At the moment, several highly experienced Qi Gong and Tai Chi teachers/healers are frequently teaching and/or seeing clients at CRS, and we’d like to introduce four of them to you: Oak Tree (Kiyoko Kashiwagi), Ron Navarre, Swami Agung (Stoyan Radev), and Tina Zhang.
About Qi Gong: Qi (breath energy) Gong (training)
also known as Chinese yoga, is an ancient Chinese health and meditation practice as well as the foundation for internal martial arts such as Tai Chi Chuan. Based on the principle of internal energy cultivation, Qi Gong has been taught as part of Traditional Chinese Medicine and as an aid in healing and strengthening the body, harmonizing the emotions and calming the mind. The purpose of Qi Gong is to activate, circulate, ground and channel energy also known as Chi. Chi is the underlying energy inherent in all things.
About Tai Chi Chuan
is an ancient Chinese martial art, meditation and health practice based on the Taoist principles of balance and harmony. Tai Chi is a multi-dimensional discipline of mind, body, and spirit. As a martial art, it is the most sophisticated and takes the longest to master. As a health practice, it has numerous benefits that have been documented in medical studies worldwide. Often described as moving meditation, Tai Chi teaches how to ground, center and balance our energies for healing or self defense.
Chinese Traditional Medicine believes the “Qi” (Chi, energy) is the center of medicine and Qi-flow creates balanced health. All diseases, pains, and discomforts are the symtoms of the Qi stagnations in some areas of the body and mind. Many times, the illness could begin long before you notice any acute symptoms. These uncomfortable signs indicate the problem of imbalanced body systems, and the roots of the imbalances are even more complicated than the symptom complex. When the body has problems, all our focus should be on making changes to heal and reverse the adverse conditions. Increasing the positive yet balanced energy in the body is one of the most important keys to recovering from any illness, simply because both eastern and western medicines and treatments only work when your internal systems have a positive response to the treatment.
About Kiyoko “OAK TREE” Kashiwagi
Kiyoko “OAK TREE” Kashiwagi is now teaching Yang form Tai Chi at CRS on Monday nights from 6 – 7 pm. A long-time dancer/choreographer/tai chi player, she was born and raised in Japan. She began her dance training when she was 5 years old and began practicing Tai Chi Chuan when she was 15. While working as a dancer, she also earned a certificate for Tai Chi Chuan 24 Movements. After moving to New York for her dance career, she started studying traditional Yang style Tai Chi Chuan with Grand Master William Chi-Cheng Chen, and practices Tai Chi Chuan Long Form 132 movements, Short Form 60 movements, Cheng Man-Ching 37 Form, Tai Chi Sword Form 64 movements, and Pushing hands. She has also learned Tai Chi Cloudy Fan and Tai Chi Qigong 18 movements from Sifu Luis Molera.
About Ron Navarre
Ron Navarre has a private practice as a Reiki master, energetic healer and spiritual counselor and teaches workshops in Tai Chi, Qi Gong, and Rei Gong (a syntheseis of Reiki and Qi Gong) at CRS and elsewhere. Ron teaches the Open Heart style of Qi Gong. Emphasis is placed on softening, breathing, grounding, and connecting your heart/mind with nature and the universe. Open Heart Qi Gong can be described as the practice of moving and strengthening your internal energies. He teaches the Yang Style long form of Tai Chi Chuan. His emphasis is on correct posture and alignment, rooting, sinking and relaxation. He addresses the martial art application as a way to clarify the movements and to give further meaning to the form. This helps prepare the student for further study in the practice of push hands and helps one to remember the pattern and sequence.
As an adjunct professor Ron has taught Tai Chi at Fordham University at Lincoln Center, New York University through the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute and the Pacific Institute of Oriental Medicine in New York City. In addition to Tai Chi and Qi Gong, he taught Yoga at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center for fourteen years. He is currently on the teaching staff the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute where he teaches Tai Chi, Qi Qong and Internal energy management. He began his studies in taoist esoteric yoga and Qi Gong at age 25 with master Mantak Chia and Michael Winn and eventually with Taoist medical priest Jeffry C. Yuen. Around the age of twenty seven he began studying Yoga with Juliu Horovath and Hilary Cartwright of the White Cloud Yoga Studio, eventually becoming a yoga teacher there. Read more….
