About us

Meet Christopher and Daniela

Learn Qigong is the beginner's home of Great Energy, the school we founded and teach together.

Christopher Grant and Daniela Hess with JacksonBrowne, their Chihuahua

We are Christopher Grant and Daniela Hess, partners in life and in work. We met in 2013, began teaching together in 2014, and built Great Energy on one simple idea: the quality of your energy shapes the quality of your life. Great Energy is an independent educational school for Qigong, conscious living, and functional wellness, with its own curriculum and teacher training. Learn Qigong is where beginners start.

Christopher Grant

Christopher Grant

Christopher Grant

Co-Founder, RYT500, Cornell Computer Engineer

Christopher lives at the meeting point of two worlds that rarely sit together easily: building things, and inner practice. He is a Cornell-trained computer engineer who has built web systems since the 1990s, and he is a certified teacher of yoga, Qigong, breathwork, and meditation.

He did not come to practice from a peaceful life. His teens and twenties were full of anxiety and restlessness, and for years he tried to outrun himself. Movement, breath, and meditation gave him a way to meet himself instead. More than ten years sober now, he teaches beginners with steadiness, simplicity, and a lot of patience. People often describe feeling clear, grounded, and relaxed in his presence.

Daniela Hess

Daniela Hess

Daniela Hess

Co-Founder, Functional Wellness Consultant, MSEd, RYT500

For over two decades, Daniela has helped people heal the body, settle the nervous system, and come home to themselves. She holds a Master's of Science in Health Education and is a Registered Yoga Teacher, a Functional Wellness Consultant, an Autoimmune Educator, and a trained Ayurvedic practitioner.

She is the founder of the Autoimmune Recovery Method, the Perimenopause Recovery Method, and the Midlife Radiance Course, and much of her work now serves women in midlife. Her approach is steady and clear: no urgency, no bypassing, choice always. She prioritizes direct experience over ideology, and change that unfolds gradually and holds.

How we teach

We keep it simple. No unnecessary complexity, no hype, no toxic positivity. We honor the body you have today, we meet you where you are, and we ask for a little practice, done often, rather than a lot done once. Much of Qigong can be done seated, and there is never any pressure to reach further than your body wants to go.

We teach the Jump Start Your Energy course together, and you can always begin for free with the free class and getting-started guide. If you would like to see the wider school, our certification, live classes, and Daniela's functional wellness work all live at greatenergy.org.

We were married in 2018, and we share our home and work with our Chihuahua, JacksonBrowne, who occasionally signs off on things with us.

Our work is educational and supportive. We do not position ourselves as medical providers. If you have a health condition, check with your own practitioner before beginning a new practice.

The course

Ready for a guided start?

Jump Start Your Energy is a gentle, self-paced Qigong course, about fifteen minutes a day, taught by Christopher and Daniela. The simplest way to build a real practice.

See the courseOr begin with the free class and guide