Meet Zvika.
Taoist tai chi qi gong master KEY. Father and husband. Founder of Apanema Mindfulness Resort.
The beginnings of his Spiritual Journey
Zvika’s journey to spirituality took him to China.
He felt ancient taoist practices would bring some answers, together with some kind of a deeper understanding and healing.
He was dealing with going from being perfectly functional human being to becoming deaf.
And so, the Wudang mountains were his home for a few months. Away from home. Away from family. Away from everything.
12 hours per day training in the arts of Tai Chi Qi Gong.
3 months on air, water, rice and vegetables.
A day in a Taoist Monastery where Zvika's training began
At 6 AM sharp, the square fills with students ready for morning practice.
Qi Gong takes the stage, a dance of balance between body (JING), soul (QI), and spirit (SHEN).
Like the bamboo, we root our feet deeply into the earth, stand tall and flexible through the spine, and let our hands and head sway like branches in the sky.
Every movement is deliberate, intention flows like a dewdrop gliding off a leaf.
Intention without intention. Doing without doing. Fighting without fighting. Be like water.
Was I in Rehab?
Zvika’s words:
It didn’t take long for me to see where I really was. This wasn’t just a monastery. It was a sort of rehab center. The big detox therapy. I really needed it to bury the dying layers within me to gain the strength to come to life once again.
Detox from what?
Performance. Results. Vigilance. Always climbing, always chasing. My life was an endless pursuit of goals, a race without a finish line, fuelled by adrenaline and tension.
The price? Fatigue. Irritability. Permanent tension. My body screamed, “I am hurting. I am burnt out. I am bad. Really bad.” My mind didn’t want to stop for a second and just listen. It was too busy playing “the game”.
The fight wasn’t out there; it was within. I was my own opponent. Caught in a battle between habits on autopilot and the reality of a body crying out for balance.
I realised Tai Ji isn’t just self-defence—it’s a defence against your own self. To stand still, to flow, to let go.
That’s when the walls came down, and I finally understood: the greatest enemy isn’t out there. It’s the one staring back at me.
I am not staying deaf.
He tells the story himself:
Summer 2011. I was 54. Things were not that bad at the time, but I felt something was (still) off… It was the second year of studying Chinese medicine.
I lost the hearing in my right ear completely in less than six months and the left was barely functional.
I realised that the body sends messages and signals and if I continue to abuse it will end very badly! It must have been the result of the intense work at the job throughout many years.
The body does not call the mind to warn, it does not send an e-mail and we do not receive a WhatsApp or a notification on the mobile phone.
We do not listen to our internal signals. Our body is so complex, yet so simple. It communicates with pain, syndromes, diseases and suffering.
After suffering for several years, my sense of hearing finally died on me, with despair and frustration.
As anyone who takes hearing as granted from birth – boom! It was like an explosion into total silence. The silence came with darkness. Deafness brought me down. Down. Down.
And so… I began learning and listening to the body like a baby learning to walk, to acknowledge, internalise and change without repressions, denials and escapes.
I needed to confess like in a support group: Yes! I’m addicted. To work, career, tasks. This is my “drug”. I am a Workaholic. I am a Taskaholic. I am a Go-Get-er.
Life crises are gifts. Wake up!
We all panic whenever life brings us to crisis. We don’t know how to react and we keep the crisis-fight-or-flight response, giving even more tension to the actual crisis.
I learnt that each crisis holds the key to a new beginning. A gateway to something deeper and more profound. On the other side of the tunnel lies the calm, the normal state of being. This is not escape. It is transformation. A shift in awareness. The start of a a new lesson.
Discipline and perseverance are your best friends whenever crisis hits.
Practice becomes the heartbeat of the journey—daily, intentional. Time fades away and only purpose remains.
Get used to practice and practice every day…
I am honoured to have gathered such an experience as to be able to guide others.
At the retreats we learn to practice Qi Gong, which means working with the life power energy of the five elements with Yin Yang:
- Water stability (kidneys)
- Metal orientation (lungs)
- Fire Coordination (heart)
- Tree Flexibility (liver)
- Earth Focusing (spleen)
Committed conscious people can go through the gate anywhere and at anytime.
Taming the Monkey Mind
This is what Zvika wrote in his diary on September 5, 2013:
The way to internalise a change is to repeat it over and over again like the movement of breathing… do not think. Only feel and relax the “Monkey mind” – this is the moment when the brain waves calm down, meditation in motion… or movement Meditative, a virtue for relaxation, stress release l and balance .
From here, from the root of the crisis, I began the spiritual journey. The crisis turned into a process of radical change.
