Qi Gong and the Exhale: Letting Go Through Breath

When Lee Holden was 19 years old, he was playing soccer with friends when his legs were taken out from under him. He fell hard and fractured his tailbone—the coccyx, that tiny, fragile bone at the base of the spine. For weeks, he was in excruciating pain, limping from class to class. Doctors prescribed cortisone injections, the standard pharmaceutical response of that era. Nothing worked. Then, after just three acupuncture sessions and a handful of simple qi gong movements, the pain vanished completely. That week of practice became the seed of a lifetime devoted to teaching others how to use breath and movement to release what the body has held.

This origin story—injury, conventional medicine's limits, discovery of an ancient system that works—sits at the heart of "The Art of Letting Go," a free five-day qi gong challenge that Lee Holden leads each autumn. Day 2, "The Exhale: Letting Go and Purging Through Breath," digs into the mechanics of release and the philosophy behind it. It is not motivational happenstance. It is grounded in Traditional Chinese Medicine's seasonal wisdom and in the physiology of how breath actually moves energy and tension through the body.

Why Autumn Is the Season of Letting Go

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, autumn is Metal Season. Just as trees shed leaves and nature sheds what no longer serves, autumn is the time when the human body naturally turns inward and releases accumulated tension. "Most people sit too much," Lee notes early in the session. Modern life keeps us compressed, held, gripping. The exhale—and the practice of consciously exhaling—is the antidote. It is the season to purge stagnation, strengthen resilience, and make space for what comes next.

This is not poetry masquerading as medicine. In qi gong and acupuncture, there are specific points, meridians, and energetic principles at work. When Lee teaches "Knocking on the Door of Life," the opening movement of Day 2, he is targeting Ming Men, an acupuncture point located on the spine beneath the second lumbar vertebra—directly behind the navel. In Chinese medicine, this point is seen as the seat of original qi, the life force energy stored in the kidneys. "Your energy came in from the navel and went straight back to the door of life," Lee explains, tracing the embryological path that formed us in utero. When you activate this point through gentle tapping and spiraling movement, you tonify—strengthen—your energy while simultaneously freeing tension in one of the most common areas of modern pain: the lower back and the chi belt that wraps around the torso.

The Mechanism of the Exhale

Breath is the primary tool of qi gong practice, and the exhale is where the magic lives. We breathe about 20,000 times a day, Lee reminds the group. Each breath is an opportunity to let something go. The exhale activates the parasympathetic nervous system—the body's rest-and-digest response—while the inhale energizes. But more than neurochemistry is at work. In qi gong philosophy, the exhale is the literal purging of stagnation, tension, and what no longer serves. When you exhale with intention—especially when you exhale through the mouth with a gentle sound or vibration—you are moving energy, loosening cellular tissue, and signaling to your nervous system that it is safe to release.

During Day 2, Lee guides practitioners through a sequence designed to open the intercostal spaces (the muscles between the ribs), expand the lungs, and allow the breath to move freely through the entire trunk. "Feel the lungs open," he cues, as the group inhales through the nose and exhales forward. The practice is deceptively simple: standing or seated, moving gently, breathing consciously. There is no performance in it. There is no strain. Yet within that gentleness is tremendous power—the power to interrupt the body's habitual patterns of holding and to restore its natural capacity to release.

Energy Quality and Timing

A crucial insight emerges when Skip Kelly asks Lee about the relationship between the quality of energy and the time of day. If someone drinks a cup of coffee in the morning, their energy spikes. But is it the right energy for the right time? Lee's answer reframes the entire conversation: in qi gong, we are not chasing energy. We are cultivating the right quality of energy at the right time. "If you have a cup of coffee and I'm ready for the day, you have more energy," Lee says. "If you sleep well, you have more energy. But the question is: what's the quality of that energy?"

This is why practices like Day 2's exhale work are not just about relaxation. They are about discernment and cultivation. When you practice qi gong, you learn to sense the difference between edgy, jangled energy and smooth, flowing, grounded energy. You learn to direct your life force where it is needed, rather than depleting it through constant stimulation. The practice becomes, as Lee describes it, something you return to throughout the day—a reset button you carry in your own body.

From Pain to Practice

Lee's fracture at 19 was a doorway. It led him to acupuncture, to qi gong, and eventually to a career teaching these practices to thousands. But the deeper lesson is portable. Every person on Day 2 of the challenge carries some version of that story—a small injury, a chronic tension, a niggling pain that conventional medicine cannot quite address. The gift of practices like "Knocking on the Door of Life" is that they are simple, repeatable, and accessible from wherever you are. You do not need a mat. You do not need an injection. You do not need to be flexible or young or pain-free to start. You need only breath and the willingness to move gently with intention.

By the end of Day 2, practitioners have learned not just a movement, but a principle: the exhale is letting go. The exhale is purging. The exhale is the body's way of signaling release. And because we exhale 20,000 times a day, that principle is woven into the fabric of simply being alive. The practice, then, is not a separate thing we do at a certain time. It is a return to what the body already knows how to do, performed with a little more awareness, a little more grace.

Where to go from here

If you are drawn to this work, the full five-day challenge moves through Connecting to Breath (Day 1), The Exhale (Day 2), Refining What Stays (Day 3), and Build (Day 4), concluding with a live celebration on Day 6. Each day deepens the seasonal theme and builds on the previous day's foundation. The goal is to finish the week with a simple, repeatable practice for releasing tension that you can return to throughout autumn and beyond—not as a separate activity, but as a way of moving through life with more ease, more presence, and more of your own life force flowing freely.