Anne had also been living with a difficult physical reality for years, one that doctors told her could be permanent, and qigong started to help with that, too.

When I was 22, I had a, a car crash on the German highway, which wasn't much fun.

So I crushed my neck vertebras, and, um, the result was a lot of headaches and pain in my, my body.

And when I started to practice qigong, I was 26, and I could feel that this qi also works on my neck vertebras.

And the headaches were not gone, but they were less and less.

I also had, um, some allergies, and, um, after I think I practiced like one or two years, everything was gone.

I believe if my medical doctor who told me when I was 22 that I will never move smoothly, uh, for the rest of my life and I will keep on having pain, if he sees me now, he would say, "This is a different person," because I, I can do all the movements, and I have never pain, uh, for the last 25 years.

When I heard Anne say that, I thought about every time I've approached a health challenge looking for the expert who would fix it, the specialist who would find the answer, and how rarely I've thought to ask, "What does my body already know?" Anne has a way of talking about Qi, the life force at the center of everything she teaches, that I keep coming back to.