Chinese Medical Exercise (CME) Series 1 & 2 (Workshops and Certificates)

Tim's classes are accessible and simple, so a beginner can benefit from them. His classes are also deeply complex—there is always another layer to uncover and explore.                       ... Louise F.

Tim's online courses are the fruit of extensive research and experience in both the health and martial arts fields. The quality of his teaching is unique, and you can feel that he has mastered the subjects he teaches with great generosity. I highly recommend his online courses, as his pedagogy is truly exceptional.                        ... Mohammed Saïah - Qi Gong teacher with 40+ experience

CME 1: Chinese Medical Exercise (50 hrs in-person)

Explore key pillars of Chinese medicine for health and well-being.  Simple, hands-on lessons integrate therapeutic exercise (Daoyin/Qigong), breathing (TuNa), qi circulation (Xingqi), self-massage (Anmo), and fingertip acupressure (Zhiya) to experience the deep structure of the body from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine. Each 3-week session can be taken independently. Our 50-hour, 11-week CME series consists of carefully sequenced  workshops offered once a week from October through May. Workshops are recorded and available for review at any time.

Blue registration links use Square secure payment. PayPal also available.

Fall 2024/Spring 2025 CME 1 schedule (classes meet Wednesdays 12-1:30 PM in Milford CT)
9/25-10/09 Session 1: Exploring the Two Qi: Integrating Breath and Body Channels  (3 week session)
  • Experience your body channels (meridians) as conduits of qi communication that reach from your limbs up through your head and torso. Explore the relationship between these channels and your fascial connective tissue and how your breath acts a source of whole body movement, transformation, and health.
10/16-10/30 Session 2: Refresh Your Lungs, Diaphragm, and Shoulders (3-week session)
  • Enjoy a deep experience of your lungs' relationship to your chest, shoulders, diaphragm, abdomen, lower back, as well as the Chinese medicine associations with your heart, kidneys, sinuses, skin, and how autumnal season is ideal for purging stagnant qi to activate your immune system.
11/06-11/20 Session 3: Activate Your Foot-Lumbar Wellspring for Joint Health (3 weeks)
  • Activate the root of your feet to free your hips and pelvis, strengthen your knees and lower back, support your spine, neck, and head, and invigorate circulation. Learn to assess your postural alignment and how meditative walking can be one of the most complete exercises for whole body health and fitness.
12/04-12/18 Session 4: Secure Your Kidney Qi: Hormonal Balance and Aging  (3 weeks)
  • Experience how the kidney system influences your water metabolism, adrenal balance, and the health of your pelvic region through exercises that relax and activate your deep abdomen, lower back, and spine. Explore your kidneys' relationship to your heart and learn how to conserve vitality and help expel the chronic pains and fatigue worsened by cold weather.
1/08-1/22 Session 5: Free Your Spine and Alleviate Chronic Pain  (3 weeks)
  • Use deep yet gentle spinal twists to relieve tension, pain, and weakness due to obstructions in the free flow of qi and blood. Strengthen your reserves and improve circulation to ease headaches, back and shoulder pain, joint pain and stiffness, and repetitive stress injuries of the wrist, arm, and shoulders, and even invigorate your vision.
1/29-2/12 Session 6: Ease Your Liver Qi and Stress Response”  (3 weeks)  
  • Wake up stiff joints and muscles, clear away winter doldrums and workday frustration, and energize your body from feet to fingertips while encouraging relaxed clarity of mind. Liver exercises improve the free flow of qi and blood throughout your body to encourage easy strength, better digestion, deeper breathing, improved sexual health, restful sleep, and emotional balance.
2/19-3/05 Session 7: “Digestion, Fatigue, and Muscle Health”  (3 weeks)
  • Activate your abdomen, limbs, and mid-back to build core support, leg strength, and tissue health. Learn abdominal exercises to harmonize the deep yin-yang dynamics underlying your postural support, digestion, daily energy, and mental focus.
3/12-3/26 Session 8: “Invigorate Circulation to Nourish Your Heart and Spirit"  (3 weeks)
  • Open your chest and shoulders, relieve arm pain, and help reduce inflammation, anxiety, or insomnia. Learn how Chinese medicine treats your heart, mind, and spirit as aspects of a single system that radiates outward through your body to express vibrant health in your face, skin, voice, eyes, and bearing.
4/02-4/16 Session 9: “Transforming Sinews Method (Muscle Change Classic)"  (3 weeks)
  • Learn a personalized approach to the twelve movement Transforming Sinews Method (Muscle Change Classic), one of the most popular routines for strengthening joints, tendons, ligaments, muscles, fascia, and bones. Adapt your practice from natural and graceful method to a strenuous full-body exercise, ensuring a good fit for every practitioner.
4/23-5/07 Session 10: “Eight-piece Brocade and Tailoring Personalized Routines”  (3 weeks)
  • Explore multiple approaches to the Eight-piece Brocade, a popular routine that draws upon the channel system to integrate your musculoskeletal system with your inner organs in a simple daily practice. Explore how to create new routines tailored to the personal needs of you or your students and clients.
5/14-5/28 Session 11: “Six Word Formula (Six Healing Sounds)"  (3 weeks)
  • Use the vocal resonance, visualization, and movement to harmonize your organ systems and relieve the effects of emotional stress. Review the body maps and exercise strategies of the entire course.
The CME 1 certificate includes dozens of specific exercises and treatment strategies within the context of traditional Chinese medicine as well as a personalized approach to the most popular health maintenance routines. In each class, emphasis is placed on perceiving, understanding, and guiding qi for specific therapeutic benefit. The detailed palpation of soft tissue, channels, and cavities is made clear through our workshops, detailed class notes, and online video recordings.

