Say It Anyway

James Ferrigno (00:03)
Welcome to Say It Anyway. I'm James Farino, the host of Say It Anyway. Our guest today is Sarah Devine. She's a White Tiger Qigong instructor. Welcome, Sarah.

Sarah Divine (00:16)
Hi James, thanks for having me along, I'm very happy to be here.

James Ferrigno (00:20)
Yeah, it's nice to have you here. Why don't we start

where did you grow up and what were some of your first childhood memories?

Sarah Divine (00:30)
That's an interesting one. very first childhood memory is actually stuffing my head under my mum's jumper. I can even remember it's this beautiful lemon yellow colour. I don't remember the context but I remember we were in the living room and I was very shy. But I grew up in Kent in England which is known as the Garden of England and rightly so because it's full of...

James Ferrigno (00:46)
haha

Sarah Divine (00:56)
beautiful orchards. there's a lot of fruits that's grown there and we actually live right next to the orchards. My mum would make money picking fruit and then when I was older that's what I did for my first job. I think it was 10 when I first started picking up the windfall apples for the neighbour. She gave me like 10 pence an hour or something.

so that was really lovely. ⁓ I also remember when we moved I was only two. I've got this vague memory of my dad lifting me up to look in a very high cupboard to see if it was empty. ⁓ I love those early memories, just little snippets, little snapshots.

James Ferrigno (01:42)
Yeah, just little wig, we get to keep little pieces.

Sarah Divine (01:45)
Yeah, that's right. Do you know Kent? Have you ever been to England?

James Ferrigno (01:51)
I have not, Someday.

Sarah Divine (01:54)
Yeah, so it's got a lot of rolling hills, it's very green and lush. Quite different to where I live now in Australia. When it's summer here it's very, very dry, but it has its own charm. There's a certain beauty to that that I've come to really appreciate.

James Ferrigno (02:03)
Yeah.

Yeah, they're different. ⁓ I had a similar thing when we grew up in upstate New York where it was very wet and hot in the summer, cold in the winter. But then California, moving to the desert. The desert really has its own different thing.

Sarah Divine (02:28)
Mmm, yeah, it's quite enticing though, isn't it? I find that there's some, there's a real power behind that, that dryness that's, it puts you in your place. really makes me, it reminds me daily that I'm just a guest. I'm just here for, you know, short haul and, and it's just gonna keep, keep on and...

James Ferrigno (02:32)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (02:54)
And I like that. I know that for some people that might seem uncomfortable, but it actually gives me a sense of peace. really ⁓ reflects the kind of work that I do actually anyway in Qigong to be able to come to that ⁓ kind of alignment and peace with nature and the natural cycles. Yeah.

James Ferrigno (03:21)
Yeah, think especially mortality can cause a lot of fear when there's a disconnection there and when you don't understand or when you're not connected to the mortality and death aspect and to the natural world. It really can be a fearful thing, but I think with those connections, I've noticed with my own journey that eventually it can be somewhat comforting instead of frightening.

Sarah Divine (03:28)
Mm.

Yeah, that's right. And of course nobody wants to suffer. We don't want to be in pain when we have to leave. But ⁓ if you can have that sense of being part of a wholeness that's greater than yourself, and that's part of every...

Ultimately, every tradition isn't it that philosophical religious traditions, many of them try to embrace that. But none more so for me at least than Taoism and that's the Qigong that I practice, Taoist Qigong. And the most significant aspect of the practice I think is really to

understand or at least perhaps we can't understand them entirely but we can perceive sense and draw on the patterns and cycles and seasons of nature to understand our own internal rhythms and

also to understand when we're out of balance so we can bring ourselves back into into balance and of course the whole cycle of life is like the seasons I mean we have the winter, spring, summer, fall or actually it's spring, summer, fall, winter isn't it of our own cycle of life and ⁓ this is again a thing that we explore in the practice of Qigong.

James Ferrigno (05:19)
I like that. Maybe you can real quick give us just a basic, your basic understanding of Taoism for people that might not be familiar with it.

Sarah Divine (05:31)
Well, I apply that in the context of the practice of Qigong because Taoism is a philosophy, it's a philosophy that, like any philosophy, like Buddhism as well, and there are many crossovers there. It gives you ⁓ a platform for ⁓ understanding your place in the world and helping you to live a life that's meaningful.

and also to grow for personal development. The way that I've learned about Taoism is through its connection with Qigong. So maybe I need to tell you what Qigong is first. So Qigong is an ancient Chinese practice of meditative movement. are ⁓ internal alchemy practices like meditations and breath work, as well as

James Ferrigno (06:14)
⁓

Sarah Divine (06:28)
external alchemy practices which are movement practices where you embody the internal work still going on as you move so you're very driven by the finding a stillness inside so there's stillness in movement there's movement within stillness in Qigong so there's different types of Qigong there's

martial Qigong, ⁓ there's Confucius Qigong, there's Buddhist Qigong, there's Taoist Qigong and the Taoist Qigong tradition that I've learned is medical Qigong. So it's medical in the sense that it provides a self-care ⁓ approach. So it's a way that you learn to ⁓ navigate and set your own compass for your personal healing and transformation.

And Taoism is this philosophy that's got a rich history and I can't really claim to know all of it, but I do know that as far back as over 2000 years ago Lao Tzu is considered to be ⁓ one of the central, the forefathers of the Taoist tradition and he was a philosopher, practitioner who wrote a book called the Tao De Jing.

The story goes that his friends or his disciples, his students, he was going off on a journey and they begged him to, before he left, to leave them something concrete to work from. And to this day, ⁓ scholars and Taoists still debate the deeper meanings of these texts, which I think is rather delightful. I've even tried it myself with a lady who taught me the Chinese

characters she unpacked the the images with me and a friend and then we got to kind of make our own ⁓ interpretation of those images which was rather lovely. So Daoists are people who look for the middle path. They want to... ⁓ The balance is retained by kindness, by...

by benevolence, by ⁓ keeping your own internal compass very open and aware so that ⁓ you're able to be kind. ⁓ Which is a very basic philosophy for many traditions, but it's beautiful. And also, there are religious Taoists as well ⁓ that I'm not so familiar with religious Taoism.

