Most enquiries about private hours come from people in an in-between space: physiotherapy has ended, but a group class still feels out of reach.
That in-between space is the most critical part of recovery and simultaneously the one where most people are left to themselves. Private Qi Gong is built for exactly that.
First, importantly: we are not physiotherapists and we do not treat anything. We work with movement, breath and posture, inside the frame your doctor or physiotherapist sets. If you do not have such a frame yet, get that first.
Why Qi Gong in particular
Of everything we teach, Qi Gong suits a body with restrictions best.
- Low joint load. No jumps, landings or impact. A joint moves through the range it has, without force.
- Slowness. A slow movement gives you time to notice where discomfort appears - and stop before it becomes pain.
- Breath work. Chronic pain keeps the nervous system on alert. A lengthened exhale is one of the few tools that acts on that directly.
- Progress in millimetres. Change is measured in small steps, which in recovery is the only useful speed.
- It can be done seated. A large part of the sequences works in a chair, which opens training up even when standing is not possible.
How the first hour works
The first hour is mostly conversation and observation.
We want to know when it hurts - mornings, after sitting, at night, during a particular movement. When it does not hurt. What makes it worse and what eases it. What you have already tried and what worked.
Then we look at movement: how you stand, how you turn, what the body does when you raise an arm, where the movement breaks. None of this is testing limits. We are looking for the range in which movement is comfortable, and we build from there.
At the end of the first hour you get two or three exercises for home. Never more - because nobody does more.
What we most often work with
Chronic lower back and neck pain. By far the most common reason. The work goes into hip and thoracic mobility, and into getting those regions to stop doing other regions’ jobs.
Shoulders. Post-surgery, with impingement, or with stiffness from sitting. Qi Gong has plenty of movements that open the shoulders without loading overhead.
Knees. After cruciate or meniscus surgery, while deep positions are still off the table. We train in the range that is available and widen it slowly.
After a long period of inactivity. Illness, surgery, a long stretch of sitting. Here the real challenge is pace - the body is ready for more than it dares.
Flowing water never grows stale; a door hinge never gathers rust.
Where the limits are
It is only fair to say what training does not do.
It does not replace physiotherapy in the acute phase. With a fresh injury, go there first.
It does not remove a structural cause. With a herniation, arthrosis or damage that needs a procedure, training helps function and pain, not structure.
It does not work quickly. The first changes arrive in three to four weeks, and they show up first in sleep and morning stiffness rather than in the pain itself.
It does not work without you. One hour a week does not move a chronic condition. What moves it are the three exercises you do at home for five minutes every day.
When you move into the group
The aim of private hours is not for you to stay on them. The aim is to reach the point where group training becomes safe and sensible - usually within two to three months.
At that point we typically move to the group Qi Gong class at 17:30, with the group teacher aware of your restrictions, plus a private hour every few weeks as a review.
How to start
Write and tell us what is going on: a diagnosis if you have one, what hurts, what you have been told not to do. If from your description we judge that training is not the right thing right now, we will say so.
We train at Ziherlova 44 in Ljubljana, with private hours available during the day by arrangement.
