Qigong Beginning Practice
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Movie Reviews of Qigong Beginning Practice
Movie Review: great DVD! completely satisfied!
Summary: 4 Stars
If you've had some exposure to Tai Chi or Qigong, this is a great DVD for exercising on your own. But I recommend this for a beginner with some caution -- be patient with the pacing and listen carefully to the underlying philosophy to get the most from this.
Good production values and well thought out.
Haven't yet watched the documentary on the 2nd DVD but this might be a good place to start for the true beginner.
Movie Review: At Last, Something That Works
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great DVD, the practitioners are great, their movements are easy to follow, and the background scenery is beautiful. Best of all, Qigong works!! This gets my highest recommendation.Movie Review: great introduction to qigong history and practice
Summary: 4 Stars
i bought this title for my mom who enjoys tai chi but found practicing qi gong more satisfying for her. she was very interested in the documentary dvd and has regularly followed along to the practice dvd for which she finds the instruction clear and easy to follow.
the dvd does not include a language menu option; it is entirely in english with subtitles for some of the chinese in the documentary. it would have been helpful for my mom to hear the documentary and the instructions in spanish. i'm sure this would be useful to lots of other people too, although i don't know how common it is for 'exercise videos' to have that sort of feature.
this was a solid choice for my mom, and i hope it remains challenging and engaging as time passes.
Movie Review: An enjoyable way to learn Qigong
Summary: 5 Stars
"Qigong Beginning Practice" is a two-disc set with a total content time of 2.5 hours. The first disc is a workout demonstrating the exercises and the second disc is a documentary putting the exercises into their historical and cultural context. I bought this DVD because I truly benefited from the "Qigong for Stress Relief" DVD.
Francesco Garripoli is an engaging instructor who clearly loves Qigong. The snow-capped mountains in the background are spectacular, the music is great and the demonstrations and explanations are succinct and spot on. A few repetitions and you get it. I took some notes. Sometimes I'll sit back and play the workout disc from beginning to end just to fine-tune the movements and make sure that I'm synchronizing the breathing properly.
I particularly like the concluding section of movements aimed at specific illnesses, e.g., if you have sore shoulders do this practice. It has been proven that if people can exert even a small degree of control over their illness it will increase their self confidence and they will get better faster.
I have only one complaint with the workout DVD. There is a lot of material on it (some 28-30 exercises) and you have to search for individual exercises linearly, which I found a bit annoying. An index/menu would have helped.
Otherwise it's a great DVD for beginning practice.
Movie Review: Great Historical Documentary - Not So Good As a Workout
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this hoping for a good daily qi gong routine for stress relief and stretching, and was bitterly disappointed. Despite two and a half hours of running time, only one hour and ten minutes of that is actual 'practice time'. Most of the DVD is made up of interviews and a documentary. That's fine if you're interested in qi gong as a documentary subject, but it's of no interest to me. The practice part of the disc was filmed by a lake near mountains, with gorgeous scenery and excellent production values. The instructor goes through how to do each exercise very slowly, repeating each exercise twice. It's great as a 'how to', but useless for the person who wants to follow a daily routine. I'd happily lose the interview and documentary for even a ten to twenty minute daily qi gong routine!
But the most damning thing is that it's confusing as hell for the viewer with no experience with qi gong. There are many complex hand motions in many of the moves. These are almost impossible to follow because the narrator keeps telling you to "use the left hand" or "move to the right" and the instructors on screen are following the narrator, too. Unfortunately, this doesn't allow you to 'mirror' what the instructor is doing, and throws you off because what you're doing doesn't visually follow the instructor at all. The only way I could even begin to grasp some of the exercises was to ignore the narrator and concentrate on mirroring the instructors. In other words, it worked better if I put it on mute! But by doing that you miss out on instructions on when to exhale and inhale for the best results. This was incredibly frustrating. It was absolutely amateurish, and not something you'd expect from such a well-produced (and expensive) DVD. I was horribly disappointed. I think those with experience with qi gong or those interested in the historical aspects of the art would enjoy this DVD. For those beginners (or even the more experienced) who are looking for a daily qi gong routine, keep looking.