But we look to nature. So that's where you return to the center by returning to the source. And we will return to the source one day. In your contemplations and in your practice, if you can continue to return to the source, that's where you can provide meaning to your world and also ⁓ groundedness and comfort.

I know I went round a nice little path there, but hopefully that answered your question.

James Ferrigno (09:56)
That's nice. Yeah,

yeah. think it gave us some understanding of it. It pulled a few things together for me as well. It reminded me of things I learned years ago and maybe don't think about every day. So yeah, thank you for that. It's very nice. Why don't we return to your source? And so after picking apples, what was your next career step?

Sarah Divine (10:07)
Mm.

You're welcome.

you

I formed a band at school. I was always really into music. My parents were in the local amateur dramatic society, so I used to join them. From the age of eight, I was very excited when I got to be in the chorus. Eventually, when I was 16, I played the princess. Oh my God, that was a starring moment. I remember in the audience one day, this is just a village pantomime, but there was this guy called Kid Jensen who was a DJ.

on BBC Radio and I was just absolutely over the moon that he was there. So music was sort of front and centre for me and then I studied drama and English at uni. When I left uni I ended up joining a radical theatre company, it was very left wing and...

It was actually predominantly a lesbian and gay theatre company and I was sort of just a confused individual that they took under their wing. ⁓ I met some incredible people there, really real characters, very strong-willed, very ⁓ exceptionally talented. And we performed several musicals together. Before I joined them, they did AIDS the Musical and then...

which was quite confronting and as you can imagine then we did a musical called Desert Storm, a musical folly so we were looking at the first invasion of Iraq and then we did Mother Russia as a lesbian which was really not at all what the show was about it was just a show grabbing name but it was about a hundred years of Russian history so I actually didn't know much about

politics or history before I joined them and you know they really helped me to to learn quite a lot through that process so I absolutely loved that time and I'd also studied in America actually I've been in Virginia at Radford University I did a semester of performing arts when I was 20 which

was where I actually started a love affair with the US. I've been many times. Then I joined a band after the theatre company.

James Ferrigno (12:52)
Yeah.

So you were doing...

a little bit radical theater but it was also musical theater as well. Yeah, okay. So musical theater background that led to a band. Okay.

Sarah Divine (13:05)
Mm. Yes, it was, yeah.

Yeah, that's right. And

my first band was called THC. We thought that was really funny, but we said it was these happy colours was what it stood for. And we performed a little bit in London and then I joined ⁓ MAP and Chris Anderson was the absolute brain behind that band. he's still a musician to this day. He lives in Brighton and he...

James Ferrigno (13:20)
⁓ yeah.

Sarah Divine (13:42)
He's in a band called Crayola Lectern. He's amazing. He's a bass player, but he plays other instruments. So I worked with him and a couple of other guys and we created this extraordinary sound. It was called Under the Genre of Prank, which is in progressive punk. yeah, perfectly suited my...

James Ferrigno (13:53)
Mmm, okay.

Yeah?

aggressive punk.

Sarah Divine (14:13)
sensibilities, although people said I look like the girl next door and then I start singing and I'd be like this crazy banshee. ⁓ I liked having a bit of a split personality through that medium. I was able to express a lot of my ⁓ darker ⁓ thoughts and confusions about the world.

It was an intense time but it was really, it was very well received. We did pretty well in our time.

Yeah.

James Ferrigno (14:51)
So you get to express some of your anger and...

Sarah Divine (14:55)
Yes.

⁓

James Ferrigno (14:57)
the stronger emotions.

Sarah Divine (14:59)
Yeah,

yeah, that's right. I mean, they weren't necessarily about me. They were about the world, about my frustrations with the madness of the world. ⁓ Well, actually, one time I did fall in love with someone I shouldn't have fallen in love with. Thinking of the Buzzcocks had already done that song. But I did write a... Yeah, a pender ditty that expressed that frustration.

James Ferrigno (15:19)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (15:30)
⁓ that was interesting. Yeah.

James Ferrigno (15:33)
Yeah, yeah, that's ⁓ I mean that's kind of the ⁓ in its heart punk is political,

Sarah Divine (15:40)
Hmm. Well, interestingly enough, I used to live, so in that theatre company, the two of the musicians were Weisser, Versa Richard Famous from the Poison Girls. I don't know if you've heard of the Poison Girls, but I ended up living in their house in London before I moved to Germany. And sadly, Vi died some years ago, but they were extraordinary people. were...

James Ferrigno (15:42)
Thanks.

Yeah.

Sarah Divine (16:09)
anarcho-punks and they and she didn't even start singing until she was in her 40s so I drew a lot of inspiration from from them.

James Ferrigno (16:20)
Yeah, yeah, heard of her. I really know a lot about her.

Sarah Divine (16:23)
Mm.

Yeah.

James Ferrigno (16:28)
Wow, so that's pretty fascinating. where did that lead you to? how long did it take before you had interest in self care or personal practice?

Sarah Divine (16:38)
I suppose I always, it was there in the background. I mean, even when I was in that world, I wasn't really a drinker. I wasn't a smoker. used to, I took inspiration from Henry Rollins who, you know, he was serious about his health and I, so I,

James Ferrigno (16:55)
Hello?

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Divine (17:03)
do some pushups before the gig. If anything, I had half a lager at the end of a gig, but I really wasn't into it. I wasn't into taking masses of drugs or anything. was just, yeah, I really wanted to perform from a place of consciousness. And so it was there, that seed was there. I don't know when it first dropped exactly, but the drummer in the band, he started going to Zen.

