Helping People Become More Body Aware
Ancient Wave Qigong
Ancient Wave Qigong was founded in 2011 by Elena Rayo. Elena honed her skills gained through many years of study, by teaching in a variety of different yoga studios in Nevada County before creating a home studio. This special healing studio is an extension of the established recording complex, Ancient Wave Studios, that she and her husband built on their beautiful, verdant three-acre country property.
Whether you are a beginner or a more advanced student, Ancient Wave Qigong helps you become more aware of your physical body and the subtle energy bodies that help calm and train the mind. Students report that they can actually feel their life force energy move more easily within a few minutes of the class start. They feel the energy continue to flow as the class progresses. The simple repetitive movements, along with the breathing and guided visualizations, remove stagnation and bring in fresh healing energy. Each class finishes with a specific guided meditation designed to access the deep healing state of a relaxed mind, as the body absorbs the Qi generated from the class.
What is Qigong?
Qigong is a mind-body practice that improves mental and physical health through a variety of techniques. Qigong is an ancient system of healing for self and others that is thousands of years old. There are thousands of styles and approaches, but the essence of all Qigong is similar: simple movements or postures that are designed to clear stagnant energy and bring in fresh energy are used along with breathing and visualization techniques.
Qi
Qi is the life and vital energy force that flows through all beings.
Gong
Gong is the skill of working with, or cultivating, self-discipline and achievement.
What is Medical Qigong?
Medical Qigong uses the same techniques but with the addition of infusing the classes and treatments with specific knowledge and teachings about physical and energetic anatomy. Elena provides detailed explanations in class about how each organ functions in the body and how the exercises help to create more optimum health.
For example, Elena may choose a theme of The Liver for a class, and will show exercises to increase the health of the liver, both from a physiological standpoint as well as the emotional and spiritual aspect of this organ. She also includes information about diet that can help the liver, adding her own knowledge of Western herbs used to enhance the diet.
What is Special About Elena as a Teacher?
Elena Rayo has been teaching Qigong for nearly 15 years. She began her training in response to her desire to do some deep emotional as well as physical healing, and found that the ancient tradition of Qigong was both comprehensive and powerful. Elena’s Qigong classes combine several traditions to create a whole-body clearing and rejuvenation, from the meridians and muscles of the body to all the organs. Her unique guided meditations at the end of class are especially helpful for integrating the Qi as well as offering deep healing to the psyche.
As well, Elena takes a more feminine approach to Qigong. Her classes generally use a holistic approach to health, so she embodies and shares her training not only in Medical Qigong, but also in herbology, nutrition, and anatomy. She gives detailed explanations of the functions of each, satisfying the mind’s curiosity as well as the body’s needs.
In her own words:
There are two parts to my classes; the first part is learning traditional Qigong sequences that help to purify the whole body and all the organs by clearing out stagnant energy and then infusing ourselves with fresh breath and tonifying Qi. The second part is a guided mediation that allows the accumulated positive Qi to integrate into the body while guiding the mind into clear visualizations that identify and heal emotional and spiritual blockages as well as being deeply relaxing.
My goal as a Qigong instructor is to help students become more aware of their bodies, the subtle energies inside themselves and getting out of the mind. Students tell me they can actually feel their life force energy more easily in class, and how the Qigong movements can remove stagnation and bring in fresh healing Qi.
I see energy as the life force that runs through all things. There are different kinds of Qi with which we work but all of them are essential to complete health. Qigong is the cultivation of the skills needed to understand, maximize and move the Qi.
As westerners, we primarily live inside our heads, often with a constant internal chatter that can keep us out of touch with what is happening in the rest of our body, even to the point of being unaware of pain or chronic illness until it gets to an acute state. In Qigong, the easy and gentle movements, combined with directed breathing, bring us back into our bodies. The exercises are specific to clearing out stagnation of mental and emotional states which over time can also lead to ill health before those imbalances manifest in the physical body.
Testimonials
“Even as you inspired me to be present in the unfolding minutes of the class, I was so aware of the education I was receiving: physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. So grateful that you shared all these aspects of Qi Gong which made the movements so much more meaningful. Such teaching. Wonderful and inspiring.”
—S. Hall
“When I first met Elena Rayo and experienced her work, it literally felt like an angel had descended up on me. When you experience it for yourself, you’ll know what I mean.”
—Jamie
“Elena is helping me through the most difficult transition in my life to date. Her work has helped me to move blocked energy, to connect with my guides for messages I needed to hear, to bring clarity around my truth and how to communicate it, and to fill me with Qi for a feeling of more physical and emotional energy and balance.””
—Donna