Engaging Vitality workshop in Rothenburg 31-5 and 1-6 -2019
We were all very happy to be invited by the organizers of the 50 year anniversary of the TCM Congress in Rothenburg ob den Tauber in Germany.
TCM Congress is an established event that draws teachers, scholars, and practitioners from all over the Globe. It functions as a window to the diversity of practices which are offered under the name TCM, but actually includes other aspects of East Asian Medicine and offers a birds-eye view of the different approaches in TEAM.
This year the central focus was on Fu Qing-Zhu, the great late Ming period polymath and gynecologist.
It has been quite some time since Engaging Vitality has presented in Rothenberg, but last year our dear friends and colleagues Chip and Dan were invited to give a 2-day workshop.
Sadly, Chip passed away last year. Dan Bensky was fortunately able to present the workshop with the support of Dutch instructors Bart Wintjes and Felix de Haas as well as a Dutch teaching assistant, Leon Gobert.
The day before the workshop, on May 30th, we had an interesting panel discussion dedicated to the introduction of the concept Tong 通 in relation to medicine, a core concept in EV. The participants included Yan Hua Zhang, Dan Bensky, Dominique Hertzer, and Michael Huber. We had a great panel discussion about Tong in relation to medicine.
We were quite happy to hear early on that the EV workshop was sold out shortly after the announcement. We had 60 participants who took part; some came both days while others came only for the first or second day. All in all, we had a very engaged and interested audience.
We presented the basic techniques we usually teach in Module I of the Fundamentals, the Shape of the Qi, Global Listening, Manual Thermal Diagnose, Local Listening, and a teaser of channel listening.
Even though we had a large group, with a changing populace, and only three teaching assistants, we gained the impression that most of the participants were able to experience all of the techniques.
Many said they felt encouraged to study this material more thoroughly, and some might sign up for one of the coming Fundamental trainings in Europe.
The Rothenburg organizers were quite enthusiastic and have already invited us for another workshop next year. It is our goal to present the whole European Core Team at that time.
So all together it was quite successful. We hope we’ll be able to engage even more people next time.
