John Walcott inter 01.11.21 - 2021-01-11, 12.16 PM.mp3
John Walcott inter 01.11.21 - 2021-01-11, 12.16 PM.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
John Walcott inter 01.11.21 - 2021-01-11, 12.16 PM.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Intro music:
Welcome to Grieve with Ease, a podcast where we talk about the many signs of loss and death on each episode, you'll hear from a cross-section of men and women who share how they dealt with loss, found comfort and even humor during what many consider a very dark time. The show is designed to bring comfort, to answer questions and let you know you are not alone. Now, here's your host, Martika Whylly.
Martika Whylly:
John Walcott is a master Qigong instructor who shares and encourages the practice of Qigong, which gives the body the opportunity to heal itself and restore balance. Welcome, John.
Martika Whylly:
Welcome to agree with these. John Walcott, am I pronouncing your name correctly?
John Walcott:
That is correct, yes.
Martika Whylly:
Yes, that's great. So so tell me what you do with this Qigong. Your Qigong master are you?
John Walcott:
Well, we try to stay away from terms such as that. There are traditional terms for. That were used in days past, but what's happening is like everybody's a qigong master, and and , it's like being a Jedi master, you know, it's how do you prove it, you know?
John Walcott:
So now there are schools that set up that have practitioner programs, therapist programs, master's programs, doctors programs. So we go through different levels. So, yes, there is a master's program that I completed. Yes.
Martika Whylly:
Well well, that's that's pretty good. It's impressive. And what is qigong?
John Walcott:
Qigong is a bit of a art to healing art? They could say call it a personal health care system that originated in China. It it's been nicknamed the Chinese version of yoga, if you will.
John Walcott:
There's over nine thousand styles of Qigong, three types. There is the medical Qigong. There is spiritual Qigong. There is therapeutic Qigong. Medical Qigong is for help with chronic illnesses such as cancer or so forth and so on. Therapeutic qigong is to maintain health as you see it sometimes in Tai chi and there is therapeutic qigong. I'm sorry, there's a fourth one spiritual that I mentioned. Spiritual is the fourth one is sport, which you'll see in Tai chi and martial arts like that that do an exercise for self cultivation. And there's spiritual qigong that exercises done with the idea to connect you more to the divine. To create an ecstatic response, if you will.
Martika Whylly:
And how does that affect the body, mind and the emotions?
John Walcott:
Depending on the style, for instance, it is based on traditional Chinese medicine and there is an idea that in Western medicine also the idea is here that emotions can affect your body, especially toxic emotions.
John Walcott:
Emotions that we have had for a long time over time can put us out of balance, make us sick, if you will. Too much anger in your liver, too much fear, old trauma in your kidneys, too much worrying and thinking of affecting your spleen, too much sadness, grief, guilt or shame in your lungs. So they're saying over time, these are in Chinese medicine. These are not just organs, they're organ systems. So for kidney would be fear or trauma. Kidney organ system affects the brain, the spinal cord, central nervous system, your organs of reproduction, your entire bones, the skeletal system. So each emotion left to itself, each toxic emotion left to itself without some type of a purge or some type of transformation or transmutation can lead to an illness or some type of illness. And sometimes it is the root cause of some diseases.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, that I agree with, definitely. That's why I try to be stress free as much as possible, which is not. It doesn't work because life is full of stresses but stresses. There's good stress to though, right?
John Walcott:
Yes, there are ways you can purge know over time. I was advised my class of people in my class to watch some comedy, you know, get yourself a good belly laugh and, you know, spend some time with people who make you feel up, you know, stay away from people feel down, stop watching the news so much 24 hours a day.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, that's depressing.
John Walcott:
Do something emotional health is important put it that way.
Martika Whylly:
That one very, very important. Yeah, I find that laughter. If I watch a really funny movie, especially movie I haven't seen before and you don't know the funny parts that are coming up first and then I, you know, I go to bed shortly after that. I have the best sleep. I sleep after a good laugh.
John Walcott:
So see that. So it does work.
Martika Whylly:
Yes, it does work. So where is qigong originated? You said China, I would imagine somewhere in China.
