Peter feels better, both physically and mentally.

The first time I came across Qigong was in 1999 when I met a girl who was doing Qigong. But at that time I was so stressed out and so preoccupied with myself that I just thought it seemed totally useless. Some time passed and I heard about how much good it did her, so I tried a course after all, two years ago, but it did not lead to anything further for my part.

Peter feels better today My back and shoulders have been very painful and I have been very stressed out, with incredible restlessness and finding it hard to sit down. It got to the point where I almost “walked into the wall” and by that time I had become incredibly fed up with my situation and therefore I really tried to find a way to change it. I tried this Qigong again and properly this time, in February, 2005, and this time it was easier for me to memorize the movements and furthermore I bought a training CD. That made me practise every day and after each time I did it I felt for the first time that I was able to enjoy myself while just staying at home. I did not need or have any obligations, I could just relax. All of my acquaintances noticed the changes and they showed me that they appreciated my “new” self. They did not like those former quick twenty-minute get-togethers over a cup of coffee, but instead they wanted to slow it down a bit, but I could not do that. It was actually they who told me about the great change that I had gone through.

The pain in my shoulders as well as the one in my lumbar area disappeared after two months of daily training. Before I had taken some painkillers for my back pain so that I could manage to work. I tried to struggle instead of going on sick leave, which maybe I should have done. I have this condition with a half vertebra which, according to the doctors, is hereditary and it gets dislocated very easily. But it has not done that since I started practising Zhineng Qigong in earnest and for the last two months I have, as I said, not felt my back at all.

In addition to the pain it was very difficult for me to lift my arms and work with them above my head. I felt a definite resistance when I tried it, and I had to struggle with that. But the resistance that was there before when I tried to raise my arms has disappeared completely during the 2005 Summer Course. Even my shoulders have, so to speak, fallen down on this course and that is just marvellous.

Another thing which improved during this short time of training is my panic anxiety, my fears for certain things have abated. My fears have the character of emotional attachments. The training has given me more confidence in expressing what I truly feel. As clear in my head as I am now, I have probably never been before. Usually there would be a lot of grey thoughts and a lot of thinking. It feels just incredible and slightly unreal.

All of this happened during the Spring and the 2005 Summer Course. It took rather a slight effort compared to what it gave me in return. But is still was very hard to pull yourself together and practise because you build this self-image which you live by and believe in, but now I am building myself a new self-image. I had great resistance to start practising Qigong, maybe a fear because it was something completely new to me and it was not manly enough or physical enough. Looking back it is just incredible and definitely not lacking in masculinity, I find it very manly. It is strange that we have such great resistance just to dare try it at the beginning, to see what happens. One thing that was important to me was that there should be an experienced supervising teacher behind the teaching, with experience of the long Qigong tradition.

Peter Pettersson