🌿 How Rongoā Māori Boosts My Tai Chi and Qigong Practice

October 21, 2025

Keywords:
Rongoā Māori, Tai Chi, Qigong, Mauri, Qi, holistic healing, mindfulness, Aotearoa wellness, energy flow, indigenous wisdom, natural balance

🌸 Every Healing Journey Begins with Relaxation

When I first opened my Healing Bodywork Studio in Nelson in 2022, my purpose was simple — to help people relax, release stress, and reconnect with our body’s natural rythmn.

I offered Holistic Pulsing, Reiki, and Chinese Acupoint Head Massage, alongside Tai Chi and Qigong classes.

One of my Māori clients often comes to one-on-one healing sessions. Whenever she entered the room, the air changed — full and alive, as if the space itself was charged with invisible vitality. At times, I could feel the ancestors’ presence, the forest’s breath, and the rhythm of the moana.

The healing wasn’t coming from me. It felt like standing in a circle of unseen support and aroha. The Healing Hut had become a sacred space — where she could reconnect with whenua (land), ngahere (forest), moana (ocean), wairua (spirit), and tīpuna (ancestors).

My role was simply to hold that space. I felt so privileged to experience such powerful healing.

💧 Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au
(The river is me, and I am the river)

🌿 The Kōrero That Set Me on My Rongoā Path

We often had kōrero before and after her healing sessions.

She worked as a national trainer for Te Reo Māori teachers, and her mother used to practice Tai Chi.At the beginning of their wānanga, they would open with Tai Chi-inspired movements — to calm the body and settle the mind.

We began discussing traditional healing, Chinese herbal medicine, and Rongoā Māori —and our shared values and practices: hands-on bodywork, herbal remedies, and the deep connection between nature and wellbeing.

At the time, I was completing my graduate diploma in Applied Psychology at the University of Auckland, where I was introduced to Māori models of holistic wellbeing. t’s been such an enlightening experience during my research — it feels as though Indigenous wisdom holds the key to saving our world. If you are interested, watch this TED talk below.

The more she spoke about Rongoā Māori, the stronger my heart whispered:
“This is my must-do in this life.”

She told me Rongoā isn’t learned from books or online courses — it’s lived, felt, and learned kanohi ki te kanohi (face-to-face).And in the South Island, there was only Christchurch offering Rongoā course.

In my Buddhist background, I had learned that true teaching often happens in silence — not through words, but through presence and energy. I believe in her.

And so, I decided to move.

🌸 What I've learnt from Rongoā

As I began studying Rongoā Māori, I learned that healing isn’t just about plants or chemistry — it’s about energy, presence, and intention.

Every rākau (plant) carries its own wairua, a living relationship with atua (spiritual ancestors) and the natural world.
Even the same plant, when harvested in different seasons or regions, expresses different healing properties.

A true Rongoā practitioner connects deeply with te ao (the world), and the patient’s own hinegaru (mind) becomes part of the healing. In psychology, this might be called the “placebo effect” or “mind-over-matter.”

During my studies, I learned about the Suppression of Rongoā Act, which resulted in many Māori healers practiced underground. Similarly, Tai Chi, too, was misunderstood — reshaped in the West into a mere “gentle exercise,” losing touch with its spiritual essence.

Yes, Tai Chi improves balance — but that’s only a byproduct . Its true gift lies in calming the mind and harmonising energy.

“Western science wanted the chemistry of mānuka, but not its wairua.
It wanted Tai Chi’s balance, but forgot its calmness.”

Both Rongoā and Tai Chi were simplified for modern industry that seek results over relationships. Yet both endure! Kia kaha!

🌏 Similarities Between Rongoā Māori and Tai Chi

Before I was accepted into my Rongoā Māori course, I had an interview with my kaiako (teacher). I was deeply moved by how Māori view mātauranga (knowledge) as tapu — sacred — and how Rongoā is regarded as a true taonga, a living treasure.

In Taichi, the same principle exists. Knowledge was passed down within families or through apprenticeship. Students needed to be accepted — and once accepted, they carried the responsibility to pass it on.

In China, a Tai Chi teacher is called Sifu, meaning both “teacher” and “father.” The relationship isn’t commercial; it’s built on respect, heart, and lifelong connection.

Today, many of these sacred teacher–student bonds have shifted into consumer relationships, where learning is transactional.
Yet the spirit of the tradition still survives — wherever there is humility, sincerity, and love of the art.

It's mannakitanga, whanaugatanga, kaitiakitanga. It's aroha.

Māori Tradition	Chinese Tradition
Mātauranga (knowledge) is tapu	Knowledge passed through family lineages
Rongoā as taonga (treasure)	Tai Chi as Daoist inheritance
Kaiako–ākonga (teacher–student) connection	Sifu–student lifelong bond

🌺 Returning to Authentic Practice

Learning Rongoā gave me the courage to teach Tai Chi in its authentic form — from the inside out.
Mind training first, body training second. Having confidence in Taichi is half a success.
And training the body is also training the mind.

If the mind is tense , the body is tense too.
If the mind expands and connects with nature, vitality flows.

I once heard someone explain Cloud Hands as “one hand doing a stop sign and one hand holding a mirror.”
It made me think — if we keep repeating that gesture every day, what kind of mindset are we training?

In Tai Chi, every form carries a poetic name, connecting to the natural world and its auspicious meanings.
These names gently soften the mind, such as : Picking Peaches Beneath the Leaves, White Crane Spreads Its Wings, Playing the Lute, — each movement a story of harmony between body, spirit, and nature.

What we practice, we become.

When we move our body, we move our mind. When we flow with nature, we remember who we are.

Today, as a Rongoā graduate, I continue to share Tai Chi and Qigong — but now through the lens of te ao Māori. Each class begins with both hands lifting to uphold the heavens — a quiet moving karakia — and ends with a gentle standing meditation, grounding the wairua and settling the energy back into our whenua. Between those two moments of stillness, we move like water, breathe like forest, and remember that healing is never separate from the land, or from one another.

As I travel and spend time in nature, I see it not as stepping away from my kaupapa(purpose), but walking deeper into it. Listening to rivers, feeling the wind, observing the rhythm of the earth — these are my professional development hours.

And I love to have you, join me on the Taichi and Rongoā path, kaitiaki the precious the beautiful world and wellbeing, for our future generations.