John Walcott:
Yes, it's there are some similarities. There was a time everybody thought it originated in India and then transferred over to China and so forth. But my studies, I believe that they came from a common source, a much older civilization. I don't know which one it could be the Tibetan or the Egyptians, but it's much older than we realize. I'm starting to understand. But for now, the Chinese in our lifetime have categorized it and to a point where they have catalogued nine thousand different styles, including Tai chi, which is what most people are most people are familiar with. But unfortunately, sometimes people see qigong and think it's Tai chi being done when there is there is a difference, which we can talk about later on. But yeah, qigong, the word is Chinese. It's two words, qi, which means life, force or energy, which is means that you're more than blood and breath and bone, that there is a life force that animates your body and gong is skill, something that takes time and effort to achieve like kung fu, or you could say, you know, your your your interviewing gong is quite good because it's not something you do overnight. It's a skill that takes time and effort. So gone would be classified as that. So qigong would be energy work or energy skill that takes time and effort to develop. And yes, it's from China.
Martika Whylly:
And how has it helped you?
John Walcott:
Oh, boy, in many ways, I primarily I was a kid with bad asthma. And four months after learning it or should I say four months after I practice, I notice my asthma problems went away. And believe me, that's not the reason I started training. And I really want to learn kung fu to 16 years old, 15 years old to help me with other sports, helped me defend myself in New York City at the time, I was living in Brooklyn. But one of the side effects is it got rid of the asthma because this traditional master, I meant you were going to learn kung fu from him unless you learn the healing side of it, which was qigong. So forever grateful to him for that.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, because I didn't think that you would get healing out of it, you just wanted to defend yourself from.
John Walcott:
Exactly. And it's it's you know, it's a personal health care system, so it's protected over time from many stresses that I normally would, you know, not eating right sometimes in your life and so forth and so on. I credit the qigong with protecting me until I got some sense in my head. And then there's the emotional release. As we spoke about earlier, there's, oh, there exercises to help you purge some of these toxic emotions from your body. And when I say purge, I mean, as long as you're alive, you're going to experience anger and sadness and worry and all of these things. But the idea is to not let them build up so much in your system that they could make you sick.
Martika Whylly:
True. True. And how can how can qigong help with the grieving process?
John Walcott:
For, for instance, several things. One is exercise for grief. On a scale. A vibratory scale, most people would think the worst emotions would in your body would be anger, but the way the cells react to different emotions, what they've cataloged over the years is that the worst emotion in your body is grief or guilt. They're very similar and. It can over time create health problems inside. In fact, with as I said, this is based on Chinese medicine, with grief in the lungs, it can shut down or slowly hamper the functions of other organs because of, you know, the first breath. This is where life enters your body through the lungs. So the lungs store our sense of righteousness and integrity. But when it's off balance, it deals with our sadness, grief, guilt, shame when they're toxic. So too much of a build up can throw off the kidneys, throw off the liver and a chain reaction, throw off your heart, throw off your spleen, throw off your entire system. So there's specific exercise that we do and from simple to advance that help people with maintain a healthy emotional life or with chronic buildup of toxic emotions. There's many techniques that we use to help purge this toxic build up, if you will, because it can be. Can be bad for your health over time, and change is healthy cells vibrate at a certain frequency and it can change your healthy cell vibration over time. That's how powerful sadness and grief is, can change you for quite a bit. And so that has to be something. And it's not just qigong. There are other forms. There's found out prayer is they've found out exercise is simulating crying. Also helped purge old grief, sadness. There are many things that you can do. You know that comedy I mentioned earlier? A lot of things to burn it off. And there's a process you have to go through in dealing with the process of closure, with grief. But then after that, there are things you can do to help it up it along.
Martika Whylly:
Well, I've never I've heard of Qigong, but I don't know, like if somebody were to do a Qigong movement, I would probably mistake it. Maybe for Tai chi. You said it's very similar to tai chi?
