WUJI HUNDUN QIGONG INSTRUCTOR CERTIFICATIONAn Immersive 5-Day Training in an 800-Year-Old Qigong Lineage
October 14–18, 2026
(Option to do INTRO DAYS 14 &15 only)
Book Here: https://www.communityawake.org/lp-courses/
Wuji Mountain | Asheville, North Carolina
Led by Francesco Garri Garripoli
What if, instead of fighting the chaos of life, you could learn to move with it?
Wuji Hundun Qigong is an extraordinary traditional Qigong practice with roots stretching back approximately 800 years. The word Hundun refers to the primordial state of chaos, the fertile field from which creation and possibility emerge.
At the heart of this practice is a powerful idea:
We do not always need to control chaos. We can learn to enter it, move with it, and discover the creative energy hidden within it.
This October, join internationally recognized Senior Qigong Teacher Francesco Garri Garripoli at Wuji Mountain in the mountains of Western North Carolina for an intimate five-day immersion into the Wuji Hundun lineage passed directly to him by renowned Chinese Qigong Master Duan Zhi Liang.
This is more than learning a sequence of movements.
It is an opportunity to deepen your relationship with Qi, expand your understanding of the energetic body, cultivate greater internal awareness, and learn a living practice designed to support healing, vitality, emotional balance, resilience, and personal transformation.
For those who qualify, this immersive program also offers a pathway to become a Certified Wuji Hundun Qigong Instructor and carry this remarkable lineage forward into your own community.
THE WUJI HUNDUN LINEAGE
Wuji Hundun is an 18-movement Qigong form with Taoist, shamanic, energetic, and martial influences.
Francesco received the practice directly from Master Duan Zhi Liang while living and studying with him at his clinic in Beijing in the early 1990s. For generations, this practice was preserved within Master Duan's family lineage before eventually being shared beyond China.
Its movements work with breath, awareness, intention, meridians, the Wei Qi energetic field, and the dynamic relationship between structure and flow.
Rather than attempting to make life perfectly ordered, Wuji Hundun invites us to develop another capacity:
to remain centered, creative, responsive, and alive in the midst of change.
In a world filled with uncertainty and transformation, this ancient practice can feel remarkably contemporary.
WHAT YOU WILL EXPLORE
Throughout the five-day immersion, participants will develop both an experiential and practical understanding of Wuji Hundun Qigong, including:
• The complete 18-movement Wuji Hundun Qigong form
• Working consciously with Qi, Hundun, the Wei Qi Field, and meridian pathways
• The relationship between movement, breath, energy, and awareness
• Yi, the intentional awareness and focused consciousness central to Qigong practice
• Acupressure points and their practical everyday applications
• How particular movements may be used to support health, vitality, balance, and well-being
• The subtle relationship between grounded physical movement and energetic expansion
• Developing confidence in embodying and eventually teaching the practice
• Integrating Wuji Hundun into an ongoing personal self-care and Qigong practice
Most importantly, this training is an opportunity to move beyond simply memorizing a form and begin experiencing Qigong as an embodied relationship with energy, awareness, intention, and life itself.
INSTRUCTOR CERTIFICATION
Participants pursuing Instructor Certification will complete the five-day live training followed by a three-month Self-Assessment, mentoring, and coaching process with Francesco.
This ongoing mentorship distinguishes the program from a typical weekend certification. The intention is not simply to teach movements, but to help participants develop the understanding, embodiment, confidence, and heart-centered presence needed to share Qigong responsibly with others.
Certification candidates should have previous experience in areas such as Qigong, Tai Chi, yoga, movement arts, healthcare, energy medicine, bodywork, meditation, or related healing practices.
Applicants who do not meet every formal prerequisite may still be considered individually. Francesco's approach places importance not only on accumulated training hours, but also on teaching ability, intention, maturity, and heart.
NOT INTERESTED IN TEACHING?
You are still welcome.
A limited number of spaces are available for participants who feel called to experience the five-day immersion primarily for personal healing, growth, and deeper study rather than Instructor Certification.
Participants on this path may receive a Certificate of Completion and can inquire about the reduced non-certification rate.
JUST WANT TO TRY IT OUT?
We have limited spaces for those who would like to just try out days 1 & 2.
Book Here: https://www.communityawake.org/lp-courses/
ABOUT YOUR FACILITATOR
FRANCESCO GARRIPOLI
Francesco Garri Garripoli is an internationally recognized Senior Qigong Teacher, meditation instructor, author, wellness advocate, musician, researcher, and longtime student of Eastern healing traditions.
His formal exploration of Eastern healing began in the 1970s and eventually took him throughout China, India, Hawaii, Thailand, and beyond, studying directly with elder teachers and healing masters.