⁓ Zen Buddhist meditations in Camden Town in London and he invited me along and so I went and that was fascinating because you actually meditate with your eyes open and then there's walking meditation as well and there's also a chant that you do and that was my first exposure to really any kind of extended

self-development practice and I loved it. we went down to, we took a train ride to Brighton to pick up some mats that somebody had handmade, these ⁓ meditation cushion and a mat. I've still got them. Yeah. I went on from there. I kept up the practice really. And even when I...

moved to Germany which was in my late, in my early 30s, late 20s. I lived in Germany for five years. I was teaching English. So I still wasn't in that world of Qigong but I was in the fitness world. was with ⁓ a partner who received an early inheritance and we opened a fitness studio and I worked in the fitness studio for a while and

Really, that was kind of the time of my life after that relationship ended where I went, I had kind of like my teenage rebellion in my early thirties, I'd say. had this, I mean, I wasn't completely crazy, but I did go out a lot. I drank a bit, I smoked a bit. just, you know, I had slightly different life than I'd ever had before. And I realized I didn't like it.

James Ferrigno (19:09)
Okay.

Sarah Divine (19:26)
You know, and I realized I had to do something about it. And I decided to come to Australia and visit a friend here. I felt that that was a it was a very strong calling and I needed to do it. And part of me knew it was going to save my life. And that was it was a very strong feeling. And I even had dreams where I was battling with the men in black. I was battling some kind of

dark force to move forward into this next phase. That was 23 years ago. As soon as I arrived in Australia, my life changed. I met a partner who taught me Qigong. Even though that relationship was not ultimately successful, I...

James Ferrigno (19:58)
Wow.

Sarah Divine (20:25)
stepped into a world of extremely deep self practice and discovery and started to do Vipassana meditation. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that. There's 10 days silent retreats. Yeah, so that was like a birthing that's an unfolding of, it's really, they call it like it's going into a self operation where you're

If you sit still with yourself long enough, you see the good, the bad and the ugly and you start to find a place from which you can really...

observe and accept and move forwards and learn and grow.

James Ferrigno (21:17)
reminds me of the sitting zazen, which done a couple times. ⁓

Sarah Divine (21:20)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

James Ferrigno (21:25)
So you started out from this healthy place, kind of you said the Henry Rollins kind of life path, and then began to meditate, then veered from your path for what a couple years or something, and then came back and that's when you found Qigong. ⁓ So you just had this couple year departure

Sarah Divine (21:34)
Yeah.

I was...

That's right. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, was, yeah, I mean, it wasn't like a super dark path, but for me, I know it was, I knew, I knew it wasn't right, but it was somehow I had to experience it to, to know the difference perhaps. And, you know, there were certain times where I was offered things that could have expanded on that experience and taken me.

James Ferrigno (21:50)
⁓ partying in your early 30s.

Yeah.

Sarah Divine (22:19)
into a life that really wasn't my own and wasn't something I wanted. And luckily I never did that, I used to even dream about that. Those kind of make your choice ⁓ dreams. yeah, exactly, exactly. when that, I can't say it was one particular moment, but it did become quite clear that I had to change my circumstance.

James Ferrigno (22:33)
Choose your path.

Sarah Divine (22:49)
in order to clarify the next step and how I would meet the deep desire. And James, I'd actually always had that because when I was a kid, I remember picking up some really esoteric books. I got them at rummage sale and I have, I've still got some of them on my shelf, excuse me. So. ⁓

James Ferrigno (23:11)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (23:18)
Yeah, I knew that something, there was something pretty unique about self-exploration and development.

I even had dreams as a kid that I could bi-locate, you know, ⁓ where I... I think is it called bi-location? Or where you can be in two places at the same time? Mmm! Yeah.

James Ferrigno (23:44)
That's interesting.

Sarah Divine (23:49)
Yeah, although my parents were, you know, were absolute sweethearts. They were very ordinary in their daily life, but they, you know, they had great ⁓ comfort and support from their belief in the Christian faith, which I was raised in. And, you know, I think that gave me some good platforms to...

James Ferrigno (23:49)
So

Sarah Divine (24:19)
⁓ expound upon in my later life. And they didn't ever go into a journey of deep, deep, internal, reflectional practices that would lead them into greater self-development. they always told me, that happens through life anyway, and they're right. Okay, so I can't say I'm better because I practice Qigong. But what I can say is that it...

is on aggregate, it's a practice that will bring you into a place of where you are balanced, where you're more balanced, you can work on your health and healing. And it takes you into a space of a transformative experience if it becomes a part of your life. Because for me, for instance, it's given me

more mental clarity, greater capacity to be fully present in what I'm experiencing and therefore, you know, living in the moment. I came up with this yesterday, I was teaching someone in the park and I just said, Qigong is an act of self-love. And I thought, that's it. But then what happens when you love yourself is you can love others better.

James Ferrigno (25:43)
Yep.

Sarah Divine (25:48)
you can show up more fully for your relationships and that's all we have right? What more do we need really as humans having this, well spiritual beings having a human experience?

James Ferrigno (26:04)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. That's the thing. Love yourself more, get feedback and experience by learning to love others more, which you then in turn go back and learn to love yourself more. Then you learn to, know, it kind of goes back and forth like that, right? And each one helps the other one deepen. Yeah, for me, that's kind of a core.

Sarah Divine (26:07)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

James Ferrigno (26:27)
purpose for life, you want to call it that. Experience, Yeah, so what was it that made you fully commit to the Taoist medical Qigong? What drew you to that

Sarah Divine (26:29)
Hmm. Yeah.

In 1992, I remember the year, walked into an esoteric bookshop in London and I bought this book by Mantak Chia, which is, was about Qigong practices for women, the internal alchemy practices. And I didn't really understand any of it. I remember thinking, this is important. Don't know what it is. Can't do anything with that right now, but I kept it and...

Years later, I met Jai, my partner. We've been together over 16 years. one of the first things we talked about was Mantak Chir in this book. And he had this book and I was like, I've got that book too. That's kind of wild. And we were like, why don't we read it together? And we actually started to read this book and the other.

James Ferrigno (27:31)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (27:39)
other Qigong books about internal alchemy practices. And that was sort of like the trigger for me. I dabbled in it before I was doing some Qigong prior to that, but I I really just thought I have to learn, I have to learn, I have to learn more. And I got the opportunity to travel to Thailand to

practice with Master Manchuchia in the Dao Garden in Ni Chang Mai. And I did a five week intensive with him and learned to become an instructor of his basic techniques. So that was what sort of kickstarted it. And also my best friend had died and she left me some money. So that's, I thought what?

what can I do to honor her and honor myself and to help people who might have been in a similar circumstance to her? She had breast cancer and I felt quite powerless to help her. And so I thought, and that was what really propelled me. And then the same year I did that teacher training, my mother died and I was like, wow, know, that's, she had cancer too.