John Walcott:
Well, it gave birth to tai chi. It's thousands of years older, but Tai chi is about 400 years old or qigong goes back for about eight thousand years now. So any slow moving exercise is most Westerners think is tai chi. But Tai Chi is a martial art first it was created to defend oneself and to strengthen oneself. It's changed with the invention of the gun over time, meaning it's now art for self cultivation where you could use it for it's been slowed down. Same exercise is used to brush an arm or protect your arm or put somebodies arm in a lock. Turns out is actually good for lubrication and your joints exercises for punching and striking actually massage the liver and the heart. So typical where it's not used for an aggressive manner, it's used for therapeutic manner in this case to increase the oxygen level. Good for balance. There's quite a few studies that have done on it, how it proves your immune system helps with respiratory issues, blood pressure problems and such.
Martika Whylly:
Nice. I think we're going to have to start doing a bit of this Qigong, it sounds it sounds really wonderful. Now, you mentioned you mentioned the liver in different parts of the organs. Now, I'm just wondering now if you if like let's say, for example, my liver is kind of acting up, is that a certain emotion it's attached to? Is it or could it just be anything like a.
John Walcott:
Well, traditionally, they feel that it's at houses in our when it's balance our sense of kindness, emotions of kindness and creativity when it's unbalanced anger or frustration. And a lot of again, a lot of things in Chinese medicine. This comes down to the wood element. So with the liver. There are exercises to stimulate your creativity, if you will, service. There's an interesting documentary on a gentleman, that had cancer I was dealing with and they gave him exercises, calligraphy and painting exercises and painting. Anyway, and helped purge a lot of his anger. But not only that, this gentleman who's never painted anything that day in his life is now regarded as a true national treasure in China, where his calligraphy's are immediately taken to a museum. Some of them sold for up to twenty, thirty thousand dollars. He started it as a therapeutic exercise. It's like writing therapy. Writing therapy, we believe also is great for the liver. It helps purge a lot of anger from the system and sometimes important for you to use a pencil rather than a pen and just write and all. You'll find some relief there. And plus, there's a lot of studies that back this up about writing therapy and so forth. So for the liver, anger, old anger, old frustrations, when it's balanced, our sense of kindness and creativity is enhanced.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, yeah, I do I do believe the power of writing, I didn't realize how healing it could be until I started writing for a long time and yeah, and of course, one of my teachers said writing also causes thinking, which which it seems obvious. And when he said, I'm like, duh, you got to think before you write it, but it really does create thinking. And so yeah, it's it's that's one of the techniques that I that I would that I use for for grief.
John Walcott:
Excellent.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah.
John Walcott:
Excellent.
Martika Whylly:
Great, writing is ...
John Walcott:
I'm curious about the name of your show. You said grieve with ease.
Martika Whylly:
Yes.
John Walcott:
May I asked the question, how did you come up with that name?
Martika Whylly:
Well, because grief grief can be very difficult, very, very difficult, especially if you do not know that there are stages or there's a process. I had no clue that there were stages or there was a process when I first experienced grief, when my mother died, we were very close, I was 15 years old, didn't really, you know, it was sudden she committed suicide. So it was years later that I that I learned that there was actually stages of grief and that made me feel better.
Martika Whylly:
I put me at ease. I mean, it didn't make the grief easier, but it put me at ease in a sense where all have something to work with. OK, I'm not I oh, it used to be in denial. Now I'm an anger. That's why I'm so angry. OK, and there's bargaining and guilt and depression and acceptance and that. So that helped me tremendously knowing that there were stages. But as far as I, you know, got a little bit older and experienced more death, there were techniques that I used that I didn't realize that were really good for grief. But it's music.
Martika Whylly:
For example, listening to music when crying, you know, a certain song would maybe trigger a memory from, you know, like my mom, for example, she used to love Johnny Mathis. So if I hear Johnny Mathis song, I just. It takes me back. It takes me OK. This is one of her favorite songs. And I don't grieve as much because I have gone through the process, but I just find certain techniques like writing, listening to music and humor.
Martika Whylly:
All I have a tremendous effect to help relieve some of the grief and the pain. As you were saying, it's like one of the emotions that kind of can affect the physical body if it goes unchecked. So that's yeah, I just I just figure grieve with ease. It just it just sounded and it rhymes. I'm really into rhyming sometimes.
Martika Whylly:
I just I met a lady who has a great podcast called Grief with Grace. So it's the same concept. Yeah.
