Kwan Yin Kung Fu

Kwan Yin Kung Fu Offering Qigong, Taiji, Gongfu, + Sword, as a way to honor, cleanse, and replenish, as well as communicate with and be guided by the body, mind, + spirit. Yes?

Do you like feeling good in your body, in your mind, in your heart? Do you want to get more balance, more strength, more personal power? Do you want to be more grounded, calm, centered? Ok, me too. To gain those aspects I practice Kung Fu and Tai Chi, which are really one in the same. I’d love for you to join me and see if you like it too. Or as my sifu says, “You try.”

What does Kung Fu mean exactly? Literally it translates to hard work and practice put forth to cultivate one’s art. Art, being what you like to do, what feels good to you. So, if you like to move your body, fluidly, and with intention toward growing the good feeling inside you, try Kung Fu. Kwan Yin is the Goddess of Compassion. Holding that energy as the basis for my teaching style, my intention is to balance the yin with the yang, creating a safe space for both men and women to explore a heart-centered approach to some of the most deadly self-defense techniques known. I provide instruction in application of movements, which means I show you how to do it, and why. I emphasize energy sensitivity as well as moving the body as a connected whole. My classes are for those seeking a path toward better health—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Whether seasoned or new to the art, with a body young or old, you are invited to join me in cultivating focus on energy, movement, precision, and flow. The classes I teach follow what I have learned from my sifu, Master Sing Chui, whose lineage connects back to Yue Fei (1103-1142 bc), the creator of the 108 Hands style that evolved into Eagle Claw. Master Chui is a closed-door disciple of Master Zhang Zhan Ming. He immigrated to the US from China in 1992, and has continued teaching Kung Fu to a dedicated group of practitioners that has grown each year. Master Chui began teaching in 1968. After the Cultural Revolution, he taught at Jinan University where he spent twelve years as head Kung Fu sifu. He is the vice president of the Eagle Claw Association in Guan Zhou, and is a member of the Guan Zhou Martial Art Association. Several of those who studied with him are now well-known Kung Fu teachers themselves in Guan Zhou and Hong Kong. I began studying with Master Sing Chui in 2007. I trained with him exclusively until 2013, when he and his wife moved to California. I continue my training with Master Chui, through visits and correspondence, and I also train regularly with other internal arts teachers. At this point in my practice there is no richer learning experience than by connecting to my inner teacher through dedication to my own personal disciplines. If you want to learn ways to connect to your inner teacher, come to a Tai Chi or Kung Fu class and see how you feel. You try.

03/25/2019

DAY 896. Patterned scarves and tapestries faded by sun, threadbare by wind and use, made more valuable by love— by the sturdy practicality of materials with multiple uses and with whom one’s life is better.
⊹
When I was a child I looked this way in my dream, in my vision, in my prayer for what I’d one day be.
⊹
It was a romantic scene, that place I made on my heart. It was all wishes and hopes, lightly touched desires I simply tossed in on innocent whims.
⊹
But they sat in there, safe, listening, at ease, and grew. They sent roots into my belly and shoots into my mind. My crown was pierced with millions of tiny seedlings and they covered my scalp with the tender green of daydreams sprouting.
⊹
I forgot about them. I learned how to make myself pretty; I learned how to make myself dinner; I learned how to make others feel better; I learned how to make myself better.
⊹
So by the time I was in the world as an adult, having had those reverie-saplings reared by my maiden years, without much attention to those scraggly, thin reaching adolescent trees on the top of my head, I began to discover they had been there with me my whole life.
⊹
The man of my dreams, the home of my dreams, the work, the animals, the friends, the life of my dreams was waiting for me, patiently planted on my heart like an oak grove of intertwining limbs that has existed since the beginning of time.
⊹
THE QIGONG LESSON FILMS. Extending an invitation for you to learn Qigong with me online. With this Pay-What-You-Like subscription you get a full-length in-depth Qigong Lesson Film every month + instant access to the entire archive when you sign up via Patreon.com/breafisher {Link in bio}.
⊹
A deep bow to you, Patrons. I'm continually inspired by your support, your encouragement, your engagement, and your presence in this work. Thank you from my ♥️

