Qi Gong for Letting Go: Day 1 of a Six-Day Breath Practice

Lee Holden's livestream on Day 1 of his free autumn Qi Gong challenge does something most fitness broadcasts never attempt: it stops before the first movement and asks the audience to take stock. Streaming live from a studio in Santa Cruz, California, with co-host Skip Kelly on hand, Holden walks viewers through a breath-centered routine built around one question, what are you ready to let go of? His answer draws on the Chinese medical idea that autumn is Metal Season, a time when nature sheds what it no longer needs. What follows is less a workout than a reset: a way to notice where you are, release accumulated tension, and make room for what comes next.

Why does a Qi Gong challenge begin with a check-in?

Before any movement, Holden asks viewers to locate themselves. He reminds them that a journey needs a starting point, and that the starting point is the present moment. Around the 8:45 mark he invites people to "take a deep breath," let their arms fall to their sides, and do a quick scan of their bodies, hearts, emotions, and thinking. He asks for a number, a rating of overall energy, and a single word for their state.

The instruction is simple, but it sets the tone for everything after it. Holden frames Qi Gong as an inner journey, "a reorientation where you get to focus inward on your own internal energy." The number and the word are not meant to be graded. They are a baseline, so that by the end of the session viewers can notice what has shifted. He tells the audience that the goal of the practice is to move toward being "happier, healthier, more vibrant, more vital, and more fulfilled," and that the only place to begin that movement is where you already are.

Viewers were invited to type their numbers into the chat, and Holden asked them to notice lingering emotions too: excitement about the challenge, stress about life, a low mood, a lift of happiness. Naming these without judging them is part of the groundwork for letting them go.

Who is Lee Holden, and how did he end up in Mantak Chia's orbit?

Skip Kelly, who joined Holden as co-host, introduced him with a backstory that frames the teacher's lineage. Kelly described his own background as a corrective exercise specialist for Olympic and professional athletes, and said that his role for the challenge was to help people get the most out of Holden's practices so that the work becomes part of daily life.

The more striking story came next. Kelly said that in the 1980s a teacher named Mantak Chia was bringing Eastern practices and philosophies to the West, and that he was criticized for it, with some people believing the material was secret or that the world was not ready for it. Kelly said Chia went ahead anyway. Holden, he told viewers, was 19 and a student at UC Berkeley when he saw a poster announcing a Chia event. With no money for the ticket, Holden contacted Chia's team and offered to work for them in exchange for admission. That exchange, Kelly said, began a long relationship that eventually took Holden to Thailand to study directly under Chia, and led to a ghostwritten book.

Kelly also cited Holden's own bestselling book, Ready, Set, Slow, and said that Holden's PBS specials had reached the homes of more than 50 million people. Those figures come from Kelly's introduction, not from independent verification, and they are worth reading as part of the framing the challenge chose for itself. What the story does explain is the emphasis on slowness and breath that runs through this routine.

What does Metal Season have to do with letting go?

The challenge's central idea comes from Traditional Chinese Medicine's seasonal framework. The challenge materials describe autumn as Metal Season, and they present it as the time to release what has built up over the year, strengthen resilience, and prepare for what follows. The logic is ecological. Holden makes the point in the livestream by pointing at the season itself: in fall, leaves let go. "Nature doesn't cling and hold on," he says. The practice asks people to take that cue.

This is why the first day centers on breath. Holden tells viewers that the routine "is going to have a lot of breath work," and he links the season to the act of exhaling. The Day 1 theme, "Connecting to Breath: We Are One with Nature," puts that relationship at the center. A breath in is an intake; a breath out is a release. Holden describes using the exhale to move energy along the body's meridians, the channels that Qi Gong and Chinese medicine treat as pathways for vital energy. The exhale is where tension is let go, and the inhale is where the body takes in what it needs.

The routine was filmed, Holden said, in a redwood forest near Santa Cruz, a place he had also used for PBS shows in 2004 and returned to last month. He wants the setting to come through the screen. The point is that nature is not just a backdrop. It is the model for the practice.

Why empty the cup before you fill it?

The most useful image in the livestream is Holden's cup. He describes a cup holding a little murky water. If you pour fresh water into it without emptying it first, you simply have a full cup of murky water. "Before we bring in new energy, we want to let go of old energy," he says. The analogy turns letting go from an abstract wish into a sequence: release first, then receive.

Holden is specific about what might need releasing. It could be physical, such as tension or tightness in the neck and shoulders. It could be energetic, such as other people's energy that has settled on you. It could be emotional or mental. The challenge treats all of these as things the body holds, and the Qi Gong sequence is designed to give them somewhere to go. The practice doesn't ask you to fix them. It asks you to notice them, breathe them out, and see what remains.

That is also why the check-in matters. You cannot empty a cup you have not looked into. The number and word you gave at the start are the first look.

What does the routine actually look like, and why move so slowly?

Kelly described the daily practices as 20 to 25 minute routines, and the livestream shows the movement vocabulary. Viewers are guided to bend the knees and lengthen the spine, to let the chin settle toward the chest, and to take the arms through a series of rising and falling motions synchronized with the breath. Holden refers to acupressure points in the hands and along the body, and at one point he names a movement he calls "pulling down the sky," which he asks the group to sense in their own internal life as they breathe. He also draws attention to the flow of energy, asking participants to notice what changes in their bodies as they move.

The pace is the most counterintuitive instruction. Holden tells viewers, "We're going to move really slow." Many people arrive at exercise with a push-harder mindset, and Holden's answer is to do the opposite. Slowness gives the breath time to lead, and it lets attention stay on the body rather than the count. In a practice built around letting go, speed is a way of holding on.

Holden also says the routine can be done standing or seated, at whatever pace the body allows. That flexibility matters for a challenge that is meant to be repeatable. A practice that only works in ideal conditions is hard to return to. A practice that works from a chair, on a tired day, or during a stressful week is one you can keep.

What makes this different from a typical wellness challenge?

The structure is open about its intention. Kelly outlined the prizes, including a year of membership for the most supportive participant and a year for the person with the highest energy, with a grand prize of lifetime membership and a 30-minute online session with Holden. Those incentives are part of the challenge's design, and they are described as such. The practice itself is what Holden keeps returning to. Every routine is anchored to a single intention, and every intention is anchored to the season.

There is also a quiet argument underneath the whole session. Holden says the world needs better energy, and that people need tools to discharge stress and tightness and "activate the healing power in our own bodies." He frames Qi Gong as one of those tools, not a cure. The claim is modest: that a daily practice of breath, slow movement, and attention can help people notice what they carry and release some of it.

Where to go from here

The livestream was the opening of a six-day agenda, with Day 2 on the exhale and later days on refining what stays and what goes. The challenge ran from Sunday, October 4 through Friday, October 9, 2026, with lessons delivered inside a learning platform. You can read more about the program and its registration at holdenqigong.com/qi-challenge-2026. If you did not join live, the Day 1 routine still works as a standalone practice: do the check-in, empty the cup with a few slow exhales, and move with the breath at whatever pace your body allows. Then notice the number again at the end. That comparison is the lesson.