James Ferrigno (29:07)
Hmm.

Sarah Divine (29:09)
And I thought, you know, we never know exactly what our innings are, but we can give it our best shot to do something that's powerfully preventative and, or at least can give you the skills you need to navigate through an illness, because not every illness is something you have control over. Sometimes it's environmental or, you know, something that you inherit. So, but you can still work.

you know, on a, on a soul level to, to come into a state of greater peace and understanding. So, so that, that drove me to, it committed me to my personal path, but also to teach others. And so it's not, it's, you've probably heard this from other people who have a vocation. You're like, it's actually not me. It's driving it. It's something bigger. I can feel that. I can feel that it just said, right, Sarah, this is it. You're, you're there now. This is your path. You know, go on.

Get on with it.

James Ferrigno (30:08)
ha ha ha.

How did studying with Master Mantak Chia, how did that shape your understanding of Qigong?

Sarah Divine (30:23)
Well, at first I remember sitting there and thinking, his accent wasn't easy to understand, so it took me a few days to tune in. And then I was quite delighted by the way that he hears a very unique turn of phrase and a way to express himself. And you know, he doesn't beat about the bush either. He's been on his path for, know, donkey's years. He's in his eighties now and he's still teaching. He travels the world. So it's...

It was like a download, this info dump that went into me. I heard it. I didn't understand most of it at the time, but I knew that it was like a coffee percolating. I okay, this is what I have to do. I have to let it percolate. I'll understand what I know, what I can in the moment. The rest is going to percolate and it will return.

and it will, you know, there'll be another opportunity for it to become embodied because that's what I really feel about Qigong. You can do the practice from a technical perspective. You can understand the philosophies from an intellectual perspective, but you can't really understand Qigong itself and the totality of that until you've practiced it for a certain amount of time and it starts to become embodied in your...

psyche and in your tissues, it literally unfolds, it's through a series of sort of progressive awarenesses and that never stops. So I met Tevye Fung, who is the founder of White Tiger Qigong through Mantak Chia and I've been working with him ever since. And he says the same, know, he's been a Qigong practitioner since he was eight.

James Ferrigno (32:19)
Well, well.

Sarah Divine (32:20)
But every day

that he meets himself for his practice, goes off and practices, you know, he'll have a new experience. And sometimes you can, you know, a revelation, sometimes a different response in the body hours or days after you've done a particular practice. it's because you're rewiring your energy pathways, you're rewiring your nervous system, you're rewiring...

the whole navigation unit, you're opening up, you're facilitating the flow of chi or energy through your fascia, your connective tissue that where the meridian channels, the channels of energy that connect to your organs where they lie. when all that becomes more open,

there's just more to observe and more sensitivity. At the same time, sometimes I feel like more, you know, you're just more at the beginning of things, because there's just so much to try and fathom in this world, right?

James Ferrigno (33:37)
Yeah, no shortage of that. That's great. That's great. What led you to commit to White Tiger Chee-Gong? Why that?

Sarah Divine (33:39)
Yeah.

I saw Tevye from a distance at the Dow Garden. He was teaching a course. So he used to rent a space there while it's big enough, you know, to have several things going on. And I saw him walking and I just thought, what kind of juice is that guy on? It was, you can tell by the way he's...

James Ferrigno (34:13)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Divine (34:16)
I'm a Qigong man. He was so contained and energized and connected and present and I was quite fascinated. So I had a chance to speak to him briefly and then I found out a little bit about his Qigong and what I've been practicing with Master Chia was predominantly Nai Dan or internal

practices, internal alchemy. There was some ⁓ moving practices, and I started doing Tai Chi with him as well. But I was curious about what Tevye was teaching. So I found out about his style and his approach, and he teaches a lot of dynamic Qigong that is, at first glance, it's more yang in its appearance.

So five animal Qigong, for instance, the five animal frolics, the Wuxin-Qi practice that mimics the action of animals in the wild. There's like 20 of those forms. Eight-tri-gram Qigong, which is the foundation for Bagua or Baguazhang walking. It's a kind of walking Qigong, but it's spiraling and spinning the body in beautiful twists and curves and turns. It's very elegant.

And the five element Qigong, which is a really powerful, it's more staccato. It's a Qigong that takes you into a ⁓ peak movement that you hold. And as you're holding, you're wringing out your internal organs. And then as you release, you get this powerful shift in your organs. As the Qi comes in and the blood flows and the oxygen saturates and you get rid of...

you know, any stagnation from those organs as well. when I got the chance to see some of this in action, I thought, that's what I'm going to study next. So the following year I went to study with him and the rest is history because I just fell in love with it. I loved his teaching approach. He also, he teaches with a layer of modern scientific

understanding of what's going on in the body, which I think is kind of important for teaching in the Western world. And that and it actually, I love that so much that it inspired me to go and do a master's degree. I did I was thinking, do I study Chinese medicine? Do I study sport and exercise science? So I actually did sport and exercise science and it gave me an initial so an additional foundation for

my understanding of the practice and then my ability to teach it.

James Ferrigno (37:14)
love that. So you've kind of blended the two. I really like when you can look at a practice and see that the traditional thing or the scientific approach, you can see how the two

kind of combine and how they share the same the same basis and the same ideas.

Sarah Divine (37:35)
That's right. you know, mean, there are a couple of outstanding people that helped us to shape that understanding in White Tiger Qigong. One was Joseph Schwartz, who's a physical therapist in Colorado. And he's got this really useful toolkit that talks about the kinetic chains and their principal actions in the body. so how ⁓ movement is predicated on, first of all, how you breathe.

then how your axis is aligned, so your central axis, axial stability, how you react to the ground. So what's your ground force reaction, your shock absorption and your rebound, and then also how the body coils and uncoils. So when you walk, for instance, that's, you know, one of the drivers of that is that your hips and your lower spine, they actually rotate. So there's coiling and uncoiling in walking.