03/24/2019

DAY 895. Some days I can feel the Qi as clearly as if I were moving within water, or wind— willing it this way and that, playing with it, shaping it, spinning it, sending it out, catching it, pulling it in, spreading it, expanding it, stretching it, lifting it up, pushing it down, condensing it, drawing it into itself, collecting it, then casting it out again.
⊹
Other days it’s harder to feel, and I rely more heavily on muscle memory, and mind memory, intention, and imagination. Most days I begin a little scratchy, a little course, and gradually refine the movement until I reach that magical point of truly feeling the Qi, effortlessly moving my body in a fully unified way, both willing and allowing the energy to move and be moved.
⊹
Today was one of those particularly attuned days I described first— the really rich ones. I’m grateful for it. And at the same time, I’ve learned, for me it’s best to stay neutral about it. I can enjoy it and delight in the sensation of strong and clear Qi, but I like to let it go also, so that I don’t grasp too tightly to the feeling, which tends to make it come less often.
⊹
A soft, relaxed state of allowing the Qi and myself to relate to each other however it may be— that is what feels best to me. This way I don’t long anxiously for the magic Qi days when the flow is less readily flowing, and l can relax and simply move even if it doesn’t feel as perfectly aligned.
⊹
THE QIGONG LESSON FILMS. Extending an invitation for you to learn Qigong with me online. With this Pay-What-You-Like subscription you get a full-length in-depth Qigong Lesson Film every month + instant access to the entire archive when you sign up via Patreon.com/breafisher {Link in bio}.
⊹
A deep bow to you, Patrons. I'm continually inspired by your support, your encouragement, your engagement, and your presence in this work. Thank you from my ♥️

03/23/2019

DAY 894. The Chinese character for heron sounds very similar to the one for “path” or “way” and although the characters are different, the symbol of a heron in paintings and poems (commonly paired with a lotus blossom) is interpreted as an upward path, a way toward one’s advancement, whether worldly or spiritually. The heron also symbolizes strength, purity, patience, and long life.
⊹
When we call on the Yin Yang Herons in this form, we do so from a place of standing with them in their own habitat, water land. We stand waist-deep in the river, but this is no ordinary river. This is your river; the River of Qi flowing within you at all times.
⊹
Sometimes we may forget about this River and we need to be reminded; sometimes our River gets dammed and we need to unblock the flow; sometimes we need to stop trying to control the flow of our River so tightly—the current will take us downstream whether we struggle or relax, and sometimes we need reminding that it’s much more pleasant to just let go.
⊹
When these things arise, Yin Yang Herons are here to help you. With their long beaks they carry the River through you. They help it to flow, following the energy current of the Microcosmic Orbit—up the spine, and down the front. This is the circuit of Qi running through you; it is your River, running in a circle that mimics the flow of energies that make up the Cosmos.
⊹
Quoting my own writing there, from the description to the Qigong Lesson Film for this form, which you can use to learn, in detail, this Microcosmic Orbit Qigong form that calls so deeply on the Water element. On this day set aside to honor Water, we had much of it in the skies (see for rain all around the land).
⊹
THE QIGONG LESSON FILMS. Extending an invitation for you to learn Qigong with me online. With this Pay-What-You-Like subscription you get a full-length in-depth Qigong Lesson Film every month + instant access to the entire archive when you sign up via Patreon.com/breafisher {Link in bio}.
⊹
A deep bow to you, Patrons. I'm continually inspired by your support, your encouragement, your engagement, and your presence in this work. Thank you from my ♥️

03/22/2019

DAY 893. Today, Earth Dog Qigong, for the medicine of stability through transition— living with a foot in two worlds (here the world of winter imposed on the spring Qi that has already made a home in our hearts.
⊹
From Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs, speaking to what this form cultivates better than anything I’ve ever written on it:
⊹
“But I want to extol not the sweetness nor the placidity of the dog, but the wilderness out of which he cannot step entirely, and from which we benefit. For wilderness is our first home too, and in our wild ride into modernity with all its concerns and problems we need also all the good attachments to that origin that we can keep or restore. Dog is one of the messengers of that rich and still magical first world. The dog would remind us of the pleasures of the body with its graceful physicality, and the acuity and rapture of the senses, and the beauty of forest and ocean and rain and our own breath. There is not a dog that romps and runs but we learn from him.
⊹
“The other dog—the one that all its life walks leashed and obedient down the sidewalk—is what a chair is to a tree. It is a possession only, the ornament of a human life. Such dogs can remind us of nothing large or noble or mysterious or lost. They cannot make us sweeter or more kind.
⊹
“Only unleashed dogs can do that. They are a kind of poetry themselves when they are devoted not only to us but to the wet night, to the moon and the rabbit-smell in the grass and their own bodies leaping forward.”
― Mary Oliver, Dog Songs
⊹
THE QIGONG LESSON FILMS. Extending an invitation for you to learn Qigong with me online. With this Pay-What-You-Like subscription you get a full-length in-depth Qigong Lesson Film every month + instant access to the entire archive when you sign up via Patreon.com/breafisher {Link in bio}.
⊹
A deep bow to you, Patrons. I'm continually inspired by your support, your encouragement, your engagement, and your presence in this work. Thank you from my ♥️

