Qi Gong for Letting Go: Sound, Lungs, and Autumn Metal

Halfway through a Tuesday live class on Zoom, Skip Kelly asks the room to rate its energy from one to ten, and the answers come back mostly high: a handful of tens, a few eights, a seven or two. It is an easy scene to picture, and it sets the tone for Day 3 of Lee Holden's Art of Letting Go Challenge, a free five-day Qi Gong program built around the autumn idea that letting go is less about dumping everything than about refining what stays. In this session, Holden and Kelly unpack the logic behind sound practice, explaining why sounds purge, why colors tonify, and why the lungs, the metal element of Chinese medicine, are tied to grief, courage, and boundaries. They walk through a lung-focused sequence built on the Z sound, tapping points below the collarbone, and arm positions that open the lung meridian. Underneath it all is a teacher's own origin story, a 2006 television segment that its own producers doubted, and a practice that outgrew a garage full of DVDs.

What is the Art of Letting Go Challenge, and what was Day 3 about?

The challenge was built around a seasonal idea. The program's description explains that in Qi Gong and Traditional Chinese Medicine, autumn is Metal Season, and that just as nature sheds what it no longer needs, this is the time to release what has built up, strengthen resilience, and make room for what comes next. Across five daily lessons, Holden guided participants through a complete sequence of gentle movement, breath, and focused attention, meant to leave them with a repeatable practice they could return to all season.

The format was accessible by design. Participants could practice standing or seated, from wherever they were, at whatever pace their bodies allowed. The lessons ran from Sunday, October 4 through Thursday, October 8, 2026, with a final live class and celebration on Friday, October 9. Day 3 carried the theme "Refining What Stays," which is the line that governs much of what follows: the practice is not about emptying yourself out, but about sorting what is useful from what has become weight.

How did a 2006 PBS segment become a national Qi Gong movement?

Before the sound work began, Kelly told the origin story to set up the teacher. In his retelling, Holden had DVDs in his garage and a call from PBS came in with a modest request: record a short Qi Gong segment to fill a gap left when someone dropped out, with the plan to feature it in one city in 2006. Kelly described the producers' reaction to the taping as skeptical. In his words, the producers were sure the segment would not work, and they only needed Holden to fill the spot. Holden came in, humble, and did his practice. According to Kelly, it spread so widely that the station moved it from a single city to a national run.

Holden himself added a memorable detail: he was booked between two of the biggest names on public television. He said he was "sandwiched between Wayne Dyer and Yanni on the PBS show," and the room laughed about how the producers had first treated the segment as a long shot.

The logistics of that moment are the part most worth sitting with. Kelly pointed out that Holden had no real business infrastructure: no website, and a personal home phone number serving as the only public contact. Holden recalled what those calls were like:

"I was talking to everybody about all their problems, and uh, like, you know, grandma was on the phone and dad and the kids, and then I was sending DVDs out of the garage. It was good times."

— Lee Holden, Day 3 live class, 12:56

Kelly tied that history back to the present. Twenty years later, the same teacher was leading a live Zoom class, and a few longtime viewers were in the room. That arc, from a garage and a post office line to a global livestream, is a useful reminder that the practice's staying power did not come from a polished launch. It came from people who felt something after doing it.

Why do sounds purge and colors tonify?

The central teaching of the class is one line Holden delivered in passing, and it is worth quoting in full:

"Sounds purge, and colors tonify. I don't know if you know that."

— Lee Holden, Day 3 live class, 10:48 (paraphrased context from the membership class discussion)

He framed sound as vibration, and vibration as the way qi is expressed and moved. In Chinese medicine, the term purging means clearing out the old. Sound, in this model, does the clearing. Color, by contrast, is used to nourish or build energy. Holden described using both strategically to move and cultivate energy.

Kelly then offered a neat way to hold the pair, and Holden agreed. Kelly asked whether sounds could be understood as the letting go while colors represent the allowing in. Holden answered: "Yes. Exactly." That exchange is the practical hinge of the whole challenge. You breathe out with sound to release. You take in with visualization to receive. The two halves of the breath, in other words, carry the two halves of the theme.