Training in Tai Ji aims at a harmonious match between consciousness and the subconscious to contact with the existing reality. Daily training for prevention, calm and growth.
He can now hear. Again.
The input of modern medicine solved his hearing impairing. Via a risky operation, he got his hearing back. He does believe in technology, science and brilliant minds.
He also believes we need our own help to heal the traumas left, even after “fixing” something with the help of modern technology. Or losing a loved one. Or going through significant changes that seem like crises.
In his healing process he also got back his lost self. He entered into a new phase of life, where he no longer sees things in black and white.
Zvika surrounded himself with a life in colours, many of which he didn’t even know existed before.
His spiritual journey, the thousands of hours of tai chi qi gong, all his learnings about the ancient Chinese medicine… all this brought him to a point where he found maybe the most important thing in life… balance.
He feels at peace with what is and what comes. He feels healthy. He feels energised. He is calm. He feels empowered to pass on this feeling of “calmness” that took him many years to come by.
Zvika on Tai Chi Qi Gong
“The practice I chose to follow is in its core a gentle form of martial arts.
Tai Ji Qi Gong is based on Taoist concepts: Yin Yang, relaxation, emptiness, rooting, slowness and uniformity, coordination, breathing, concentration, focus, flexibility, orientation, stability, restraint, neutralisation, let go, let be, the art of balance.
They all sound great, but is it really possible to achieve all of them?
That is a very complex question. For sure we can get closer with practicing.
The goal is to reach the ideal physical health, a clear mental and spiritual awareness, while learning simple self-defence movements and techniques.
Classical writings on this ancient practice: “When the lower vertebrae are upright, the spirit of vitality QI reaches the heights of the head. When there is a feeling that the upper part of the head is hanging and held from above, so the body will be light and agile.”
All in all, practicing Tai Chi Qi Gong leads to a balanced healthy life.”
The "Qi"
Qi.
It is there, we are all born with it.
These are the first heartbeats of the baby in the mother’s womb, the first breath of air into the lungs…
The Metabolism every moment in the trillions of cells in our bodies …
In most of us… IT is stuck and blocked.
Qi is the life-giving force. It is the vital energy. It is the one thing you are missing when you feel without energy.
Qi must be nurtured and awakened. This is how we stay empowered. This is how we stay balanced. This is how we roll with grace through life. Even in its most challenging parts.
When the Qi flows, it warms the body from the inside out, reaching deep into the bones and transforming into marrow, a renewal of life at its core.
With time, patience, and dedication, this practice of keeping the Qi alive and active offers more than health and logevity.
It’s a path to mental clarity, spiritual depth, and a sense of harmony that feels timeless. Ideal health and longevity aren’t just goals, they’re bonuses.
Apanema Mindfulness Resort & Zvika
Spring 2022.
Zvika spread his wings and flew to Lefkada Island in Greece. He felt an immense attraction to this Greek Island, even from the distance.
While crossing the floating bridge of this blessed island, he felt a larger energy than himself. He said it felt like a sort of “cosmic energy”.
The winding mountain road led him to a small plot in a traditional Greek island village with less than 100 homes.
He walked into a villas complex on the side of an evergreen mountain.
It was the answer he was looking for. So many years left unanswered finally receiving what was missing – A sign from the cosmic universe A mindfulness God’s plot.
Deep into his Dan Tyne he felt for the first time after many years…. Sublime spiritual ascension.
It was the answer he was looking for. So many years left unanswered finally receiving what was missing – A sign from the cosmic universe A mindfulness God’s plot.
The place magnetised him right there and then. A spiritual journey that lasted for about 11 years from the WUDANG Mountains to this magical island in the heart of the Med.
The cosmic energy Zvika felt when crossing the bridge was ANAT. She was present with him that moment, although they haven’t even met at the time.
Anat joined Zvika one year later in his journey of making Apanema Mindfulness Resort a healing place, a place for retreats and place for calm and peace.
2025: The start of Wellbeing Retreats in Greece, hosted by Zvika and Anat
After 2 years of developing Apanema Mindfulness into an ideal place for retreats in Greece, Zvika and Anat are now hosting from September to June, one-week Wellbeing Retreats almost once per month at Apanema Mindfulness.
The retreats are meant to be for very small boutique groups of maximum 10 people in the comfort of the private and gated villa complex with pool, sauna, massage, practice studio. See the full gallery of our retreat resort in Lefkada, Greece.
PS. We are also letting our location for any yoga instructor or other wellbeing therapies who would like to organise a private retreat with their own students. Please contact us if you are a teacher, guide or instructor and you are interested in our venue.