James Ferrigno (38:19)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (38:34)
When you see catwalk models, they over exaggerate that, right? They really, you know, get into that. then we were, Tevye worked with him to kind of understand how that those principles were present in our Qigong. And the other guy who's really interesting is Thomas Myers. And he wrote a book called An Anatomy Trains. And this book shows how the

James Ferrigno (38:38)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (39:03)
muscles of the body are held together in fascial slings so you can even think of the body as one one massive muscle that's held together by all these slings and they have different impacts on the body so you've got you know your spiral line for these cross-actions you've got your lateral line you've got very superficial lines in the front and the back and very deep

deep ones as well. You've got arm lines, for instance, front and back. that's, and that, when he started to study fashion in more detail, he discovered that for the most part, the maps of meridians or channels of qi in acupuncturists, know, in Qigong, they map onto his understanding of the facial slings or these facial lines.

They're quite similar.

That's so exciting. Yeah.

James Ferrigno (40:05)
It is, see things like that a lot. It seems to be the case. If whatever practice it is is really effective and beneficial for a lot of people, it will always map up to that to some degree.

Sarah Divine (40:08)
Mm-hmm.

James Ferrigno (40:25)
Yeah, it's really fascinating how that works.

Sarah Divine (40:29)
And I love that. I love just that at the moment I'm working with a couple of rheumatologists. I had this amazing opportunity to speak at the Australian Rheumatological Conference in May and I spoke about Qigong for chronic pain and I gave a little demo, I got them involved as well with a bit of movement. ⁓ And of course I needed to find a lot of evidence because

this is the world we live in. You have to really ⁓ move forward, especially in any kind of more conventional ⁓ medical circles to have that body of research behind you is rather important. You could tell people to the cows come home, but unless you have that behind you, it's not really considered to be worthwhile. So this is great because A, both of these chaps.

James Ferrigno (41:16)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (41:28)
already are aware of Qigong, one of them's a long time practitioner and they're very supportive in that regard. But B, they've helped me find the research and ⁓ to continue to put together a body of evidence that hopefully exposes that there's no doubt that Qigong can ameliorate symptoms of chronic fatigue, chronic pain syndrome and

fibromyalgia and arthritis, albeit with a very sensitive approach and a modified approach because some people can barely sit up when they're in those, have those conditions. So that's really exciting. That's the kind of work I'm doing at the moment, sort of looking at developing further how I can help people in those situations.

James Ferrigno (42:10)
Yeah.

So are you currently working with people who have those conditions or others?

Sarah Divine (42:30)
Yes, yes. And, you know, it's nice to talk of a success story. This one lady in Victoria who has been practicing regularly for three or four times a week. She's been in 20 to 40 minutes a day and she has just experienced that she can go out and about more. She's able to go on extensive walks, which she couldn't before.

losing the brain fog, she's feeling a lot ⁓ more capable and happier because of that. that's really exciting.

James Ferrigno (43:12)
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, when someone you're working with, and when it really benefits them. A few things are more exciting than that. It's nice to be able to help somebody like that. have you seen other people react well to it? Do most of your students tend to react well? ⁓

Sarah Divine (43:19)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yes, I don't really have an instance of anyone saying, I really dislike the way this makes me feel I'm not going to do it again. So ⁓ from the short term perspective, there's even research out there that shows one bout of Qigong for 30 minutes has an impact on your cortisol levels. it drives, you know, brings them down, which then is...

James Ferrigno (43:43)
Okay.

Sarah Divine (44:02)
going to reduce the stress response and it can have an impact on anxiety for instance as well. just bringing you back into emotional balance. the real proof of the pudding is in longer studies. So there's a particular researcher I know who's got several studies about Daoist Qigong in particular and they've run them.

like one or two months of people doing it regularly several times a week and all their biological markers are improved. ⁓ So that's just fantastic. But I have had people walk away because they don't like...

the terminology, they're not really interested in... ⁓ It's hard for me to teach Qigong without mentioning Chinese words, you know, because it's... You go, you're Dan Tian's, you're upper, you're middle, you're lower, the places of energy, cultivation and storage. They didn't like that. They didn't like ⁓ one of the techniques that we use is in a smile. So you actually physically...

James Ferrigno (44:59)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (45:17)
lift the corners of your mouth and there's evidence there also you know if you hold your mouth up for a minute it starts to alter your hormones it starts to change them so even if you feel like absolute crap you can just do this for a minute and influence influence your chemistry so a lot of our emotions are driven by chemicals

and the way our hormones may fluctuate as well. So this is one thing, but that person didn't like that practice. I mean, not that we stand there grinning like loons, it's a slightly different mechanism. We go into the mind, we think about something that makes ourselves feel good, and we direct that ⁓ energy that we've created through that thought into the body, into the heart, for instance. ⁓

So yeah, not everybody's ready for Qigong, but everybody I work with locally who's stuck at it and had, you know, given it time has been really appreciative of the practice. So on a physical level, it may be that it improves health of the spine. We work to do a lot of spinal flow movement, flexibility, strength, balance, stamina, agility. On an...

James Ferrigno (46:19)
True.

Sarah Divine (46:44)
emotional level, we work a lot with clearing emotional blockages and as you know, emotion can stagnate in the body in many different places and especially in the organ system. So we work on clearing that. And also using the breath is a huge component of settling the nervous system and engaging your

James Ferrigno (46:56)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (47:13)
to balance more effectively between your sympathetic and your parasympathetic nervous system responses going more into the rest and digest more readily and more easily rather than staying stuck here in this low-grade sympathetic response which is so common these days. So taking people into that deep state of relaxed alertness, they like that, they really like that. And then that brings mental...

mental clarity as well and emotional balance. So what's not to like? That's what I say. But you know what? You know what the main impediment is? Is commitment to process and continuity. And I understand that that's difficult for people to find the time. I practice every day and I know that's not tenable for most people.

James Ferrigno (47:49)
Fantastic. Yeah. What's not to love about that, Yeah.

