Cultures across the world have used energy healing arts for centuries. There are many names (and spellings!) for this life energy that these traditions nurture: Prana, Chi, Ki, and Qi are terms often used. The Egyptians called it Ka, the Greeks referred to is as Pneuma, the Huron Indians used the word Oki. And in modern storytelling, who hasn’t heard of The Force? These energy Healing Arts, across the various traditions and cultures, have a number of common characteristics:
Whether Chi is real or merely a metaphor is not important: thousands of years of successful medical use show how useful this map is.
--Bernie Clark, The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga
They build on an energy model of the body that is separate from, but intimately connected with, the physical body.
At Piedmont Healing and Defensive arts, we share a number of these Energy Healing practices to illustrate the complementary ways to maintain health and enhance well-being. We don’t advocate that these practices replace or undermine the diagnostic and interventional treatments that your physician may prescribe, though! It’s not needed to believe in these literally but instead to remember that these models have been used for generations to enhance self-healing.
Min Zin practices, are aimed at improving one’s ability to generate, store, and transmit energy. The term “Min Zin” can be translated as “mastery over energy”. It includes breathing practices (aka, pranayama), concentration practices, and symbolic movements and gestures (Min Zin mudras). Min Zin shares roots with a number of practices that were brought to Burma from India and also has influences from Tibet, from whence many of the peoples of Burma migrated.
Chi Gong health practices include visualization of energy movement and use of colors and sounds.
Similar to Min Zin, the rough translation of Chi Gong means “Life Energy Cultivation”. Chi Gong practices are design to increase Chi and to balance it within the body. Chi Gong has used for spiritual cultivation and for martial arts as well as for healing and health. People who practice Chi Gong combine breathing techniques and movement while maintaining a calm state of mind.
When talking about energy zones, most people have heard of the Chakras and Prana from the Vedic, Buddhist, and Yogic traditions of India. The Vedic model of chakras and energy paths in the body continues today to help people address health and healing. Other practices, such as the use of Mudras with the hands and fingers, can help with self-healing and enhance well-being. These and other practices in this tradition remain compelling to this day as a means for creating internal harmony.
Reiki, as we know it today, originated with Mikao Usui, who discovered the healing powers of Reiki in1922 after an extended fasting meditation on Mount Kurama in Japan. There were other Reiki practices in Japan before this, but it became widely used when Usui used his gifts to address widespread illness and suffering. The word Reiki can be translated as “spiritually-guided life energy”. Unlike systems where a practitioner actively generates and stores energy, in Reiki the practitioner is a channel for this universal, compassionate energy that seeks the greater good. Reiki practitioners do not aim to direct this healing energy; instead trusting the energy to travel where it can help the most.
Join us to find out which of these practices will work for you!
Classes and services are temporarily suspended in deference to the orders of the Governor of Virginia related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Health Defense - A monthly class held on Saturdays, 1 - 2:30pm, in Warrenton, Virginia.