03/21/2019

DAY 892. May the change of the seasons bring you exactly what you need to know yourself as healed and whole right now in this very moment.
⊹
Did you see that moonrise tonight?! If you didn’t see it, take a moment to at least feel its power. So much potency happening right now in the stars and planets; we aren’t just influenced by them, we’re made of them— mini versions of the cosmos.
⊹
This is the original Gongfu form to Rooting Boar (see yesterday’s post for its Qigong variation). Here I’m using a fist instead of a knife palm. The Boar form holds both Water and Earth element medicine; it makes it perfect for our transition from winter to spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, but really it would be good for the Southern half of the globe, too— that Earth element is our center point.
⊹
In the Qigong version we extend both arms forward and imagine a beam of light like a spear right through the chest. When we pause and hold in this stance, we can feel ourselves as that center point— the fulcrum between the Yang field above (the sky/ heavens) and the Yin field below (the earth)— just as Earth is the fulcrum of the Five Elements.
⊹
THE QIGONG LESSON FILMS. Extending an invitation for you to learn Qigong with me online. With this Pay-What-You-Like subscription you get a full-length in-depth Qigong Lesson Film every month + instant access to the entire archive when you sign up via Patreon.com/breafisher {Link in bio}.
⊹
A deep bow to you, Patrons. I'm continually inspired by your support, your encouragement, your engagement, and your presence in this work. Thank you from my ♥️
⊹
THE WARRIOR PRIESTESS WAY. Five Elements, Five Seasons, Five Qigong + Tea Immersions. This series of intensive study training is for women who wish to cultivate the Warrior Priestess within— the one who holds the moon and grips the sword together as one act. We walk this path with one foot grounded deeply in Discipline and the other treading, etheric, in Grace. While Spring’s Wood Element Immersion is sold out, Summer’s Fire Element and Late Summer’s Earth Element Immersion dates are soon to be announced; DM me (so I see it) to be tagged when doors open for signup.

03/20/2019

DAY 891. Under the influence of our moon, we shift into spring. Tomorrow, Wednesday MAR 20 marks the Equinox, on the very same day as the full moon, and a Super moon at that. Know that this is a gift. Here is Lena Stevens to help you better understand how you can glean the most from such a potent mix of Qi:
⊹
“This is a Super Moon and a rare and powerful event with the Equinox landing on the same day. You have an opportunity, a portal through which this power comes through, to set some intentions for potent and inspired new beginnings.
⊹
“All those things you have been dreaming about can now be supported by the fertility of this Equinox. But be careful what you ask for. Make sure it is what you want and not someone else's dream.
⊹
“The power of this full moon will energize whatever you put into motion. It is a feminine time but supported by the masculine. A perfect combination of balance between the Sun and the Moon. So we honor both of them on this day. What do want to plant the seeds for, to give birth to, to have manifest in your life? How are you willing to take disciplined action to make it happen? What are you willing to change, give up and push through to move forward into a new landscape?
⊹
“It is definitely a day to honor the Equinox and Full Moon in some ceremonial way and if you can do it with support and community, all the better.” — www.thepowerpath.com
⊹
If you’re near Santa Fe you are welcome to bring the Equinox Super Moon Qi into ceremonial space with us at AY^AM de Tesuque. To find all the details and to reserve your spot, go to www.ayamlife.com/tesuque/ and find the schedule of events, offered by yours truly, in the comments below.

