Olga Pchelintseva-Mares is a qigong healer and practitioner who also helps manage International Riding Camp for girls in upstate New York, 90 miles northwest of New York City. Having heard of a qigong school for children in China, she decided to teach energy work to children at the camp. “Because qigong is not something that people can relate to or understand right away, it took me quite a bit of courage and confidence to do it,” she says. “To my surprise, the results were amazing.”

The children were not just more open to energy work than adults, but they were also more sensitive to energy, and had better energy flow, she says. “They were surprised to feel something that they could not touch, but that they could manipulate with their minds. It was a great discovery for them.” She notes that camp can be an emotional experience, and qiqong helped the campers let go of excess emotions. They particularly enjoyed the meditative experiments with qi and qigong healing, which they found relaxing.

“Teaching qigong to children is like planting a seed,” Pchelintseva-Mares says. “They can have a short but memorable experience that they will have for the rest of their lives. This introduction to qigong—the idea of mind leading qi, the feeling of the energy and, most importantly, the experience of all that—does make a shift in their minds, allowing them to remember that they are more than what they think they are.”

Olga Pchelintseva-Mares offers qigong workshops and classes in NYC and in upstate New York through Blue Lotus Qi Gong. For more information, call 914.850.1202 or visit BlueLotusQiGong.com. Her qigong for athletics was implemented at HorseRidingCamp.com.