Beginners will gain:
  ●  Practical self-treatment strategies for your health and well-being
  ●  An experiential introduction to traditional Chinese medicine
  ●  Competency at teaching a variety of foundation exercises

Movement instructors will gain:
  ●  New exercises easily integrated into a variety of practices and classes
  ●  New body maps to help improve student performance and understanding
  ●  Simple strategies for adapting exercises to individual needs and challenges

Bodyworkers will gain:
  ●  Gentle range of motion and release techniques
  ●  Improved body mechanics and self-care to support your work
  ●  Integrated exercise recommendations for clients

Chinese medicine practitioners will gain:
  ●   Additional modalities that complement acupuncture and moxibustion
  ●  Seamless integration with TCM treatment principles
  ●  Practical embodiment of your understanding of qi, channels, and organs

CME 2: Advanced Chinese Medical Exercise Certificate (50 hours)

Deepen your practice of Chinese therapeutic movement by exploring how the basic strategies combine to create powerful and synergistic effects through the movements of Tai Chi, Bagua, the Five Animal Play, and other traditional practices. In order to fully uncover the internal dynamics of traditional exercises, we will compare multiple systems of each (for example with five different interpretations of the Tiger Play, both in place and walking). We will review the basic exercises and strategies of CME 1 as a jumping off point for each new curriculum block. This course will also further your understanding of traditional Chinese diagnosis and treatment strategies.

Program Enrollment
  ● 2 or 4-week sessions can be taken individually or the entire series can be taken as a certificate training. 
  ● There is a discount for the complete 33-week series ($599).
  ● Optionally, participants can opt for rolling enrollments in individual 2-week sessions ($39) and 4-week sessions ($79) as described in the schedule (for a total of $648).
  ● The first 2-week curriculum block ($39), can be applied to the full year discount package ($599-$39=$560) before the second curriculum block begins.
  ● Upon completion of all CTM 2 workshops, a 50-hour certificate will be issued. (Certificates require the full sequence in order.)
CTM 2 sessions (not scheduled for 2024-25)
Advanced Breathing Methods to Strengthen Your Lung Qi  (2 weeks) 
Tiger Play: Harmonizing Your Lungs and Liver (4 weeks)   
Xingyi Tripartite Stance and Taiji Ruler: Strengthening Root and Intention (2 weeks)
Bagua Circle Walking for Unifying Your Legs and Spine (2 weeks) 
Bear Play: Supplementing Your Kidney, Liver, and Digestion (4 weeks)
Swimming Dragon: Opening the Three Levels (2 weeks)
Guo Lin's New Qigong: cancer-therapy walk (2 weeks)
Deer Play: Nourishing Your Spine and Tendons (4 weeks)
Monkey Play: Harmonizing Digestion and Refreshing Your Brain (4 weeks)
Applying the Five Animals Play to Tai Chi (2 weeks)   
Crane Play: Nourishing Heart and Lung, Refining the Spirit (4 weeks)
Improvised (Spontaneous) Five Animals Play and Personalized Practice (1 week)