What's up?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah Divine (48:11)
nor would I expect them to necessarily appreciate it in quite the same way I do. finding even three times a week, it's probably where you need to go in order to affect lasting change over time.

James Ferrigno (48:27)
Yeah, yeah, most likely that. Yeah, I felt the biggest impediment really for any practice, anything really you want to learn or do or anything new is...

it's difficult for most people to change and start something new.

The truth is, no matter what the change is, probably most people aren't ready for it. Some are. But they have to the thing that they are ready for.

Sarah Divine (48:50)
Yeah, that's...

That's right, that's right. And it may be a baby step and that's fine. I think it might've been, there's ⁓ a guy, ⁓ he's a fitness guru and structure. I think he's Greg Plitt, but I'm not sure. He said, comfortable with being uncomfortable. So that he's talking about that from a gym context, of course. But I think, you know, that applies to anything you're going to do that's going to drive change because first of all, you have to...

your mind is, you a monkey, as we all know, and you have to learn to release it. And what we call that in Qigong is releasing the acquired mind, or even becoming aware of your acquired mind, first of all. So a lot of what drives your patterns of behavior is maybe it's not from your authentic self. It's from what you learned from your parents or your school or, you know, eat three meals a day at these times.

James Ferrigno (49:28)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (49:52)
do this, do that. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with eating three meals a day at that time, but maybe, maybe it doesn't suit your body type. Maybe you've not listened to what's right for you. behaving in certain ways, in certain contexts, that could just be something that you've learned from other people. And it's very hard to...

James Ferrigno (50:17)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (50:20)
peel back those layers and become conscious of that. you know, it's sitting there in your subconscious a lot of that behavior. To track it, you've got to be very brutally honest with yourself, but also take the time to listen. And so one of the biggest things we do, most important things, processes in the qigong is internal listening. It's tingjing, the process of...

James Ferrigno (50:34)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (50:47)
listening to your energy without your ears. So and eventually that in martial context, that is what people use when they're, ⁓ for instance, in Tai Chi, that's the kind of Tai Chi for martial application or in martial arts themselves. You feel the energy of your opponent and you feel it and you feel the impulse of

thought or an action or you know the potential before it even happens so you know what to do to to to counter that effectively so in in medical Qigong we use that to understand ourselves that that deep internal listening and that's the place from which you're able to to make more effective changes but it requires courage it requires

In a way it's loss as well because you lose the person you're familiar with. You have to let go of some of those things about yourself in order to discover who you might be. And it's the old monkey on the branch thing. You've got to let go of one branch before you can grasp the other one.

Yeah, and you can't force that. I've tried. I'm sure we've all been there where we've like been kind of righteous and gone, but you need this and you should do that. And I can see that you will feel better if you did this. But ultimately that's not going to work, right? So all you can do is say, hey, I'm using these tools. These work for me. This might not be your journey, but give it a try. Perhaps it will resonate.

James Ferrigno (52:36)
Yeah, it's just one of the things you might want to try. Yeah, it's impossible to...

share something with someone and then we're setting up our own expectations of I'm going to give this to them they're going to take it it's going to help them it's going to change their life and they'll be happier but that's a lot of expectation there and a lot of those things probably aren't going to happen so it's always yeah it's a bit of a razor's edge ⁓

Sarah Divine (52:52)
Mm.

Yeah.

James Ferrigno (53:07)
sharing things with other people. good to just kind of throw the ideas out there and let the people come to you. I mean, you have to in some way let them know that this thing exists though. that's where it gets a little sticky. And if it's people, you have to share something with them so that they will know that there's something to choose there.

Sarah Divine (53:15)
Mm.

That's true.

Mm.

Exactly. And I, you know, I certainly learned that lesson in the past. hopefully I, you know, I'm able now I'll just step back a little bit and being a part of that is learning to practice humility and just and honoring other people's perspectives. And I'm still

learning that because you know I have friends who I adore deeply who are very different to me and sometimes I'm quite surprised at what their perceptions are and and I and now I'm you know I'm able to take a step back and go hang on or if I'm not I might have to apologize and eat humble pie but I ⁓ but then I do think I do think about it and I'm like okay yeah you're just your experience of the world is different to mine

And think about how many billions of souls there are on the planet, including animals, you know. And we're all, we've all got a different perspective. And we're all seeing the world from a slightly different eyes and we've all had these different inputs. And so...

So you've got to, well, haven't got to, you've not got to do anything right, that's the point. But you hope to, least in yourself, to find that place of softness, because I can't say my way's right, it's just, it's a way, but it's a way that's working for me and it's a way that, it's time-honoured. So what Qigong is actually, it's been around for, as far as 5,000 years ago,

The shamanic Wu people in China were utilizing these forms of expressive movement, like animal movements to, maybe it was more about symbology then, I don't know whether it was for health, but 2000 years ago, Huatua, who was the physician to the emperor, he created the five animal frolics.

the five animal chicken because they were looking for a way to Keep the people healthy that was cheap and he doesn't want you know not to spend money if you're running a country but that and so he observed how how animals behave and You know what? Excuse me. I'm just gonna have a sip

James Ferrigno (56:01)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (56:18)
What's their modus operandi? And what are they doing in the morning compared to the evening? For instance, we've got a deer that when it wakes up, it raises its antler. So you've got this beautiful movement of coiling and uncoiling the antler. And then it goes, it peaks its head. It moves to look out and check everything's safe. Then it goes for a long...

run so off you go you walk and I'm going I'm going too fast there but and then finally it settles down and it slaps its leg and where it's actually a stomach point so it's you know helping its digestion yeah I love that

James Ferrigno (56:50)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah,

that's great.

Sarah Divine (57:10)
And so these people have been, you know, people have been doing these things for centuries and they've had healthier, happier lives because of it.

James Ferrigno (57:10)
And I'm...

Hmm?

Yeah, it sounds like it would be quite beneficial. What kind of changes do you see in your students just commonly? What kind of things seem to happen with your students emotionally, psychologically, physically?

