Lee realized these practices were too valuable to remain hidden. He saw that people everywhere were struggling with stress, pain, fatigue, and disconnection, and that Qi Gong offered a practical way to participate in their own healing. That became his mission.
Of everything he teaches, Lee returns to the Five Elements most often. It’s the system that explains the rest: why a movement affects one organ and not another, why certain emotions surface in certain seasons, why the same practice feels different in March than it does in November.
“If you could only take one course in your life, this is the one.”
What Students and Colleagues Say About Lee Holden
What’s Inside The Five Elements Online Course
Everything in this course is built around one outcome: moving you from following a practice to understanding it. The material is organized element by element, so each section gives you a working knowledge of one part of the system and a set of practices that let you feel it in your own body before you move on.
The Five Elements Core Curriculum
The full Five Elements training, taught by Lee, covering Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water.
Guided Practice Sessions with Lee
Every element is taught hands-on, through practice.
Self-Paced Access Inside Circle
The full course is delivered on demand through the Holden QiGong learning platform.
A Transparent Path to Certification
If you decide the teaching path is yours, nothing you do here has to be repeated.
Every part of this course is built to give you the understanding that makes the rest of your practice make sense.
What You’ll Learn Inside The Five Elements Online Course
By the end of this course you’ll understand what your practice is doing, and you’ll be able to choose it deliberately instead of following whatever comes next in the playlist. Each element builds on the one before it, so the system assembles itself as you go.
Read the five elements in your own body and your own life
Recognizing which one is asking for attention on a given day, and which one you tend to overdraw.
Work with emotions as energy
Using specific practices to move frustration toward clarity, grief toward strength, worry toward stability, and fear toward steadiness.
Sense and guide Qi through your organs and meridians
So you can feel where circulation is stuck and know which movement, sound, or acupressure point addresses it.
Match your practice to the season
Adjusting what you do as your energy naturally shifts through the year.
Understand why the practices you already know work
Turning familiar flows from a sequence you follow into a set of tools you can select from with intention.
Judge for yourself whether the teaching path is yours
Based on real experience with the foundational curriculum rather than on how you imagine certification might feel.
The five elements are the organizing idea behind Chinese Medicine, and once you can see them, you’ll be reading them in your practice and your daily life for the rest of your time with Qi Gong.
Your Path Through the Five Elements
The course moves through the elements in the order Chinese Medicine has always taught them, following the natural cycle of the year. You start with the map, then spend time inside each element in turn, learning its energy, its organs, its emotions, and the practices that work with it.
The Elemental Map
Before any single element, you need the shape of the whole system. This opening module covers what Qi is and how it circulates, how the organ and meridian pairings work, and how the five elements generate and balance one another. Lee walks you through the cycles that connect the elements, so that when you arrive at Wood or Water later on, you understand where it sits in relation to everything else. By the end of this module you’ll be able to look at your own practice and start naming what it’s actually doing.
Wood
Wood governs the liver and gallbladder, the energy of spring, and the capacity for growth, decision, and forward movement. You’ll learn how Wood energy expresses when it’s flowing, showing up as clear direction and easy flexibility, and how it expresses when it’s blocked, showing up as frustration, irritability, and physical tension that won’t release. Through flows, healing sounds, and acupressure specific to this element, you’ll work directly with those patterns in your own body.
Fire
Fire governs the heart and small intestine, the energy of summer, and the qualities of warmth, connection, and joy. This module explores how Fire energy relates to the mind and the emotions, how overactive Fire creates restlessness and anxiety, and how depleted Fire flattens enthusiasm. You’ll practice with movements and meditations designed to settle the heart and restore a steady, sustainable warmth.
Earth
Earth governs the spleen and stomach, the transition between seasons, and the capacity to nourish yourself and stay centered. You’ll examine how worry and overthinking drain this element, how digestion and grounding are connected in this system, and what it feels like to practice from a settled center. The practices here focus on stability: returning to the ground when circumstances are shifting around you.
Metal
Metal governs the lungs and large intestine, the energy of autumn, and the process of letting go. This module works with breath as the primary tool and with grief as the emotion Metal carries. You’ll learn how to use breath practices, healing sounds, and acupressure to release what has accumulated, both physically and emotionally, and how clearing that congestion makes room for fresh Qi to circulate.
