Sidebar

Nancy Gardner and the Healing Power of Energy

The old women filed into the room, engaging in friendly chitchat with their instructor. Some had returned after a hiatus – illness, duties elsewhere. Others were back again, regulars preparing for another weekly hour of movement. The day was one of those late-winter shards of sunlight that promises better weather very soon. Some plants outside were sprouting new growth, but more evident was the affection that flourished between instructor Nancy Gardner and this troupe of Dominican sisters from Our Lady of the Elms convent in Akron.

Gardner’s class, in its sixth year, reflects the organic nature by which her practice in complementary and alternative medicine began and has grown. It started with a student, one of the Dominicans, asking her to show some of the stretching and tai chi exercises to her colleagues at the convent. She has not stopped showing them and they, it seems, have no intention of not showing up.

It was much the same way for Gardner, the director of production services for an Akron advertising agency. A childhood friend introduced Gardner to tai chi and other forms of martial arts in 1985. It was love at first lesson. She had found a home for her physical interests. As the lessons gave way to spiritual understanding, she also found expression for her growing interest in integrating physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of health. Not only did the physical practice keep her fit, it began to have a profoundly positive effect on all parts of her life.

“It gave me a way to focus all of my 'Ricochet Rabbit' kind of energy,” she said. Although she always had been physically active, she said the training exercises made possible a level of fitness she had not dreamed of. Most important, it shifted her career outlook from work to a calling and, in 1996 Gardner stepped away from nearly two decades in advertising to embark on her current path as owner of NG Energy.

Much like the components of a person’s health, NG Energy is not just one thing. It is education in tai chi and other forms of martial arts to improve physical fitness. It is massotherapy – Gardner has been a licensed massage therapist since 1994 – and other forms of body work including polarity therapy, acupressure, stretching and breathing exercises to reduce stress. Ask the harried CPAs who receive chair massages during tax season and call Gardner “the chair’’ and say: “You’re our favorite perk; better than pizza!’’ It is using Qigong, an ancient Chinese energy medicine, to teach people ways to increase vitality. It is taking a group of people into nature, getting them away from their routines and the man-made environment to touch parts of themselves that tend to be drowned in the noise of everyday life.

Ask those Dominican sisters, who range in age from 61 to 99 about Gardner’s impact. Sister Alicia, the youngest, is an avid participant in the weekly classes based on tai chi and qigong movements. Two years ago, a brain aneurysm left her learning how to walk and talk again. Gardner’s classes started where physical therapy left off. Sister Alicia walks just a little slowly, barely giving any sign just how far the dark-haired Dominican with the shining black eyes has come in two years. Her colleagues call her, simply, their miracle child. Sister Mary Martha, 99, took over the spot as the oldest member only after Sister Mary Elizabeth moved from the Elms convent to Regina Health Center at the age of 101.

The classes aren’t promoted to make great physical specimens of these gracefully aging teachers, nurses and musicians. It is to improve the quality of their lives as they grow older and to help hold the line on age’s indignities. Improving balance prevents falls, a major cause of disability and death among the elderly. Keeping a mind sharp by making both sides of the brain talk to each other can hold dementia and Alzheimer’s at bay.

The nuns aren’t the only group of senior citizens benefiting from Gardner’s teachings. She also has a weekly drop-in tai chi class at nearby Rockynol Retirement Community and works with the adult day services, New Horizons, offered by Summa Health System in Cuyahoga Falls.

The majority of her students take tai chi at one of several venues throughout Akron. They also take special classes such as Qigong: Elixir Light Healing, which seeks to increase energy levels through a series of specific exercises and meditation, or using hiking staffs for physical exercise and self-defense. For Gardner, the work is about creating balance and helping people be responsible for their own well-being. It’s not a hard sell once the students show up.

Like the tai chi student who often arrives at Gardner’s class at Summa’s City Hospital, exhausted from a day at the office. She has yet to leave without feeling more energy than when she walked in.

“That’s why I do what I do," Gardner beamed.

Gardner and NG Energy are part of a growing field called Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part of the National Institutes of Health, estimated that Americans spent nearly $34 billion in 2007 (the last year for which figures are available) on exercise programs, dietary supplements, massage, acupuncture and other disciplines in addition to what they paid for more conventional medical techniques. That represents roughly 38 percent of the U.S. population.

Aside from the debate on health care and insurance reform, there is real economic basis for teaching people ways to feel better and live more free of pain and stress. A study published in November 2003 in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that the U.S. work force loses $61.2 billion in productive time because of pain. It can be as common as a headache – the most widely reported kind of pain – or low back pain or arthritis. Most workers don’t stay home from work because of their pain; they say they just don’t perform as well, according to the JAMA article. So businesses have a stake in helping their workers increase their energy levels and reduce their reactions to stress.

That is why the list of NG Energy clients reads like a Who’s Who of Akron and Northeast Ohio: Summa Health System, with which Gardner has had a teaching relationship since 1996; Goodyear Tire and Rubber; GOJO Industries, Inc.; The Smithers Group; Leadership Akron; Brockman, Coats, Gedelian & Co. accounting firm; Metro Parks, Serving Summit County; the National Multiple Sclerosis Society; National Network of Career Nursing Assistants; and U.S. Probation Court.

While many of her classes are specific: Tai Chi Chuan: Meditation in Motion; Qigong Breathing and Meditation; Ba Gua: Walking the Circle, many more are simple enough: Energize Your Day; Self-Massage and Breathing Techniques for Stress-Reduction and Relaxation; Balance and Preventing Falls. Taken one at a time or together, they can form the foundation of a healthy life. They seek to put the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of life in balance. It’s that simple, and as Gardner says, it is the simple things that make the difference.

“We don’t always need to take a pill," she said about ways to improve health. “Exercise is medicine.’’ She is passionate about the power of exercise in health, and she sees no point in judging the state of medicine or even the state of health of her clients and students when they come to her. She is thrilled that they are there.

“We need to take responsibility for ourselves," she said. “Even my overweight clients and students need to come back to balance." And those who are aging, moving away from life as a couch potato, rehabbing from joint replacement and other surgeries. The goal is to heal, to find physical, emotional and spiritual balance. And to have fun.

“The Chinese word for training in martial arts translates to the English word play; the meaning is practice or study. Wouldn’t you rather play than work out? It makes it a lot more fun!” Gardner adds.

Sarah Vradenburg is a freelance writer and former editor and writer for Knight Ridder Newspapers. She now focuses on subjects involving energy, history, gardening and spirituality.