7960405878?profile=originalWomen participate in a qigong class near Boca Raton’s South Beach Pavilion. The ancient Chinese class is offered by Lisa Perdue and Enrique Diaz.  Paula Detwiller/The Coastal Star

By Paula Detwiller

At first glance, it looks like humanoid robots have invaded the beach. They creep forward, silently transferring weight from one foot to the other, eyes fixed straight ahead, arms wheeling around in slow motion.
    Take a closer look and you realize the robots are ordinary people in street clothes. They are concentrating very hard on their slow, deliberate movements. They’re not evil robots from a science fiction fantasy. They come in peace.
    In fact, they come to this stretch of seashore near Boca Raton’s South Beach Pavilion to engage in qigong (pronounced “chee-gong”), an ancient Chinese practice that is part exercise, part meditation. They are students in a free qigong class offered monthly by Lisa Perdue and Enrique Diaz, owners of Asian Integrative Medicine in Boca Raton.
    “We offer the class because so many people don’t know what qigong is,” says Perdue, who is a board-certified doctor of Oriental medicine. “This type of movement is a branch of Chinese medicine that’s been around for 5,000 years.”
Literally translated from the Chinese as “life energy cultivation,” qigong combines rhythmic breathing with slow, fluid movements. According to Chinese philosophy, the practice helps balance and strengthen one’s qi, or energy.
Perdue says practicing qigong at the ocean’s edge can intensify the experience.
“We’re pulling from nature — from the sand, the sea, the salt, the air,” she says. “The Chinese believe that qi is in everything, so we are cultivating this energy, drawing it in, and using it for our own healing.”
    At the conclusion of class, students are instructed to place their hands over their belly buttons and continue to breathe deeply to “seal in” the energy they have collected.
    Student Lee Emmer, 85, of East Boca, says these beachfront qigong classes make her feel “really refreshed and energized.”
    “I just feel better,” Emmer says. “Anyone can do it. It doesn’t take any prior skill.”
    Another student, 60-year-old Larry Fernald, says the classes have helped him mentally decompress. “It’s good breathing exercise for me, and it’s very nice,” he says.
    Whether practiced on the beach, at home, or in a traditional Asian dojo like the one qigong instructor Gary Giamboi operates in Lake Worth, qigong is thought to benefit health on three levels.
    “On the physical level, qigong can give you more flexibility and greater range of motion, balance, and coordination,” Giamboi says. “On the mental level, it can improve your ability to concentrate and focus.”
    Done correctly, he says, qigong should be meditative, and this calming of the mind can trigger the third level of benefit: spiritual clarity.
    “When you quiet yourself down and focus on nothing but you, your breath, and your intentional movements, you have the possibility to see your spiritual connection to life, to God, to the universe — to whatever you think is important to connect with,” he says. “You can move into your own personal space and leave the world behind.”
    If you’d like to try it (and don’t mind looking like a robot on the beach), the next free “Qigong for the Community” class will be held at 8 a.m. Oct. 27 at Boca Raton’s South Beach Pavilion, East Palmetto Park Road and A1A.

Paula Detwiller is a freelance writer and lifelong fitness junkie. Find her at www.pdwrites.com.

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