Kelly also ran a small experiment on the live audience. He asked participants to notice their body before the sound: toes, feet, fingers, and the overall sense of aliveness. Then Holden guided the sound, and the room was invited to check in again. The point was not to produce a dramatic result. It was to teach people to notice the difference a single sound makes, because Qi Gong is best learned by feeling, not by taking someone's word for it.

What is the difference between vocalized and whisper sounds?

Holden explained that sound can be practiced on two levels, and this is where the method becomes specific. The vocalized sound, such as the Z sound used in the previous day's class, is, in his description, "a little bit more for the physical body." The whisper sound works more with the emotional body.

The logic rests on a claim from Chinese medicine that each organ holds certain emotions. Holden put it plainly: "each organ will hold different emotions." When you sound for a particular organ, you are helping to clear emotional energy that has stayed with you. For the lungs, he said, whisper sounds clear out what he named as sadness, grief, and depression, and turn them into inspiration and courage. The vocalized version works on the lungs themselves, aiming to cleanse them and make the organ healthier.

That layering is why the challenge repeated the lung sound across several levels and layers, rather than doing it once. Holden's approach is cumulative: the physical sound and the emotional sound are two passes at the same organ, and the second pass is where the emotional release is meant to happen.

Why does the lung's metal element matter for letting go?

Holden tied the lungs to the metal element, and then to a quality of metal he found useful for the season. "Metal has a discerning quality to it," he said. "Like a metal can draw a line in the sand." In this framing, the lungs are involved with discernment and clear boundaries, which fits the challenge's focus on refining what stays. Letting go, read this way, is not indiscriminate. It draws a line between what you keep and what you release.

That is also why the lung work sits at the heart of an autumn program. Metal Season, as the challenge materials describe it, is about shedding what has accumulated. Holden's lung teaching gives the shedding a structure: breathe, sound, and set a boundary.

How is the Z sound practiced, and what do the lung points do?

The physical sequence began with a tapping motion. Holden asked participants to tap on the chest and wake up the lung energy, then move to the lung points, which he described as sitting right below the collarbone. He added a claim about these points that is his own teaching, not a medical assertion: "These are the points for the immune system. Great for the immune system." Participants were guided to tap one side, take a deep breath, and then switch sides.

Holden then had participants lift their arms overhead, a position he said opens the lung meridian, and made the Z sound. The instruction was simple: take a big, deep breath and make the sound. Movement and sound were paired so that the body was open while the breath moved out. Holden repeatedly prompted slow, soft movement, and reminded people to let the shoulders relax further, describing the work as a yin-leaning practice.

For a beginner, the practical takeaway is that the Z sound is paired with a breath, an open chest, and a slow, relaxed body. Nothing requires forcing the sound. The aim is to release, not to strain.

How did the closing practice bring the day together?

Near the end of the session, Holden shifted into a quieter practice. He asked participants to close their eyes, enjoy the moment, and breathe in softly, noticing what they felt. The shift from sound to stillness mirrors the theme of the entire challenge: release through vocal and physical movement, then rest in the space that remains. The closing was not a conclusion to be memorized. It was a way of showing participants where they could return.

Where to go from here

If you are working with this material on your own, start with one piece. Try the progression that Holden and Kelly modeled: notice how your body feels, practice one Z sound with a deep breath and arms overhead, then check in again. Pay attention to the difference rather than chasing a particular result. If you are interested in the seasonal framing, read Metal Season in Traditional Chinese Medicine alongside the challenge's own description of autumn as a time to release what has built up.

For the full sequence, the challenge's five lessons and its live Zoom classes were the designed container, and the program notes indicated replays would be available for participants. Holden's teaching is strongest when it is practiced regularly rather than studied once. The question the challenge leaves you with is the same one it began with: what, after the shedding, is worth keeping?