Marisa Cranfill is the founder of YOQI® yoga + qigong. Frequent trips to Asia as a child inspired Marisa to study and work there for over 20 years. While living in China and Thailand she received direct transmission from Qigong masters, nuns and healers in both the Buddhist and Taoist traditions. Marisa developed the YOQI® method over years of teaching Yoga and Qigong at meditation retreats. She found that both practices contained key principles and techniques that enhanced the student’s stamina and sensitivity to energy during the long-seated meditation sessions. The routines reduced physical pain and gave them more focus and quality of awareness. This became the catalyst to create the Six Phases of Qi Flow method - a clear and effective system of mindful movement, accessible to everyone, that maintains the integrity of the ancient Yoga and Qigong traditions.

Marisa has been described as a generous and light-hearted teacher who guides her students through direct experience. A global citizen at heart, she speaks Spanish, Italian, Thai, Chinese and English, and offers free videos on the YOQI® You Tube channel. Fastly becoming a world known teacher of Qigong Flow, under YOQI Productions, Marisa has directed and produced over 200 high quality Qigong and Yoga videos using a repertoire of hundreds of movements and postures from Medical Qigong, Martial Qigong and Spiritual Qigong traditions. As the YOQI® method grows, Marisa continues to support hundreds of YOQI® instructors through online and live instructor training immersions around the world. Marisa is currently based in Bangkok, Thailand.

TRAINING BACKGROUND

YOGA

Although first immersed in Hatha Yoga in India in 1998, Marisa was trained to teach yoga at Yoga Elements, Bangkok with Adrian Cox, in 2005. Living in Thailand, she had the opportunity to study with a variety of yogis from the Ashtanga, Integral Yoga, Anusara, Iyengar traditions. One of the largest yogic influences of YOQI® comes from Yin Yoga training with Paul and Suzee Grilley. Marisa is a certified E-RYT® 500 yoga instructor that includes 300 hours of Yin Yoga.

QIGONG

Marisa discovered Qigong as a student at Zhejiang University, China in 1999 through a local Taiji Chuan master. Afterwards, she studied with many top Qigong masters, some well-known and others off the grid. Marisa is formally trained and certified from two lineages of Qigong including the Universal Healing Tao school (Master Mantak Chia). She has also studied Medical Qigong at the Wandering Tao School in Yangshuo, China, as well as with respected Daoist scholar Kenneth Cohen. Female teachers include Qigong master and energy healer Liu He. She has over 10 years of practice with Chen style Taijichuan learned at training camps in China and with Chen lineage holders. Her teaching style comes from experiential learning from both Buddhist and Daoist styles of Qigong. Through this wide range of training and research, Marisa developed the YOQI® method called the Six Phases of Qi Flow.

MEDITATION

Cultivating “bare awareness” is the foundation of all YOQI® practices. Marisa has extensive experience with a range of Buddhist and Taoist meditation techniques including Samatha, Vipassana, Chinese Chan, Japanese Zen, and Pureland schools. Her primary method of practice and teaching is Vipassana from the Theravada Insight Meditation tradition (the origin of “mindfulness” meditation). She has assisted her meditation master Ajarn Helen Jandamit since 2006 with retreats at the Young Buddhist’s Association of Thailand and is currently a regular visiting instructor at the Little Bangkok Sangha.

THAI SHAMANISM

Part of Marisa’s Yoga and Qigong training involved seven years (2004-2011) immersed in the spirit house tradition of Thailand where she studied the rituals and mythology of the Thai spirit world with local shaman priests in the Thai language. Stepping into other cultures through mythic membership greatly influences her understanding of energy healing, archetypes and our spiritual evolution. She gives annual lectures at museums and scholastic venues in Asia on the topic. You can see her work at www.spirithouseconnection.com

FASHION AND MEDIA

Marisa is the heir of her mother’s apparel label Marisa Baratelli and grew up with one foot in the fashion industry. She was the Creative Director of Marisa Baratelli working closely with her mother for almost twenty years running the largest Thai silk garment export company in the world. Modelling since her teens, she loves to be both in front and behind the camera. Her natural talent for color and design has led her to develop her own line of Qigong Flow-wear.