My wife Darcie Gustine, has worked with people with MS and had very good results.
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I took Spring Forest Qi-gong, level 1, when I was forty-one years old. At that time, I was in the middle of a divorce and living with my teenaged son and daughter. I had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis six years earlier, and had lived almost daily with fears of the future and the possibility of increasing symptoms of M.S. All the members of my family were struggling with the pains of a divorce, and my life was in chaos.When I began studying Qigong with Master Lin, everything simply and quietly changed. I looked forward to the early evening, when I closed my bedroom door, repeated the words I learned in class, and practiced the basic movements of Qigong. In less than half an hour, I felt calmer. My night-time dreaming became vivid and energized, and I looked forward to class meetings, where I could talk about practicing level 1.
Fatigue was my predominant M.S. symptom; I had been wary of taking the class at night, afraid that I might get too tired from driving through January weather for forty minutes to the community college. However, my energy level improved, becoming more constant and steady, and I worried much less about what I could or could not do with my body.
Within the six weeks of the level 1 class, I experienced strong physical changes, as well as some shifts in my feelings about time (specifically, that I needed to be in no rush to heal). The next time Master Lin offered classes, I signed up for level 2.
As my energy level rose, so did my confidence. Once, when I expressed fear about something to Master Lin, he told me to have confidence. "Have confidence." As if he were offering me a cookie from a tray, which I could just take up and eat. And he was. Confidence is a form of energy, and I was learning from Qigong how to use the energy around me. I started to trust my ability to be active without becoming overly tired, and to believe that tiredness was nothing to fear.
My confidence increased dramatically by the summer after my first classes in Spring Forest Qigong. My friends have to remind me of my life before studying with Mr. Lin, when I would not walk around the lake, or attend more than one event in a day without fear about my health.
I took up rock-climbing, a sport which had interested me since I was a girl, and traveled to several states on climbing trips. I applied for an MFA program and attended graduate school in the fall. By the following January, I was able to travel to and explore the rain forest in Costa Rica, all the while keeping up my daily practice of Qigong.
I have studied Spring Forest Qigong through level 4, learning more about working on other people to help open up their blockages. At first, I thought I could not help someone else, since I did not have perfect health myself. I have learned from Master Lin and fellow students that this is not true. It has been almost seven years since I first heard about Qigong from a woman at my church. I approached her about this thing she talked about —Qigong -- because she seemed "radiantly healthy," and happy. I found out she had begun her study of the moving meditation when she'd had cancer.
I still practice Qigong every night, mostly through the sitting meditations. Sometimes, when I feel the need to, I go back to the first comforting movements of level 1. I "think Qigong" while I drive my car or sit at my desk or load the dishwasher, especially when I feel tired. My health has been good. Thanks to Master Lin, I don't think of myself as someone who has an illness, but rather as someone who can pay attention to blockages in my body and work to open them.
My spiritual life is very important to me. Qigong is an active part of that life. For me, the basic movements of Qigong are moving prayer. I no longer fear as much for the future, for myself or the people I love. Master Lin's answering machine used to end with the message, ‘Have a nice and lucky day.’ I've had many of them since I met Chunyi and started studying Spring Forest Qigong.