03/19/2019

DAY 890. Yesterday, my weekly day offline and off-screen, I sat for my first outdoor tea ceremony of the year. It was a day rich with ample meditation, multiple Qigong sessions barefoot on the earth, and inspiration like scent of lilac on the etheric air (soon!). My favorite kind of days and the best medicine for me are the ones like this. Today again I was outside most of the daylight hours; I even had my laptop set up on my little rug out there after my tea sit.
⊹
This is Wei Qi Activating + Cleansing Qigong, which is so very beneficial while the seasons are changing and the weather fluctuates greatly between the days (and also between the hours). Every time the sun went behind a cloud and the breeze blew, I got a little chilly, but otherwise I felt hot.
⊹
The Wei Qi is our protective Qi, and to bolster it here with this Qigong form means we’re supporting the immune system. The scarf protects my Wind Point (a place where external pathogens often make their entry into our systems); the Qigong form supports that, too.
⊹
Wei Qi Activating + Cleansing Qigong is a published QIGONG LESSON FILM, so if you’d like to learn it, you have access to all the details of the form when you subscribe to this Pay What You Like offering. Sign up via Patreon.com/breafisher {Link in bio} and get a new, full-length Qigong Lesson Film every month and instant access to the entire archive.
⊹
A deep bow to you, Patrons. I'm continually inspired by your support, your encouragement, your engagement, and your presence in this work. Thank you from my ♥️
⊹
THE WARRIOR PRIESTESS WAY. Five Elements, Five Seasons, Five Qigong + Tea Immersions. This series of intensive study training is for women who wish to cultivate the Warrior Priestess within— the one who holds the moon and grips the sword together as one act. We walk this path with one foot grounded deeply in Discipline and the other treading, etheric, in Grace. While Spring’s Wood Element Immersion is sold out, Summer’s Fire Element and Late Summer’s Earth Element Immersion dates are soon to be announced; DM* me to be tagged when doors open for signup. *Please, DM, not just a comment, as those are easy to miss 🙏🏼

03/18/2019

DAY 889. Barefoot in the morning, creatures all, we know you are near, Spring, bringer of the new, the fresh, the just born. But until you arrive in your full Wood expression, I call on the bridge element, Earth. May you guide us by your stable ground, your nurturing hand in ours, and your allowing embrace holding space for all that will be.
⊹
This is Alchemy of the Self, an Earth Element Qigong form to support the work of Spleen and Stomach in digestion and absorption— not just of the food and fluids we ingest, but the digestion and absorption of the experiences, feelings, and information we take in mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
⊹
Alchemy of the Self is a published QIGONG LESSON FILM, so if you’d like to learn it, you have access to all the details of the form when you subscribe to this Pay What You Like offering. Sign up via Patreon.com/breafisher {Link in bio} and get a new, full-length Qigong Lesson Film every month and instant access to the entire archive.
⊹
A deep bow to you, Patrons. I'm continually inspired by your support, your encouragement, your engagement, and your presence in this work. Thank you from my ♥️
⊹
THE WARRIOR PRIESTESS WAY. Five Elements, Five Seasons, Five Qigong + Tea Immersions. This series of intensive study training is for women who wish to cultivate the Warrior Priestess within— the one who holds the moon and grips the sword together as one act. We walk this path with one foot grounded deeply in Discipline and the other treading, etheric, in Grace. While Spring’s Wood Element Immersion is sold out, Summer’s Fire Element and Late Summer’s Earth Element Immersion dates are soon to be announced; DM* me to be tagged when doors open for signup. *Please, DM, not just a comment, as those are easy to miss 🙏🏼

03/17/2019

DAY 888. Called the cranes yesterday, with Qigong like a beacon into the sky, a message pulse, a clear bell resonating on the frequency of Crane essence. Yesterday’s Yin Crane Qigong became today’s sighting: a pair of Sandhill Cranes.
⊹
I’ve never seen just two; their migration path both north in spring and south in winter falls over our house and a flock of twelve is small. It was extra special and more specific a feeling to see only two birds there, high in the sky, their call distinguished, one at a time as opposed to a quiet-by-distance symphony of song from their typically large group.
⊹
These two cranes were singing to each other, circling around each other, and leading the way for all the rest to follow. They will, too— soon— and for every time I hear their gurgle song I will stop whatever I’m doing and stand with my face to the sky in wonder and admiration of this great bird.
⊹
PS If you zoom in you can see a heron there, perched on a rock in the river; watch him take off into sky also (swoon). Wish I was practicing Yin Yang Herons Carry the River, darn it. I was filming for this month’s Qigong Lesson Film— this is my fourth time recording this one and I finally got the shot. So many factors have to come together to make those movies and I’m extremely particular about getting it right. If you subscribe to the Lesson Films, look for this one soon!
⊹
THE QIGONG LESSON FILMS. Extending an invitation for you to learn Qigong with me online. With this Pay-What-You-Like subscription you get a full-length in-depth Qigong Lesson Film every month + instant access to the entire archive when you sign up via Patreon.com/breafisher {Link in bio}.