Sarah Divine (57:39)
⁓ I see people saying that they just feel they have better relationships with those around them because they are able to respond rather than react. So that's a big part of it. So the more you can take those moments to settle your nervous system and settle your awareness into the body and even let go of all the cessation of all thought and all...

drivers is something that helps people to find that place where they're a bit more peaceful in their interactions or you know they have a kindness response rather than ⁓ an aggression or frustration or if they have the frustration or the aggression they're able to have it then inside but then withdraw it and reflip it reframe it

I still experience that one when I'm driving, though I'm quite choleric when I drive and I get this moment of frustration or annoyance and then I'm like, hang on, I'm one, I'm just, part of this problem as well. So, but it's funny. Like I laugh at myself as soon as it comes up. that's one instance. ⁓ Then in terms of,

James Ferrigno (58:45)
Mm-hmm.

That's just how.

Sarah Divine (59:08)
direction of focus, that's the other thing. So being able to focus more effectively on one thing. And I don't know that's more of a thing that women have typically struggled with. ⁓ I don't know, my experience with men is that they're better able generally to have that focus. And so I see that in some of the female students that I have that they are.

James Ferrigno (59:13)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Divine (59:38)
they're able to focus on one thing. And then in terms of physicality, the spine, that's been a huge one. So unlocking the spine. Sometimes people start moving and they're like wood and there's barely any movement, especially in the thoracic spine, but the lumbar spine is often sore. And so ⁓ to do a movement, which we call the wave, for instance, where you just, you imitate this rolling of a wave in the spine.

James Ferrigno (59:40)
Thanks.

Yeah.

Sarah Divine (1:00:08)
And over a number of years with some of the students, it's really unlocked their spinal flow. And that is going to actually, we say it, it makes your brain here because your cerebrospinal fluid is flowing more effectively. It requires movement. You know, we have, yes, a little bit of movement when we're still, but really when you breathe correctly, there should be a response in the spine. There should be a very slight.

pelvic tilt and anterior pelvic tilt and then a posterior and that activates your sacral pump and then up into the cranial pump as well. this is ⁓ something that I've really witnessed and also balance. So that's a big thing, especially for my older students, to... ⁓

to be able to stand on one leg or to move to the side. So lateral movement is something we don't do very often in our everyday world. And there's quite a lot of lateral movements in Qigong. And then I was teaching snake the other day, which can seem quite daunting. It's a movement that takes you in every which plane of motion. So you've got one arm back here, one across here, your body's slightly rotated. You're in this stance where one leg's

James Ferrigno (1:01:12)
Alright.

Sarah Divine (1:01:31)
bent, you're taking the weight on one side, you're stretching long and then you catch a prey like this. ⁓ so just that very physicality of it is toning the body and people just feel better because of that. So I see all of that. Yeah.

James Ferrigno (1:01:39)
Alright.

That's fantastic.

Sarah Divine (1:01:58)
Hmm.

James Ferrigno (1:01:59)
you

So.

What do you find most rewarding about what you're doing teaching people?

Sarah Divine (1:02:13)
Well, I've always been a person who enjoys engaging with others, you know, have that extrovert streak. ⁓ And so I love that aspect of teaching because I get to, you know, these windows into the world of others and insights into their journey. And it helps inform my practice because

James Ferrigno (1:02:19)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Divine (1:02:42)
and the way that I teach because each of those reflections from somebody else helps me to add to that sort of palette or suite of experience. So I know how to respond or adjust to certain types of people or situations or ⁓ conditions. So I really enjoy that sort of engagement. But above all else, think

It's the sense of collective peace that we achieve in a class and or even if I'm working one-on-one but one of the wonderful things that often happens when we're in the park is over a period of time during the class we get surrounded by birds and they'll come closer and closer and it could be ducks it could be

magpies it could be the little the Murray magpies it could be the ibises and they they just get closer and they've even come and pecked our feet before we were standing doing these standing meditation so

James Ferrigno (1:03:53)
Hmm.

Sarah Divine (1:04:00)
That says to me that there's something visible or at least palpable.

in what we're doing that the animals can sense and they feel comfortable with because they wouldn't ordinarily come quite so close. So I really do love that. And I feel that as well. And so do the students. They feel a connection. And when we feel that connection, it's easier to navigate the times when you feel alone, you know, you feel alone, but you're not alone, or you feel down or you feel

James Ferrigno (1:04:36)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (1:04:38)
You look at the world and you think it's completely mad and you feel sad and you feel frustrated or disenfranchised or somehow incapable of doing anything. But you come back to this and you come back to that feeling and that collective sense of belonging and you know that there's more, there's more that you can do. And by bringing that peace locally and spreading it.

through each of those students out into their environment. That's, you know, some way I can assist the world. So I love that very much.

James Ferrigno (1:05:21)
When you ⁓ design a program for a student or when you design a workshop, how do you meet people where they are?

Sarah Divine (1:05:30)
That's something that obviously is really important to consider. You can't just sort of throw something out there and hope that it will land appropriately. So I guess we can think about it in the context of first of all, thematics and then content. So thematically, look around for what's, sometimes I look at what's trending and

see how I can interweave ⁓ Qigong into those trends. like, for instance, breathwork is something that a lot of people are aware of at the moment. So I will look at how I can instigate a workshop, for instance, on Qigong breathwork. And I'll highlight the differences between just a regular breathwork session and what Qigong breathwork actually is. In terms of content,

Knowing the audience is quite important. If I'm working with people with a very specific group, for instance, the people with rheumatological conditions, I actually get them to give me information prior to the session. So they'll fill out a little health and wellness questionnaire for me. And that helps me to understand their limitations and to

really come back to the lowest common denominator. So I'm certain that I'm able to offer something that everybody can do. If it's a more general workshop or retreat, I generally know that the type of audience that's coming, I have a sense of, for instance, the age and I'll just ensure that everything that I

and planning to present will have a good capacity for modification. So modification is a really important part of this process. The thing about Qigong is it's not like going into CrossFit or something where you're you you're going to go all out and that's it. It's a practice that meets you where you're at. So that's the central tenet, if you like. And that's, I guess, I sort of...

pride myself on being able to offer that to people with that in mind. even if somebody's only able to do a couple of minutes of movement standing, they can continue doing it seated. So I'll take chairs or I'll have to be in a place where there are chairs and I will make sure that everybody can be part of the experience. So there's very few people that couldn't.

participate. If somebody's has schizophrenia, there are, you know, caveats to them joining in some of the practices, for instance, or if somebody's, you know, seriously ill and has cancer in an organ, I wouldn't want them to be squeezing it out, squeezing out the organ by by moving in a particular way. there's, you know, caveats and I would also

make sure that a medical professional had signed off on them being able to do what I teach. Yeah.