About Tina Zhang
Tina Zhang is the author of four best-selling books (in English) on the Chinese Internal Martial Arts of Taijiquan (Tai Chi), Ba Gua Zhang and Chinese Medical Qi Gong. With Master Frank Allen she co-authored the books Classical Northern Wu Style Taijiquan and The Whirling Circles of Baguazhang. She has been a professional teacher of martial arts in the U.S., Canada, Europe and China in the past 15 years and runs a Chinese medicine clinic here in Chinatown. She also teaches and attends to clients privately at CRS, offering instruction in classical Northern Wu Style Tai Chi and making use of Medical Qi Gong and Tao Meditation. She is widely known for application of Earth Qi Gong for women and Qi Gong for cancer patients.
She uses an individualized approach to find the root cause of the unbalanced energy that is ruining your health and teaches a tailored Qi Gong exercise just for you to practice. She can also draw on her widespread experiences teaching Qi Gong of “Earth Qi Gong for Women,” “The Three Treasures,” and “The Turtle & Snake” for health and longevity, as needed. Tao Meditation is an ancient Chinese Taoist philosophy and posture guided meditation for every mind that is looking for calm, balance, clarity, and freedom.
She has studied with the most respected Internal Martial Arts Grandmasters in China: Grandmaster Li Bing Ci and Grandmaster Liu Jing Ru. She practices traditional internal martial arts of Northern Wu Style Taijiquan and Cheng Style Baguazhang as a lineage master and professionally teacher of the arts. She studied Traditional Chinese Medicine Theory and Diagnostics at Beijing University, mentored by one of the most famous TCM doctors, Kong Si Bo, Beijing.
www.qigongnyc.com
www.QigongforWomen.com
About Swami Agung (Stoyan Radev)
Swami Agung is the creator of Qi-Yo Multi-Yoga, the first system to unite Qi-Gong, Tai Chi, and Balinese practices with traditional Vedantic Yoga. It is also the first system to offer a theosophical philosophy in a wide spectrum of different world Yoga sources, spiritual practices, holistic methods and esoteric teachings! Conceived by Swami Agung in 1996, the system allows anyone, regardless of age or physical condition, the ability to reduce stress, gain flexibility and focus on their his purpose. A regular Qi-Yo routine combines breath extensions with asana routines, meditation, energy enhancement andcleansing, visualization and chanting techniques to promote total well-being, mental clarity, and inner peace. Swami Agung and his team teach classes, workshops and teacher-training programs at CRS and throughout the city, lead esoteric journeys around the world, and are creating holistic centers worldwide in order to share this system.
Originally from Bulgaria, Swami Agung was first introduced to yoga at the age of 8 when Swami Dev Murtivisited his hometown in Bulgaria. After his introduction, his yoga journey continued with daily sadhana and austerities. His dream was to leave socialist Bulgaria so that he could practice yoga and his spiritual beliefs openly. Karma gave him the opportunity to immigrate to Switzerland in 1984. There, he began studying with Master Selvarajan Yesudian. In 1986, Swami Agung opened a kung-fu and yoga school in Schaffhausen, Switzerland and the Anima Mundi Creative Unfoldment Global Arts Laboratory in Zurich. It was at this laboratory that he cultivated the foundation of what would later become the Qi-Yo Multi-Yoga System. On New Year’s Eve 1990, Swami Agung visited the grave of Nicholas Roerich in the Nagar village, Kullu Valley, India. There, during meditation, he received the message to form a spiritual and creative foundation in Eastern Europe.
All Who Seek Via All Paths was established a few months later in Bulgaria. In the years following, it flourished as the first spiritual center of synthesis in Eastern Europe. The center gathered spiritual seekers and healing artists from across the globe in order to present workshops and performances as well as, conduct lectures on esoteric disciplines. Swami Agung’s other teacher, Helana Petrovna Blavatsky, provided him with ideas of synthesis that also served as a guiding light for the center in Bulgaria.
In April 1991, All Who Seek Via All Paths organized an international esoteric meeting in the Palace of Culture in Sofia which permanently transformed the spiritual movements of Eastern Europe. At the end of 1991, Swami Agung received a personal initiation from Master Sri Chinmoy in Malta and was assigned the mission of bringing the Sri Chinmoy movement to Bulgaria, which he did in 1992. In 1994, Swami Agung also brought Alice Bailey’s Lucis Trust to Bulgaria. Then, in 1995, he conducted research in India, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, New Zealand, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. In 1996, his research ended with an initiation in Bali by the Grand Sandhi Murthi Master Ngurah Harta, where Swami received his spiritual name of Agung (holy mountain of fire) and received Harta’s blessing to found the system later to be named Qi-Yo.
In 2003, Swami Agung came to the USA, where he entered into a period of incubation. During this period, he tested and perfected the Qi-Yo method through his daily work with his students. The Qi-Yo Multi-Versal Yoga System finally debuted in 2012 in New York City, at the dawn of the new curve of our planetary evolution.
http://www.qiyoyoga.org