During the early 1990s, Francesco lived and studied with Master Duan Zhi Liang in Beijing, receiving the Wuji Hundun Qigong practice directly from him.
Francesco is Chairman Emeritus of the National Qigong Association and currently serves as Chairman of the Qigong Institute.
He is the author of The Qi Effect, Qigong: Essence of the Healing Dance, and Tao of the Ride, and an Emmy Award-winning producer whose PBS documentary exploring Qigong in China reached a worldwide audience.
In 2001, Francesco founded CommunityAwake, a nonprofit organization devoted to helping people access their innate capacity for healing, awareness, personal transformation, and empowered living.
Through decades of teaching, international retreats, instructor certifications, meditation programs, and healing initiatives, his work has helped bring traditional Qigong practices into contemporary communities around the world.
His teaching emphasizes more than technique.
It emphasizes presence, intention, heart, curiosity, and the direct experience of Qi.
ABOUT MASTER DUAN ZHI LIANG
Master Duan Zhi Liang was a renowned Chinese Qigong Master, healer, martial practitioner, and lineage holder of Wuji Hundun Qigong.
For generations, this distinctive practice was preserved within his family lineage. Its roots combine traditional Chinese energetic understanding with Taoist philosophy, healing practices, and martial influences.
Francesco met Master Duan while living in China and was given the rare opportunity to study closely with him in Beijing in the early 1990s.
Master Duan eventually chose to allow this previously closely held family practice to move into the wider world.
Through this transmission, Wuji Hundun has now reached practitioners and teachers internationally while maintaining a living connection to the lineage from which it emerged.
Master Duan passed peacefully in Beijing in 2016, but his teachings continue through the practitioners and instructors entrusted with carrying this work forward.
Participating in this training is therefore not simply an opportunity to learn another Qigong form.
It is an opportunity to enter a lineage.
ABOUT SUZANNE BLAKE
Director of Creative Development, Wuji Mountain
Suzanne Blake brings an unusual combination of international business leadership, creative vision, wellness education, retreat development, and embodied practice to her role as Director of Creative Development at Wuji Mountain.
With an International MBA and a professional background spanning entrepreneurship, business development, fundraising, hospitality, education, wellness, and experiential programming, Suzanne has lived and worked internationally and traveled throughout more than 50 countries. Her life and work have included extended chapters in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States, giving her a deeply cross-cultural perspective on community, transformation, and the ways people gather.
Her professional experience has included corporate development and fundraising, hospitality and wellness leadership, university teaching, event production, and creating new business concepts and offerings.
Alongside her business background, Suzanne has spent years immersed in embodied and contemplative practices. She is a trained yoga teacher with additional study in Thai Yoga Massage, Craniosacral work, Qigong, movement, somatic practices, ceremony, and holistic wellness.
At Wuji Mountain, Suzanne works at the intersection of vision, experience, and connection.
Her role includes developing strategic partnerships, cultivating relationships with aligned organizations and supporters, shaping retreats and workshops, creating new experiential programming, supporting fundraising and community outreach, and helping guide the creative direction, storytelling, marketing, and evolution of Wuji Mountain.
She is particularly passionate about creating experiences that move beyond simply attending an event and instead invite people into genuine connection, transformation, beauty, embodiment, and community.
Her work helps bridge the ancient and the contemporary: honoring the depth of traditional practices while imagining new ways they can be experienced, shared, and woven into modern life.
ABOUT WUJI MOUNTAIN
Wuji Mountain is an evolving retreat and learning sanctuary in the mountains outside Asheville, North Carolina, created through CommunityAwake as a place for Qigong, meditation, healing, retreats, community, creativity, and personal transformation.
Surrounded by the natural beauty of Western North Carolina, it offers an intimate environment in which participants can step away from everyday demands and immerse themselves more fully in practice.
For five days this October, Wuji Mountain becomes a home for an ancient lineage, a community of practitioners, and an exploration of what becomes possible when we stop resisting change and learn to move with it.
JOIN US
Wuji Hundun Qigong Instructor Certification
October 14–18, 2026
Wuji Mountain | Asheville, North Carolina
Options:
Instructor Certification
5 Day Immersion
2 Day Initiation
https://www.communityawake.org/lp-courses/qigong/wuji-hundun-instructor-certification-14-18-october-5-day-qigong-training/
A reduced rate is available for a limited number of participants attending for personal development rather than certification.
Space is intentionally limited to preserve the depth and intimacy of the training.
If you are a Qigong practitioner, yoga or movement teacher, healer, bodyworker, healthcare professional, meditation teacher, or someone who feels genuinely called to deepen your relationship with energy and embodied practice, we invite you to explore whether this training is for you.
Come learn the form.
Experience the lineage.
Deepen your relationship with Qi.
And discover what it means to make peace with chaos.
Event venue
Asheville, North Carolina, United States
Tickets
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