I was fortunate to be able to attend the Qigong Master Class with Senior Master Chin Min on the 29th of March 2025 at Ashburton Primary School. It was a great opportunity to focus on refining some familiar exercises, learning some new ones, and catching up with friends and colleagues I hadn’t seen for a while.
For the first half of the master class, we explored a wide range of stretching, strengthening and toning exercises that are good for morning wake-up movements. There was a terrific variety of exercises offered, from very simple warmups to get your blood flowing, to more focused stretching and toning drills focusing on different joints and muscle groups. I do daily Tai Chi practice down at a local park, and the exercises we explored are a great way to warm up every morning (not all at once!!).
SM Chin Min broke the exercises up into specific groups.
Stretching came first, with movements that focused on different muscle groups. The class helped me to refine some of the exercises I already knew as well as introducing some that were new to me. I particularly enjoyed discovering new exercises that really stretched and opened the muscles in my upper back, which get very tense from my work at the computer every day. SM Chin Min presented the movements in an ascending order from very simple and straightforward to progressively more complex as our muscles became warmer and more flexible.
The next series of exercises were focused on strengthening the muscles and were more specifically directed to our legs. Again, SM Chin Min structured these in a way that allowed us to work through each of the movements in range so that our muscles were eased more gently into more and more demanding activities. It was notable that we were all building up a sweat by this stage, although the air-conditioning was too loud to run during the session; the ceiling fans did good work in keeping us all cool.
The last part of the first half consisted of toning exercises that were an extension of the stretching and strengthening movements we had already done and built on the earlier sets of movements and integrated them into some of the basic Tai Chi movements. These were broken down into more specific forms and actions, particularly with hand and foot work.
After all that, we all needed to take a break!!
The second half of the Master class was focused entirely on Qigong Shibashi 5. SM Chin Min explained the naming of the name (“Shibashi” is an Anglicization of the Chinese words for “18 forms”) and some of the history of set 5. Then we got into the movements proper, and I was thankful for the long warm up we had done. Some of the movements were ones I had already learned; unlike the Tai Chi forms, the various Shibashi movements can be broken up and done individually. This part of the Masterclass was a more demanding but also a lot of fun; I think we all ended up laughing trying to master the “clapping hands” exercise!! SM Chin Min was careful to show us the movements from both the front (mirror movements) and from behind. Again, many of the movements are similar or identical to moves in the Tai Chi forms, and SM Chin Min also explained which of the major forms they were taken from. Every movement was gone through in detail with the foot and hand movements explained precisely.
It was a great day, even if I had a bit of trouble walking up the steps to my apartment after I got home! I am really looking forward to the next Master Class and learning another one of the Shibashi sets.
Chris White
Trainee Instructor, Camberwell Centre
Updated: 20 April 2025
