Technology and qi: discovering connections during lockdown

Technology & qi: discovering connections during lockdown

Rosey Grandage

Member: London & Powys

Technology is not something that really inspires me. I know I’m not alone in this – many practitioners much prefer to be hands-on, face to face, rather than virtual. I’m perfectly happy using the normal range of equipment and platforms if I need to, but I’ve always shied away from really engaging with them.

For years, my students have asked me to put more online, to make videos, to share things on Facebook and Instagram but I never quite found the time or the inclination. I could understand the video idea as a tool to support learning and practice, but I’ve never been sure what anyone gets from most social media platforms. You may have stacks of ‘friends’, but do they actually bring anything to your work, learning, business? I’ve always preferred meeting, teaching, exchanging ideas and treating face to face. I’ve always been a social media cynic. Then came Covid19 and lockdown.

Then, I suddenly had to reinvent myself. Change my thinking and approach. Change, of course, is the root of Chinese philosophy. Change is life. So, change wasn’t a problem. Learning how to make videos, edit them, use Instagram, connect platforms together, connect with patients, colleagues and students successfully through Zoom – that was the learning curve.

Looking back, I went into something of an overdrive at the start of lockdown. Fortunately, I’d bought a tablet at the end of February – being a bit of a technophobe I’d baulked a bit at the price. Since mid-March I have certainly got my money’s worth.

For years I’ve taught a qigong class to a small group on a Friday. I’ve always taught my patients exercises to support their treatment, these may be qigong or stretches or strengthening, or a combination to suit their needs. From mid-March I spent hours making videos. I was amazed how long it took – I couldn’t edit, so I had to do everything in one hit. It took multiple attempts to get each film anywhere close to what I wanted. There was so much to say and demonstrate. It’s so much easier to explain things to people face to face – you can repeat things, emphasise things, tailor things to a person’s needs, notice when they’re getting overloaded. Making a generic film is more complicated. It can’t be too long, it needs to be clear, it needs to flow.

Still, I kept hammering away at it, day after day, in my clinic, in the local park, in my back garden. I had to sort my internet connection, the whole world was online, working from home, communicating through their computers. Fortunately, my internet provider was amazing, not just at helping with the speed, but with getting me extra data. Who knew how much data you use uploading and downloading and uploading and editing videos! I got dizzy just thinking about all that downloading and uploading and compressing and what needed to be done at each stage. Lucky I was practising an endless amount of qigong and stretching as part of the filming – that kept me rooted, flexible and connected with my body.

I set up a YouTube channel and started to use Instagram and Facebook. I learnt to do some simple editing on YouTube and Canva, so at least I could trim the start and end of each film (then people didn’t have to watch me moving back and forward to turn the camera on and off!) and create the one-minute films which Instagram seems to like. I shared my links with patients, colleagues and students, and I started to get some good feedback, people even started to subscribe to my channel.

Through Facebook and Instagram I reconnected with people I hadn’t seen for a long time; that was nice, but I’m still not sure what these branches of social media achieve for the time invested in them. I like the format of Instagram, communicating through images; though I still have no idea what a Story accomplishes compared to single or a group of images. Some mysteries of social media are still beyond me!

All my teaching is rooted in my two fields of knowledge: Chinese medicine and physiotherapy. The wonderful thing for my persoal growth during this time of intense practice and filming was that I discovered, explored a nd enhanced connections between the two. The connections between earth and sky in qigong and working with posture and the core in physio; the core and the chongmai and the dantian; engaging the core to enhance flow in the muscles and the jingluo; working with lower dantian to enhance the movement of lung qi and the expansion of the lungs – these are just the tip of an iceberg.

Filming outdoors through spring and summer enabled a wonderful connection with the natural world. As I practised qigong the birds sang and the insects hummed. One morning, starting early in the park, I was accompanied by a woodpecker; another morning a bumble bee became fascinated by the blue strip on the side of my tablet and buzzed my words into insignificance. I played with qi alongside the bright new buds of spring and felt the changes as they transformed into the dense smells