Yin & Yang Explained Through Qigong
Balancing Complimentary Energies with Simple Flow Practices
The Illusion of Either/Or
Have you ever found yourself caught in a state of “either/or” thinking, this or that, right or left, his or her? In our modern world, duality is often perceived as two forces locked in opposition. But in nature, Yin and Yang are not enemies. They are complementary, interdependent, and continuously harmonizing.
We can see this in the most timeless way: the shifting relationship between light and shadow. Day and night move in a gentle, ongoing cycle, neither trying to dominate the other, always yielding in rhythm. The ancient Yin Yang symbol was created through this simple observation of nature itself.
If you’d like a deeper exploration of Yin and Yang, I created a full breakdown in a separate session. It’s a beautiful foundation for understanding energy within Qigong practice.
What Yin and Yang Really Teach Us
Balancing energy is at the heart of Qigong. When we fall too far to one side, we lose access to our full capacity. You may notice times when you’re too Yin, drifting, flowing, hesitating, or too Yang, pushing, grasping, striving. Neither is wrong. The skill is learning when to soften and when to engage.
The Daoist text Tao Te Ching, Chapter 2, beautifully reflects this teaching of “the twos.” Light and dark, easy and hard, near and far, each defines and reveals the other. If you’re curious about this wisdom, I’ve explored Chapter 2 more deeply in another video in the Jammin’ on the Dao series.
Cultivating Harmony Through Awareness
One of the simplest ways to balance Yin and Yang is to begin noticing them within your daily patterns. How do you respond to challenges? Do you lean toward withdrawal, Yin, or over-efforting, Yang?
Through Qigong movements, breath awareness, and soft attention, we can harmonize these internal forces. The goal isn’t perfection, it’s responsiveness. It’s teaching your body, breath, emotions, and nervous system how to return to center.
Beginning the Qigong Practice
We always start with a bow, honoring:
Yourself for showing up
The lineage of Qigong teachers before us
Everyone practicing around the world
Feet together, inhale deeply, palms come up, and with your exhale, a gentle bow. This reminds us that every cultivation practice begins with gratitude.
Then we step into High Horse Stance, feet shoulder-width apart, knees soft, spine elongated, shoulders relaxed. This foundational Qigong posture aligns the body and settles the mind.
The Body’s Natural Polarity
For thousands of years, Daoist practitioners and classical Chinese medicine observed the crossing nature of the body’s energetic systems:
The right brain, often associated with creativity and intuitive perception, is more Yin and connects to the left side of the body
The left brain, often linked to logic and structure, is more Yang and connects to the right side of the body
So your right hand is naturally more Yang, and your left hand naturally more Yin, but through movement, we can transform them. This is where Qigong becomes a living dialogue with energy.
Working With Polarity Through Movement
We lift the palms to shape the Tai Chi Ball, that gentle sphere of energy between the hands. Turning it over, Yin becomes Yang, and Yang becomes Yin. Soft becomes firm. Firm becomes soft.
Nothing is rigid. Everything responds to awareness.
We sync this with breath:
Inhale as one hand rises
Exhale as the other softens
Sometimes the hands expand like an opening horizon
Sometimes they draw inward, gathering and consolidating
This isn’t just exercise. This is a conversation between the two sides of your being.
Through these gentle movements, you’re teaching your nervous system how to return to balance. Your emotional body learns to respond with grace. Your mind softens its grip on extremes.
A Living Experience of Balance
As we continue, we explore flowing movements designed specifically to harmonize Yin and Yang, slow rises, gentle weight shifts, soft palm rotations. These awaken the body without overstimulating it.
By the end of a practice like this, most people feel a subtle but undeniable shift, a sense of integration, as if mind, breath, and body finally begin working together again.
This is the essence of Qigong:
Not balance as a concept
but balance as a lived, embodied experience
A return to natural harmony, one simple movement at a time.