Part 1

Body-Mind-Organ Connection

Learn how to effortlessly bring body, mind and emotions into a relaxed state.

26 September – 3 October 2024

Introduction

This 8-day course is led by Master Zhen Hua Yang, the founder of the Calligraphy Health system and the guardian of his family’s 400-year lineage in ancient martial, internal, and self-healing Chinese arts.

In this course, you will learn how to reconnect with yourself by rebuilding trust and communication between your body, mind, and your center – the internal organs and Dan Tian (the energy center).

The key to this internal connection lies in your blood, which carries oxygen, nutrients, and information in your body. Human energy, health, well-being, and longevity are all based on blood circulation. This course helps you understand this relationship and equips you with the tools to develop it.

This internal connection is established on the cellular level. By using tools such as movement, breath, attention, intention, and vibration, we connect with our blood cells. Each day of the course, we build trust, safety, and self-love within the body. By enhancing blood circulation, we imbue these positive qualities into our body cells, especially in areas that need support and release, thereby activating our self-healing potential.

This process unfolds organically from the inside out, bringing health, vitality, and positivity to your body and mind. It enables your body to release stored tension, allowing you to move in a more natural way. You learn to move with freedom, joy, and connection, first within your body and then in your life.

This training gives you the independence to practice the learned sequence at home. Regular at-home training continues to build your energy, your trust in your body and deepens the connection with yourself.

Highlights

  • develop connection and positive relationship with yourself

  • learn to connect with your breath and internal organs

  • learn the basis of servicing internal organs for health and longevity

  • learn to calm the nervous system

  • release tension and negativity stored deep in the body

  • feel and learn what energy is, how to accumulate it and make it flow better

  • learn how to move in a more natural, effortless way 

  • reconnect with your self-healing potential

  • learn a sequence of movements that you can later practice on your own

Participants

  • Calligraphy Health training knows no gender boundaries, age limits and body requirements. It requires no equipment and no special place to start – just an open mind and a desire for a balanced life.
  • Suitable for both beginners and experienced Calligraphy Health practitioners

This course is for you if you

  • Seek to cultivate a deeper connection with your body and mind, fostering overall well-being, inner harmony and self-love. 
  • Are looking to relieve stress, anxiety, or tension, and long for techniques to promote relaxation and rejuvenation.
  • Have issues related to the abdominal area, such as digestion, organ removal, or post-operative scars.
  • Lack energy and struggle with your immune system. 
  • Want to improve mobility and flexibility, and enhance vitality through gentle yet powerful practices and techniques.
  • Are interested in holistic approach to health and longevity.
  • Want to elevate your personal practice, whether it be yoga, qi gong, meditation, or any form of movement.
  • Want to go beyond physical movement or posture and are interested in internal arts.
  • Work with people and want to learn a way of maintaining and expanding your energy.

What to Expect

“It’s not about the movement. It’s about what’s behind the movement.” Master Zhen Hua Yang.

Master Yang’s approach prioritizes personal experience over theoretical learning. This means that there are no books to study or information to memorize, but rather the wisdom of one’s own body to be discovered and a self-healing potential to be activated.

Whether it’s a shorter workshop or a full 10-day course, the goal is to provide you with tools for independent practice.

Throughout the training, you learn a set of movements and forms gradually, with enough time to delve deeper into them in order to understand the principles that extend beyond the movement. You work at your own pace without force or pressure with enough time to learn but also to rest.

Upon completion, you leave equipped with a personal practice that you can continue to develop on your own. By integrating learned movements into your daily routine, you can experience lasting benefits that contribute to a fulfilling and vibrant life. With regular practice, they offer a holistic approach to nurturing physical, mental, and emotional wellness.

Accommodation & Meals

About the venue

Nestled high in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, Drala Mountain Center is situated on 600 acres of native forests, gentle meadows and sweeping valleys at 8,000 feet in Northern Colorado. Hosting more than a hundred group retreats, weekend programs and private retreats every year for over 52 years, Drala Mountain Center is “home” to practitioners world-wide.

While the land will nourish your soul and provide ample opportunity to connect with nature and community, Drala Mountain Center is not a 5-star resort. Accommodations range from clean and comfortable private lodge rooms with bathrooms to dorm rooms with shared bathrooms to tents with access to bathhouses. Our aim is to support your basic needs while you participate in your program, provide a safe, clean and comfortable environment with wonderful food and a staff dedicated to the success of your retreat.

Home to the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, we welcome thousands of day visitors every year. You are encouraged to visit and explore the Stupa and more.

Available options

All prices are in USD and include 3 meals/day

  • Lodge Dorm: $973.00
  • Lodge Double / One Adult, Assigned or Selected Roommate: $1,302.00
  • Lodge Single Monk Room: $1,393.00
  • Lodge Single: $1,813.00
  • Second Person In Lodge Single: $686.00
  • Lodge Junior Suite: $2,303.00
  • Seasonal Dorm: $693.00
  • Off Land: $378.00
  • Night Subsidized Rate:​ $70

Booking

Book online directly with the venue – lodging options are available after clicking “Register Now” button.

Exclusions

  • Transportation: To and from the venue
  • Insurance: Personal travel & health insurance

Course Schedule

7:30 am – 12:30 pm  morning training
12:30 pm – 2:00 pm  lunch break
2:00 pm – 4:30 pm  afternoon training

Check in takes place from 2 – 5 pm on your program start date. Please arrive before 5 pm to check in and settle into your accommodations. Your program begins with orientation, followed by dinner and an evening session. Guest Services closes at 5 pm after which no one is available to provide information or orient you to your accommodations. All programs usually end at 12:30 PM on the program’s departure date, followed by lunch. 

