“It is better to follow your own path, even imperfectly, than to follow someone else’s path perfectly.” — Bhagavad Gita
There is a question we rarely ask ourselves when we think about teaching Chi Kung: Why do I practice what I practice?
Not the organized answer. Not the technical explanation about meridians and energy. The true answer. The one that comes from the body, from restless nights, from the experiences that worked and the ones that did not.
In 1998, at 28 years old, my life seemed well organized. I worked at a school, with a stable and well-paid salary, lived five minutes from work, and went bodyboarding when I finished because the beach was also five minutes away. Everything calm. Everything in order.
But something was missing. Not everything was well.
There was a concrete problem that had always been with me: asthma. I had tried everything — doctors, therapists, diet, various practices. Nothing had worked.
When I enrolled in the Chinese Medicine course, it was not out of academic vocation. It was a visceral reaction. A gut feeling when I saw the brochure. Something resonated, deeply.
And it was there that I began to practice Chi Kung every day. Not as a separate technique, but as part of a larger process — herbs, acupuncture, diet, daily practice.
After just over a month, the asthma had disappeared.
It was not magic. It was, above all, becoming responsible for my own body, in which Chi Kung played a fundamental role in that process.
I tell this story not to impress, but because it defines everything I do as an instructor.
When I teach, I am not transmitting theory. I am sharing a path I have lived. And that completely changes how I communicate, because it is terrain I know.
What is your story?
You do not need to have had asthma. Perhaps you came to Chi Kung through stress. Through anxiety. Through an autoimmune condition. Through a phase of life in which nothing made sense. Or simply because something resonated — without being able to explain why.
That story is not an accessory, not something secondary. It is probably the center of your teaching.
Why does the story matter?
When someone enters your class for the first time, they are not evaluating your technique. They are trying to understand: does this person have something for me?
This is how we function as human beings. We instinctively assess whether someone or something can help us or not. And that assessment does not happen through explanations — it happens through recognition.
Because bodies communicate beyond verbal language and concepts.
When you share your story, you create a bridge, a resonance. The person listening may think: if he managed it, perhaps I can too. Or: she has been through what I am going through.
You are not selling. You are showing a path you have walked.
What happens when you have no story?
You can teach the movements perfectly. You can explain the theory with precision. But without a story, the teaching becomes abstract. Technical. Distant.
It is like describing the thermal baths of Budapest without ever having been there. You can describe what you have read, but you cannot convey what you felt.
Your story is what allows you to speak of what you know from the inside.
How to use your story in teaching
You do not need to tell your entire life in every class. But you can:
- When someone asks at the end of a session how you began, answer with truth.
- When a student shares a difficulty similar to your own, say: I have been through that too.
- In moments when the practice seems hard, remember that you also started from zero.
The story is not a prepared speech. It is a presence. It is knowing where you come from and letting that inform the way you teach.
What I learned from a group of instructors in November
During the past month, I had the privilege of working with a group of 12 instructors in an experimental edition of the program Teaching with the Seasons.
Four weeks. Four podcasts. Four masterminds. And honest, nourishing exchanges.
What I discovered confirmed what I had already suspected: the greatest challenge for those who teach Chi Kung is not technique. It is clarity.
Clarity about who we are. Clarity about who we teach. Clarity about what makes our teaching different from everyone else’s.
And that clarity does not come from studying more forms or attending more workshops. It comes from looking inward — at our story, at our foundations.
Over that month we explored three essential ideas.
Your story. Chi Kung means the art of cultivating vital energy — and that energy is individual. If you do not understand your own energy, you will struggle to see that of your students. You become focused on technique, on the last movement you learned, and you forget that in front of you are people who want to tend to their own vitality.
The students who stay. Those who resonate with you do not come for the Chi Kung — they come for themselves. They want to leave in a different state. Most are operating from a place of survival: they are looking for tools to transform what they feel. They arrive hoping something will change. And being met with the history of the lineage, with tradition, with China — it is too much. Their lives are already too complex.
Forms and principles. The difference between being a repeater or a translator. Your teaching model does not arrive ready-made — it emerges, transforms, takes shape as you teach. It begins to carry your mark, who you are, your journey.
One of the things that surprised me most was realizing how solitary this process of teaching can be.
You have ideas, you have doubts, you would like to share them — but you do not always find the space. There is no place where you can express who you are as a teacher without feeling judged or compared.
It was because I went through that, and know this journey, that I created this program.
What comes next
The program for the next three months works on what I call the anatomy of foundations — the base structure that allows you to teach, create, adapt, and communicate who you are to your students.
In December, we work on boundaries: what is yours, what you define as essential.
In January, authentic movement: what is your genuine gesture in teaching.
In February, responsiveness: how you adapt your classes to the real needs of those who attend.
If you are uncertain
If this path does not make sense to you, ask yourself why. That answer also matters.
But if something resonated — in your story, in the desire to create something of your own — then perhaps it is worth exploring.
You do not need to have everything clear. You only need to want to continue.
“It is better to follow your own path, even imperfectly, than to follow someone else’s path perfectly.” — Bhagavad Gita
If this path resonates with you and you would like to know more about the program beginning in December, write to me at: lourenco.azevedo@regenerar.pt
If you have not yet encountered the program, I invite you to discover it here.
Live the practice. Teach the practice.
Lourenço de Azevedo