03/16/2019

DAY 887. When in Qigong practice, just as it is during times of tapping one’s intuitive field, there is a heightened sense of confidence that directly stems from the softened state, both of the mind and the body. I could easily replace the word confidence with trust, kinship, understanding, or allowing, for all of these qualities are born from this relaxed, attuned state. It is unity by way of letting go.
⊹
John Keats once wrote of what he called Negative Capability, which seems to point to this very state. Keats described Negative Capability as when one is “capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”
⊹
From the place of fully being with what is, we can tune our own personal vibration to that of the whole. If we can hold this space without the need to know more than what we sense in simply being, that is when truth begins to ring through us at a frequency we can understand. This is the place of intuition, of soul-remembering, of knowing.
⊹
THE WARRIOR PRIESTESS WAY. Five Elements, Five Seasons, Five Qigong + Tea Immersions. This series of intensive study training is for women who wish to cultivate the Warrior Priestess within— the one who holds the moon and grips the sword together as one act. We walk this path with one foot grounded deeply in Discipline and the other treading, etheric, in Grace. While Spring’s Wood Element Immersion is sold out, Summer’s Fire Element and Late Summer’s Earth Element Immersion dates are soon to be announced; DM me to be tagged when doors open for signup.
⊹
THE QIGONG LESSON FILMS. Extending an invitation for you to learn Qigong with me online. With this Pay-What-You-Like subscription you get a full-length in-depth Qigong Lesson Film every month + instant access to the entire archive when you sign up via Patreon.com/breafisher {Link in bio}.
⊹
A deep bow to you, Patrons. I'm continually inspired by your support, your encouragement, your engagement, and your presence in this work. Thank you from my ♥️

03/15/2019

DAY 886. Fifteen swords arrived in the mail today— twelve of wood, three of steel; all hold Metal Element medicine. I look forward to working with those who have been called to hold them, those who hold the moon, those Warrior Priestesses who will gather here in New Mexico come the next New Moon.
⊹
THE WARRIOR PRIESTESS WAY. Five Elements, Five Seasons, Five Qigong + Tea Immersions. This series of intensive study training is for women who wish to cultivate the Warrior Priestess within— the one who holds the moon and grips the sword together as one act. We walk this path with one foot grounded deeply in Discipline and the other treading, etheric, in Grace. While Spring’s Wood Element Immersion is sold out, Summer’s Fire Element and Late Summer’s Earth Element Immersion dates are soon to be announced; DM me to be tagged when doors open for signup.
⊹
THE QIGONG LESSON FILMS. Extending an invitation for you to learn Qigong with me online. With this Pay-What-You-Like subscription you get a full-length in-depth Qigong Lesson Film every month + instant access to the entire archive when you sign up via Patreon.com/breafisher {Link in bio}.
⊹
A deep bow to you, Patrons. I'm continually inspired by your support, your encouragement, your engagement, and your presence in this work. Thank you from my ♥️

03/14/2019

DAY 885. We begin as a seed—in stillness, silence, and darkness—we listen. We wait for the song of the earth to coax us out from within the womb of soil and loam. We hold the seed of the self between the palms as precious as a diamond. And when it’s time to move, we allow ourselves to germinate, feeling the movement begin from deep within.
⊹
The form begins like this. It is Gung Li Qigong for the cultivation of authentic personal power. It translates to Power Fist and comes from the Eagle Claw Gongfu form. The form is a journey itself, taking one from the embryonic state of a seed nestled in the earth to the great tree on which the Eagle perches, strong, resilient, and true.
⊹
All day practice .am_ de Tesuque. Grateful for this sanctuary for silence-seekers. Such a deep drop in today.
⊹
Gung Li Qigong is a published Qigong Lesson Film, so if you’d like to learn it, you have access to all the details of the form when you subscribe to this Pay What You Like offering. Sign up via Patreon.com/breafisher {Link in bio} and get a new, full-length Qigong Lesson Film every month and instant access to the entire archive.
⊹
A deep bow to you, Patrons. I'm continually inspired by your support, your encouragement, your engagement, and your presence in this work. Thank you from my ♥️

Address

351 Camino Encanto
Santa Fe, NM
87501

Opening Hours

Tuesday 3pm - 7:30pm
Wednesday 9am - 1:30pm

Telephone

+15053030988

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Kwan Yin Kung Fu posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category