James Ferrigno (1:08:57)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's good to hear. ⁓ So that it's designed that way to begin with, to be for most people.

Sarah Divine (1:09:01)
Mm.

Yeah, accessible is definitely the way to go.

James Ferrigno (1:09:13)
Yeah.

⁓ So

what are you excited about next? What's coming in the future?

Sarah Divine (1:09:21)
Ooh, well, I'm actually teaching in Newcastle in January, which is ⁓ on the East Coast of Australia. I know there's a Newcastle in England, but I'd like to teach there too. But I'm doing a workshop there, which I'm rather looking forward to. It's in a beautiful nature reserve. Then I'm going back to Vietnam, where Tevye lives currently, and I'm assisting him.

James Ferrigno (1:09:34)
Yeah.

Sarah Divine (1:09:49)
I a teacher training in Alba in Alba Wellness Valley, Niihwe. It's such a beautiful place. It's so conducive for ⁓ the practice and just has an amazing onsen. So every night we go and have a nice spa and we get a massage and we feel really good. But I'll do some training with him prior to that, some private training.

James Ferrigno (1:10:08)
Yeah?

Hmm.

Sarah Divine (1:10:19)
Then I'm holding a workshop in Perth for a couple of days. I'm hoping to hold one in the UK because I'm going over in April to see my family to celebrate my 60th birthday. then later in the year, I'm going back to Vietnam to train in circle walking or Ba Zhang, which is that very dynamic practice of moving.

James Ferrigno (1:10:23)
Huh?

Sarah Divine (1:10:47)
walking in a very particular way around, for instance, a tree, a vase, to transmit or to receive energy from the object. And there's a lot of complexities involved in that. So I'll be an absolute, almost absolute beginner there. So I'm really looking forward to that.

But above all else, I just want to find ways to get other people excited into doing their practice. just keep finding new routes into the ⁓ teaching experience as well as the learning experience.

James Ferrigno (1:11:33)
Fantastic. things coming. So, final question. I always like to ask this. So what if you could just give people one piece of advice, something to do if they're stuck, if they're not sure where to go next. Just one thing that maybe they could do.

Sarah Divine (1:11:34)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Just breathe.

How many times do we actually stop and smell the roses? Do we stop and really listen in, really even observe the way that we breathe? So for most people they may find that when they do stop and listen to the way that they breathe or observe the way they breathe, they're breathing quite heavily into the chest.

So if we're talking about a simple practice, it would be to sit with an upright spine, to place one hand on the lower belly, one on the chest, and just observe where you feel movement and...

start to send your intention into the belly. Imagine you've got a little balloon or a little ball there that's just being softly filled with air and then as you inhale you feel that very gentle expansion and as you exhale you feel it release like the air is being removed. Another image I like to use is a flower like a lily on a pond and it's opening up and then it's

folding its petals in for the night and that feeling and just coming into this feeling, just breathing for a few minutes into the belly. It takes your...

James Ferrigno (1:13:17)
Thanks.

Sarah Divine (1:13:27)
awareness out of the mind, it takes it into the body, it helps to calm the nervous system, it helps to settle.

and settle your organs as well. it just gives you that sufficient distance from whatever it is that's bothering you. To be able to then get a slightly different perspective, step back and to remember that you're an observer. There's a part of you that...

can control it doesn't have to be controlled by your emotions or your

your reactive thoughts. So, and I think the breath is the quickest way into that.

James Ferrigno (1:14:24)
I thought that sounds good. Yeah, it felt nice to do.

Sarah Divine (1:14:26)
Yeah. And one thing that, and

it's not Taoist, but it's ⁓ Ram Dass. He says, remember we're all just walking each other home. And I love that. It just reminds me to find kindness. So for myself as well as others, because we're so hypercritical generally of our own, of ourselves.

James Ferrigno (1:14:36)
Hmm... Yeah...

Sarah Divine (1:14:53)
and you know you can be your harshest taskmaster, mistress, yeah finding that kindness is an important part of that process. But I loved your question James, I really loved everything about this interview, it's been really nice, all this discussion, this talk, it's yeah.

James Ferrigno (1:14:58)
Absolutely.

you

yeah me too yeah i think i had a really really good time

Sarah Divine (1:15:17)
It's woven itself well. And if anyone wants to reach out and ask any more questions, just look me up. I've got a website with my name and yeah, you can find me.

James Ferrigno (1:15:30)
What's

the web address?

Sarah Divine (1:15:34)
So it's just saradivinechigong.com ⁓ and that's divine D-I-V-I-N-E and qigong, Q-I-G-O-N-G. you might, there's, know, C-H-I-K-U-N-G is one way of spelling it, for this purpose it's Q-I-G-O-N-G, chi-gong. Yeah.

James Ferrigno (1:15:57)
I noticed

there's other Sarah Devines out there, so you have to include the Qigong part.

Sarah Divine (1:16:03)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, there I was thinking I was the only one.

James Ferrigno (1:16:07)
Yeah.

The only one of yourself. So thank you Sarah so much. It's been a real pleasure.

Sarah Divine (1:16:13)
⁓ Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, thank

you. I've really ⁓ enjoyed being able to share my passion. And hopefully maybe there's a few people listening who might be curious enough to come along and try some Qigong someday.

James Ferrigno (1:16:34)
I'll put in the description there'll be some contact for you.

Sarah Divine (1:16:38)
Thank you. Thanks so much.

James Ferrigno (1:16:41)
Alright, thanks. Have a great day.

Sarah Divine (1:16:43)
You too.