About Al Perry
I’ve spent more than three decades listening to bodies.
And if there’s one thing they’ve taught me, it’s this:
The body is always trying to find its way back to balance.
Sometimes it just needs a little help remembering the way.
I’m Al Perry, a Medical Qigong therapist, bodyworker, teacher, author, and lifelong student of what makes us human. For more than 37 years, I’ve worked with people experiencing pain, restriction, stress, and the feeling that something simply isn’t moving the way it should.
My work combines myofascial bodywork, Qigong, conscious breathing, movement, and an understanding of the energetic body. But I don’t really think of these as separate techniques.
They’re different ways of having a conversation with the same remarkable human system.
I don’t believe I heal people.
That may sound odd for someone in the healing profession to say.
I believe you heal you.
My job is to listen, observe, feel, and sometimes ask your body a better question.
Pain is rarely just an isolated spot that needs to be “fixed.” The body is interconnected through fascia, movement, breath, nervous system, emotion, awareness, and energy. Pull on one thread and something may respond somewhere you never expected.
That’s why no two sessions with me are quite the same.
I’m not interested in forcing your body into somebody else’s idea of correct. I’m interested in discovering what your body has been practicing—and helping it discover another possibility.
Because, as I often say:
The body becomes what it practices.
If it has been rehearsing tension for years, tension can begin to feel normal.
But we can also rehearse softness.
We can rehearse movement.
We can rehearse breath.
We can rehearse calm.
My own life has been part of my education.
My understanding of healing didn’t come only from books, certifications, or ancient teachings. It came from living.
I’ve been a Marine. I’ve known struggle, reinvention, pain, uncertainty, and the humbling experience of discovering that some of the things I once believed simply weren’t true anymore.
My own journey eventually became the foundation for my book, Fractured To Freedom: A Healing Journey.
Along the way, Qigong taught me something that continues to shape everything I do:
Yi leads Qi.
Which means... where awareness goes, energy follows.
And when awareness enters the body with curiosity instead of judgment, remarkable things can happen.
You are not a collection of parts.
You are a living, breathing, adapting whole.
Physical tension can affect emotion. Emotion can change breath. Breath can change movement. Movement can change fascia. And sometimes changing one small pattern creates room for something much larger to shift.
That interconnectedness still fascinates me after all these years.
Perhaps that’s why I continue doing this work.
I’m still curious.
I’m still learning.
And every person who walks through my door teaches me something new about this extraordinary thing we call a human body.
My role isn’t to give you healing.
It’s to help create the conditions in which your own intelligence can emerge.
Sometimes that begins with a breath.
Sometimes with a movement.
Sometimes with a hand placed in exactly the right place.
And sometimes it begins with simply becoming quiet enough to listen.
Welcome to Qiworks.
Let’s see what your body has been trying to tell you.
Al Perry Qiworks — Qigong & Pain Management, 7291 Coronado Drive #6, San Jose, California
"Healing is more than treating symptoms...
It's about understanding the source of the imbalance and restoring flow."
Healing is more than treating symptoms.
It’s about listening to what the body is telling us, understanding the patterns beneath the pain, and helping restore movement, balance, and flow.
Your body is not the problem. It’s part of the solution.
At Qiworks, I don’t believe healing is something I do to you. My role is to listen, observe, and work with your body—not against it.
Pain, tension, restricted movement, and even long-held patterns of stress often have a story. Sometimes that story lives in the fascia. Sometimes it appears in the way you breathe, move, stand, or respond to stress. And often, several of these pieces are connected.
My work brings together myofascial bodywork, Qigong, conscious movement, breath, and more than three decades of experience working with the human body. There is no standard treatment or predetermined routine. Every session begins with the person standing in front of me.
Together, we explore what your body is communicating and what might help it move toward greater ease.
But the larger goal has always been self-empowerment.
I want you to leave Qiworks knowing more about your own body than when you arrived—recognizing your patterns, understanding what helps them change, and discovering simple practices you can use for yourself.
Because healing isn't simply about feeling better for an hour.
It's about changing what the body practices.
And when the body practices ease, awareness, movement, and calm, those too can become familiar.
How I Discovered Qigong
More than three decades ago, I was already working with the body when my own body decided to become one of my greatest teachers.
I had three bicycle accidents. The last one landed me in the hospital.
The X-rays showed displaced cartilage but no broken bones, and surgery was recommended. Something in me wasn't ready to take that path, so I declined and began looking for another way to help my body heal.
That search led me to Qigong.
What began as a way to recover from an injury gradually became something much larger. I discovered that movement could be gentle and still be powerful. That breath could change tension. That awareness could change movement. And that the body often knows far more about healing than we give it credit for.
As I practiced, I began bringing what I was learning into my work with others. Qigong changed the way I understood the body—not as a collection of separate parts to be fixed, but as an interconnected, constantly adapting system.
More than thirty years later, I'm still learning from it.
Qigong has become woven into the way I move, the way I work, and the way I understand healing. It taught me something that continues to guide my work at Qiworks today:
When we stop fighting the body and begin listening to it, something changes.
Sometimes healing begins there.
A week before that final accident, a friend had given me a small booklet about Qigong.
I hadn't thought much about it at the time. I set it aside and went on with my life.
Funny how sometimes the right thing arrives before we know we need it.
Now, with a painful knee and surgery being offered as the next step, I remembered that little booklet and pulled it out.
I began practicing the exercises for just a few minutes at a time. At first, that was all my knee would tolerate. But gradually, those few minutes turned into longer sessions. The movements became easier, my body began responding, and something was clearly changing.
Six weeks later, I suddenly realized something:
My knee didn't hurt anymore.
That got my attention.
I kept practicing. Whenever another physical problem appeared, I found myself returning to Qigong—not because I thought of it as mystical or magical, but because I had experienced what could happen when I gave my body the right conditions: movement, breath, and attention.
What began with an injured knee became a practice I would carry with me for the next three decades.
My Journey
After experiencing what Qigong could do in my own life, I wanted to understand it more deeply.
That curiosity eventually led me to Sifu Dr. Arnold Tayam, with whom I studied for three years. Under his guidance, Qigong became much more than a collection of exercises. I began to understand the principles behind the practice and, more importantly, to experience them in my own body.
Naturally, those principles began finding their way into my bodywork practice.
I started noticing connections between breath, movement, awareness, tension, and the way people experienced pain. Qigong changed not only what I taught, but how I touched, observed, and listened to the body.
Eventually, I began teaching Qigong at a local yoga studio.
Then COVID changed everything.
My clinic closed temporarily, in-person classes stopped, and like so many people, I had to find another way to connect. I began teaching Qigong online and created a course to help people use movement, breath, and awareness to support their wellbeing during an extraordinarily stressful and uncertain time.
Over the years, my curiosity continues to lead me into new territory—from fascia and biotensegrity to the relationship between consciousness, intention, movement, and energy. Those explorations eventually became part of what I call Quantum Qigong.
But beneath all the names and ideas, the heart of the practice remains remarkably simple.
Qigong means cultivating Qi—cultivating life.
For me, that's what Qiworks has always been about: helping people become more aware of their bodies, participate in their own healing, and discover what becomes possible when we stop forcing change and begin creating the conditions for it.
