Waking Energy 7 Timeless Practices Designed to Reboot Your Body and Unleash Your Potential

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awaken and play: qigong
In 1999, after I produced and choreographed two critically acclaimed dance theater shows at Lincoln
Center and simultaneously opened my first large-scale Pilates and yoga studio in Manhattan’s West
Village at a time when I was trying to navigate an extremely challenging personal relationship, simply
waking up in the morning felt like an act of courage. My back pain became so debilitating that on a
bad day I couldn’t even bend down to tie my own shoes.
One day, after leaving a yoga class early on the verge of tears because I couldn’t take it anymore,
I decided to take myself to one of my favorite haunts downtown that always made me feel better—
East West Books on Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village. After paging through books about foods and
herbs to replenish my energy, I spotted one that looked as if it had been misplaced on the shelf.
Wedged between Eat Right for Your Type and Healing with Whole Foods was Mantak Chia’s
Awaken Healing Energy Through the Tao. I opened to the introduction, and my life has never been
the same.
Some people get starstruck when they meet celebrities. For me, it happened when I met Mantak
Chia for the first time. After years of studying his prolific writings, the time had come to finally
experience his teachings in the flesh. When I saw that he was on tour in the United States in 2007, I
immediately registered for his weeklong intensive workshop “Awaken Healing Energy and Transform
Chi,” held in the Blue Ridge Mountains at a former ashram outside of Asheville, North Carolina.
It’s hard to describe just how captivating Master Chia was, sitting up there on the stage with his
feet firmly grounded into the floor, certainly already channeling earth energy up through the Bubbling
Spring Points on his feet. Holding court like the sun itself, he radiated bright coronal rays out into the
enormous, churchlike space, all the way up to the cathedral ceilings. When he laughed, it was
infectious. He had his own gravitational pull. Everyone laughed right along with Master Chia, happily
getting swept up in the current of his energy. Although he had a very easygoing, seasoned, and
grounding presence, his spontaneous, unchecked laughter and the mischief in his eyes made him seem
like a child!
I did quick calculations in my head. He was born in 1944. Here we were in 2007. He was sixtyone
years old? How could that be? He didn’t look a day over forty and had not a single gray hair on
his head. I couldn’t stop beaming, smiling to the point of erupting with schoolgirl giddiness just from