Water
Water governs the kidneys and bladder, the energy of winter, and the deepest reserves you carry. You’ll learn how this element relates to willpower, deep rest, and the vitality that gets spent when you push without replenishing. The practices here are quieter and more internal, focused on conserving and rebuilding energy, which for many practitioners is the piece that’s been missing.
Living the Cycle
The final module brings the elements back together as one system. You’ll learn to recognize which element is asking for attention at any given moment, how to build a personal practice that shifts with the seasons and with your own state, and how to keep working with this material long after the course is finished. This is where the framework stops being something you studied and becomes the way you approach your practice.
By the end, you’ll understand the energetic system behind everything Lee teaches, and you’ll have completed the front half of the Holden QiGong Teacher Certification curriculum. Where you take it from there is entirely yours to decide.
What Students Are Saying
Bonuses Included When You Enroll
The full written companion used inside the Holden QiGong Teacher Certification Program, covering key learnings, reflection prompts, and integration exercises for the curriculum. It deepens what you’re studying now and gives you a clear look at the material that follows, so you can see the whole path before deciding whether to walk it.
Two live calls where you can bring your questions directly to the team: about a specific element, a practice that isn’t landing, or how to apply the material to what you’re working with right now.
Your Enrollment Is Protected
We want you to feel settled about this decision, so your enrollment is protected by a 30-Day Guarantee. Enroll today and work through the material at whatever pace suits you. Watch the lessons, try the practices, sit with the elements for a few weeks and see what they open up.
If within 30 days you decide the course isn’t right for you, contact our team and we’ll refund your investment in full. We only ask that you give the practices a genuine try first. This material tends to make sense in the body before it makes sense on paper.
What You Receive When You Enroll
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is this just the teacher training under a different name?+
It’s the front half of it. The Five Elements training is the foundation of the Holden QiGong Teacher Certification Program, and this is that same curriculum, offered on its own as a complete practice. It’s a low-risk way to start the certification path if that’s where you’re heading. The teaching side, including class structure and sequencing training, practice teaching hours, mentorship sessions, the exam, and certification itself, comes later in the full Teacher Certification Program.
I’m not sure I want to teach. Is this still worth it for me?+
Yes. Most of what you’ll learn here has nothing to do with teaching anyone else. The five elements explain why your own practice works, how your energy shifts with the seasons, and how emotions move through the body. Plenty of students take this purely to deepen their own practice and never go further, and it’s a complete experience on those terms.
What if I decide later that I do want to certify?+
Then nothing here has to be repeated. The Five Elements lessons you’ve completed are unlocked when you enroll in the Teacher Certification Program, and your full $1,197 is credited toward your enrollment. You will need to complete a short quiz for each Five Elements module as part of the certification requirements, but those act as a simple refresher on material you already know.
How is the course delivered, and how long do I have access?+
The full course is available on demand through the Holden QiGong learning platform. There’s no cohort, no start date, and no live sessions you’re required to attend. You begin the day you enroll and move at whatever pace fits your life.
How much time does it take?+
That’s up to you. The material is organized element by element, so you can work through one element over a week or over a month depending on what you have available. Many students spend time inside each element before moving on, since the practices tend to make more sense once you’ve felt them a few times. There’s no schedule to fall behind on.
Do I need to be an experienced practitioner?+
No. The course starts with what Qi is and how it moves before working through any individual element, so you don’t need prior study to follow it. That said, it tends to land hardest for people who already have some practice behind them, because it explains things they’ve felt but couldn’t name.
What kind of practices are included?+
Qi Gong flows, healing sounds, acupressure sequences, and meditations, each one built for the specific energy of a particular element and organ system. They range in length, and most can be done in a normal amount of space without equipment.
Can I ask questions along the way?+
Yes. Your enrollment includes two live 30-minute Q&A sessions where you can bring questions directly to the team, whether about a specific element, a practice that isn’t working for you, or how to apply the material to something you’re dealing with.
What’s the price, and are payment plans available?+
The Five Elements Online Course is $1,197.
What if it isn’t right for me?+
Your enrollment is protected by a 30-day money-back guarantee. Work through the material, try the practices, and if within 30 days you decide it isn’t a fit, contact our team for a full refund.
Start where you are. Keep the whole path open.
The energetic system at the heart of Holden QiGong, taught by Lee, self-paced, and yours to begin today. It stands on its own, and it is the front half of the Teacher Certification curriculum.