In a sparse multi-purpose room, a handful of middle-aged Chinese American women have rolled out black yoga mats and are studying the moves of a qigong instructor gently giving instructions.
Inhale. Gather. Exhale.
Qigong — a mind-body-spirit practice using simple, repetitive exercises — is being offered at a new center in Monterey Park with a grimly-specific mission: tending to survivors and community members after the deadliest shooting in L.A. County history took place in their city.
The Monterey Park Resiliency Center offers mindfulness and stress-relief activities like qi gong.
Stretch through your wrists, and relax.
Less than a mile from where the women focus on breath work, a gunman entered the Star Dance Ballroom Studio on Jan. 21 and fired on a crowd of mostly older Asian Americans celebrating the start of Lunar New Year. Eleven people died and nine others were injured.
Up until the shooting, Monterey Park was…
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