How to get there

Find full instructions here >

We are located about two hours northwest of Denver, CO and two hours southwest of Cheyenne, WY in Red Feather Lakes, CO. If you’re needed a ride to Drala Mountain Center, feel free to post your ride request on DMC ride share page.

By Car

Driving times: From Denver 2.5 hrs; from Boulder 2 hrs; from Fort Collins 1hr. Driving Map >

Gas: Plan to arrive here with at least a half-tank of gas. We suggest filling up in Fort Collins.

Online Directions: For online travel directions, use Google Maps with the following destination address: 151 Shambhala Way Red Feather Lakes, CO 80545.

By Plane

Nearest Airport: Denver International Airport (DEN)

Scheduling your flight:

Arrival:  We suggest allowing four to five hours between your flight’s scheduled arrival and actually reaching the Center by car or shuttle service. Guest registration for most programs is from 2 pm- 5 pm. If you are planning to use our transportation assistance from Fort Collins to Denver, please schedule your flight to arrive in DEN before 11:30 am.

Departure: Schedule your return flight at least five hours after your program ends on your departure date. For some programs, this may require an extra night’s stay at the Center, or in Fort Collins or Denver.

Join the course

  • Date: 26 September – 3 October 2024
  • Venue: Drala Mountain Center, 151 Shambhala Way, Red Feather Lakes, CO 80545, View on Map >
  • Contact:
    phone: 1-970-881-2184
    email: frontdesk@dralamountain.org
  • Course Price: Tuition USD 1200 + 7 nights lodging
  • Booking: book the course and accomodation directly with the venue by clicking the button below.

Calligraphy Health Process

The human body is a collective of trillions of individual cells, each possessing qualities analogous to a person. It’s not the movement that heals the mind and the body. Movement serves as a bridge between the mind and the body cells. Movement is used to deliver positive information and energy to each and every cell in the body, especially to those that are suffering, unhappy, traumatized, or sick. For these purposes, Calligraphy Health employs movement with breath, intention, vibration, and organ service.

1. BREATH: Ignite the Fire

The human body, in order to function and produce energy, needs oxygen. Calligraphy Health practice begins with breath and synchronizing it with movements.

2. MOVEMENT: Move Your Blood

Oxygen is distributed in the body by red blood cells, which also carry nutrients and information to all cells in our systems. We use movements that stimulate the meridians to support and enhance blood circulation in the body for overall vitality, balance, and well-being.

3. ATTENTION: Reconnect With Yourself

During the movements, we turn our attention inwards, rebuilding the connection with ourselves. We work towards reconnecting the mind with the internal river that nourishes the entire body – our blood. We learn to ‘talk to our blood cells,’ conveying feelings of love, warmth, happiness, and freedom through the bloodstream to every cell in the body.

4. ORGAN SERVICE: Support Your Body’s Engine

Once the internal connection is established, we gain access to our internal organs, akin to the engine of the body. Similar to the regular servicing required for a car engine, our organs also need proper maintenance. Organ servicing can be likened to a self-visceral massage.

5. REPETITION: Reeducate Your Cells

Having a single conversation is not enough to build a strong relationship, and the same principle applies to our connection with ourselves. By consistently repeating the learned movement sequences, we gradually develop a deeper relationship with ourselves. This ongoing process of reeducation, cell by cell, helps cleanse us of negative past experiences, transforming our body into a warm, positive, and thriving environment.

6. FREEDOM: Find Home Within

A home symbolizes feelings of safety, warmth, freedom, and happiness. When the majority of cells in our body embody these qualities, we, as human beings, feel like we have found a home within. In this state, we are no longer burdened by past experiences. Regaining solid roots, we navigate life with a sense of internal safety and warmth that naturally radiates to those around us.

“Calligraphy Health is about your blood flow moving your body, not your body
moving your blood.”
Master Zhen Hua Yang

Moving like a fish in water

The art of calligraphy draws from nature, emphasizing the fluid, seamless, and unrestrained movement of the brush. This movement mirrors the graceful descent of water down a mountainside, naturally following the shortest and most direct path.

Master Yang applied this concept to the human body, where that water is human blood. Calligraphy Health is about moving like flowing water, effortlessly cascading down a mountain – fluid, uninterrupted, and instinctual, without force or pressure. This movement can be likened to that of fish swimming in water or the elegant motions of an octopus – imbued with a sense of joy, freedom and space.

The Internal Art
of Nei Gong

Nei Gong as taught by Master Zhen Hua Yang is focussed upon reconnecting with the wisdom of the body through the regulation of three main circulations within the human body: blood circulation, nervous system and digestive system. These circulations are the pillars of longevity and good health.

Calligraphy Health through enhancing these three circulations increases the longevity of internal organs while making the body soft, supple and elastic. It produces a physical lightness, setting the environment for self-healing. It also brings deep calm and peace, grounding us and producing a happiness that is internal, void of external conditions. 

Master Zhen Hua Yang

Master Yang’s true skills are shown in his ability to share the complicated Nei Gong methods and practices in a simple and comprehensible way.

Master Zhen Hua Yang is an energy expert. Backed by his family lineage of over 400 years, Master Yang’s knowledge is steeped in ancient internal systems and techniques, his teachers’ influence as well as personal experiences and realisations.

Master Yang’s healing journey started when he was just a boy, suffering from the debilitating effects of asthma. His first teachers other than his grandfather and father, who were also Masters, were the martial arts and energy Masters from the Shaolin and Wudang Temples: Hai Deng from Shaolin, famous for his one-finger stand, and a Daoist monk from Wudang who taught Master Yang about Yinyang balance, Qi/energy and human longevity.