John Walcott:
Yes, the rhythmic tones, I forget the name of the parts of the brain that it affects, but yes, very important, there are qigong styles that we do sounds, as you said, music. But in our case, we make the music, we make the sounds different sounds with our bodies to help the different emotions and their qigong forms that have to do with rhythmic movements that stimulate those areas of the brain. So absolutely, let's forget about that part of sound music is very important. Yes.
Martika Whylly:
Mm hmm. Very, very. I always use music for if I'm going to however I'm feeling it just it just helps.
Martika Whylly:
If I'm sad, it doesn't. I try not to play anything that makes me sadder. But when I'm listening to let's say it's a somber music, I may come out of that. And I just I release all that somberness kind of music helps release. I find.
John Walcott:
Yes.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah. So it's one of my go to besides writing and then comedy is another one, but qigong sounds like something I can get into.
John Walcott:
Wow.
Martika Whylly:
So where, where can people reach you and get to know more about this qigong like me.
John Walcott:
Well you can fly to Vero Beach and meet me on the beach 7am in the mornings, Monday through Saturday. But if you can't do that then you can join my class every Monday through Saturday on Zoom at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time.
John Walcott:
All right.
Martika Whylly:
Okay.
John Walcott:
I'll be glad to send you a link. Of course, I teach it out of my backyard with all my fruit trees in the back and so forth and with, you know, with the covid and so forth. It's been good because even though we're on the beach, sometimes we're still 15 feet apart. And we've got a nice breeze coming out of the Atlantic Ocean so that, you know, we're still being observant. But the ten o'clock class right now is my most popular class. People tune in for that one and they do it in the comfort of their own home. Quietly, Monday, Tuesday, I'm sorry, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we do something called Tai chi Balls, which strengthen not only the connective tissue, but boost your immune system by make fooling the brain and thinking that the ball is part of your body so that your electromagnetic field, which is a good indicator of your immune system, not only gets larger, but at the end of class the body absorbs it. So again, boosting not just your immune system, but your bone structure, skeletal system, circulatory system, central and peripheral nervous system, a digestive system, respiratory system, muscular system and connective tissue. So, you know, it's you'll feel it. You'll feel the effects after class. Quiet power your calm, but you feel so energized.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, I like that. I like that feeling which I haven't felt in a while. But um. So where, where can I. Is it through.
John Walcott:
Cloud walker. That the cloud walker dotcom is my website. You send me a message while you're on the list.
Martika Whylly:
Ok, I will cloud walker dot com. I have to check that out.
John Walcott:
The cloud walk dot com.
Martika Whylly:
The cloud walker dot com. Yeah. Yeah. I've been walking in the mornings just to get out and get some fresh air.
John Walcott:
Perfect.
Martika Whylly:
And doing a little bit of exercises just online through YouTube and. But yeah I want, I want to do more so.
John Walcott:
OK. Walking is the king of exercises and you know your massage so much as you stroll, qigong is more like an exaggerated walk. Instead of swinging in your arms this way, which we do, we turn squeeze in. Besides the kidneys, we move open the chest, massage your heart, your lungs. So it's more of an exaggerated walk. You'll feel it after you're done. The organs have been massaged and drink plenty of water because there's a toxin release. After you get done, you want to go to your, on your next trip to the bathroom. Not to be indelicate, but great book. Dr. Ken Cohen published a study on one hour in the gym. One hour of qigong found out that qigong people cleared out more toxins out of their systems. After that, because there's an enzyme release, we try not to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system.
John Walcott:
We try your fight or flight response. We trigger your relaxation response. So this is an exercise that keeps you in the zone. Try to keep you in the zone until you're finished. So a lot of, you know, repair work, if you will, goes on in your system while you're doing it.
Martika Whylly:
Now, that sounds wonderful.
John Walcott:
Yes, to our mutual friend, Katie. Dr. Katie, it is a regular in the class.
Martika Whylly:
Yes. Yes. I remember she had mentioned it. Yeah, yeah. I wish I was closer. I would go I would definitely go to the beach to do the stuff. I had to do that online for now until everything kind of comes down. And I can, you know, we can travel around and.
