Our first Winter Course was held between 25 February and 2 March. The course took place in Bollnäs and the participants came from Norway, Finland and various parts of Sweden. Many of them had previously joined Summer Courses so they were accustomed to somewhat longer-lasting courses, although they were not so used to practising our new exercise Shenxin Qigong.
The course proved inspirational to the people of Bollnäs in a number of ways. Several residents aided us idealistically with the arrangement and an additional number of them joined the course. The newspaper Ljusnan, distributed in Hälsingland, visited the course for an interview of some of the participants. On 5 March they published an article in the newspaper, featuring the participants´ stories and several pictures, including one large picture on the front page.
Soon after the course had started several of the participants commented that they felt mentally clearer and more stable, and they also felt greater mental strength. This characterized the remainder of the course and it continued after the period as well. One participant found that after the course there was an unusually large number of people who wished to talk to her – and she thinks this is caused by the calm and the harmony that she brought with her from the course. After the course Barbro discovered that she was able to read more and better than before. Already while she was a young student she had problems with her vision. About twenty years ago she got new spectacles which helped her to see much better, but even with these new spectacles she found it difficult to read. She was, for one thing, dependent upon daylight to read because electric lighting was inadequate, and the other thing was that she was not able to read for longer periods of time. If she would try to read for a long time the letters would become blurred and finally they would all blend into a muddle. During later years she has formed the habit of reading talking books when they were available. After the course while travelling on a train, Barbro felt like doing some reading and so she bought a paperback. She did not expect very much since the text of the book was rather small and the light at the train was not too good. To her great surprise she found herself reading 90 pages in one afternoon and in two days she had finished the book which was 220 pages long! After that Barbro has bought several books because she hopes to be able to catch up on some of the things she has been missing over the years.
Very fine results were also found among those participants who suffered from pain. Below are some statistics from the participants´ replies on the inquiries. The columns of the bar chart below represent the percentage of the participants who had joined the course with various complaints such as depression, and who had found improvements during the course.
After the course the participants noticed an improvement in their training at home, not just concerning Shenxin Qigong but also Hold Qi Up. Their body felt stronger and more flexible. For most of the participants Shenxin Qigong has become more fun to practise. With the participants´ fine results, their happy faces and positive feedback in mind, we hope that the Winter Course will become a new tradition.