Youth Art Festival 2022

Inaugural SLTO Qigong Workshop at Russell Hill Retirement Residence

Master Dao and a few of his students conducted a Shaolin Qigong workshop at the Russell Hill Retirement Residence this past week.

This benevolent and charitable program is part of the Shaolin Luohan Temple Outreach (SLTO) program, an initiative to provide free Shaolin-related workshops to the elderly, poor, and weak.

These senior participants (and now students) are all over 90 years of age. Most were able to participate standing and some elected to do the exercises while sitting on a chair. We were happy to accommodate.

When asked if they had ever heard of Shaolin or Qigong, it was no surprise they unanimously said no. So in other words, they had no idea what they were getting themselves into!

After a short introduction, we did some light stretching exercises while being careful to give instructions so the participants would not injure themselves or fall.

With their joints opened up, we proceeded with deep breathing qi gong exercises to help increase something called "Net Qi". You can think of this as exercising breathing muscles to release a higher level of energy in the body.

Finally we practiced Shaolin Baduanjin, an ancient Shaolin qigong form that combines breath and movement for greater circulation in the body.

At the end of the session, we asked the seniors how they felt afterwards, They all said they felt much more energetic and wanted us to come back regularly. We are happy to oblige.

This is indeed a great and successful start to our Shaolin Luohan Temple Outreach program! Thank you Michael, Steve, and Val for joining the workshop and helping to make the experience so great :) 

We want to thank Lynn for giving us the opportunity to hold the workshop and trusting us to provide an invaluable and beneficial experience for the residents.

And thank you to all our students who support our initiative! If you know any retirement homes that could benefit from our free and charitable service, please direct them to our SLTO website section here:

https://www.stqitoronto.com/index.php/shaolin-luohan-temple-outreach