John Walcott:
Sure. Sure. You're in Canada, correct?
Martika Whylly:
Yes I am.
John Walcott:
Yes, yes. No, that's all right. Well, we'll keep the door open for you until you find a way down here.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, I would love to travel somewhere new, but it is what it is, you know. Yeah, it's got. Got to love zoom.
John Walcott:
Yes, ma'am. Yeah, this is true.
Martika Whylly:
Well, thank you so much, John, for your wonderful your story, not story, but your information on qigong, because I did not know much about qigong before talking to you, and that sounds very interesting, I'd have to look into it and check out your website there and see when you know when I could next time you're OK. You said Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, right?
John Walcott:
From Monday through Saturday. But on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we do certain special exercise with balls. But you can do it without, Monday through Saturday. You were in class.
Martika Whylly:
Nice now. Does this cost any anything?
John Walcott:
Our first class, is free see if you like it, first couple of glasses, see if you like it. We have to that for the first class. I have to get you acclimatized to the type of breathing that we do. We do body breathing, most of us. And I credit that to my instructor, my first instructor, grandmaster Alan Lee. We most of us have to breathe right, since we were 11 years old. Somewhere, someplace somebody told you to pull in your stomach, stick out your chest. And we're cramped our organs ever since. So we move you all kinds of different ways. Open the chest, close it, lift up the rib cage, close the spine. We do all these exercises and they have funny names. Luxor's and Sky Dragon raps back. Hold the pearl. All the pearl especially closes your chest and you open it and close it again as soon as a massage action on the heart and lung that spinal pumps, there's about four or five of them there. And depending on how you move, you know, you clear waste products from your brain, your heart, your lungs, your liver, spleen. And of course, the body has lymphatic system of phatic fluid, three to five times more of it in blood. We got to get that through your system by shaking, by moving and get it in there. Its job is to clean the waste products from your cells. So we have different styles of qigong to stimulate you. By the time you're done, you'll feel something. I always tell everbody you'll feel refreshed, recharge and but calm.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, well, that's that's what I'm looking for. Instead of trying to search for that sort of thing in food.
John Walcott:
Yes.
Martika Whylly:
Yeah, well, the pills. Right. Right. Motivation to make you feel because I think going for the walk in the morning, it clears my head. I feel more energized, more motivated, more focused and to start my day so I can keep that up.
John Walcott:
And as I said, they're like seven nine thousand styles, including walking qigong. They are very famous style of walking qigong, which we do for a couple of miles called name will come to me, is named after a female master who was dealing with ovarian cancer and it kept coming back. So she found her grandfather. Grandfather was a Dallas priest. She found her grandfather's notes on exercise and health and so forth and created an GALLIN that was her name, created a walking qigong that to this day is well known for combating cancers of the lower body. And you walk in a particular pattern with a particular breathing cadence and a breathing cadence, if you will. And it's it's been proven very successful in her case at her ovarian cancer never came back. And so she it's she's gone now. I think she lived in our nineties, but to this day are students and grad students and so forth have carried on till it's here in the United States now. And I teach that particular style also. So I eventually work your way up to some walking qigong. You can still go for your walks, but in a particular stepping pattern from time to time, go walk regularly and just drop into it. So it's a walking meditation, if you will, or use a softer word walking mental exercise to increase your life force.
Martika Whylly:
Right, right. Yeah, that's something to look into that. Yeah. Check you out.
John Walcott:
Yes. I sent you a link to a documentary. It's on the documentary there. So if you get a chance. OK, ok. Yeah. I did send it to you.
Martika Whylly:
Yes I did see that. Yes I did.
John Walcott:
Look in fact I think you'll enjoy watching that trust me on this very unusual and very informative.
Martika Whylly:
Ok, yeah. I like learning new things and I'm always finding new ways to improve so. That's great, I really do appreciate your time, John.
John Walcott:
Thank you very much. My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me, Martika.
Martika Whylly:
You're welcome. John.
Outro music:
You've been listening to the Grieve with Ease podcast with your host, Martika Whylly, we hope you found comfort with what you heard. Be sure to leave a rating and review of the Grieve with ease podcast show and visit our website at Grieve with ease dotcom.
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