A conversation with. ChiLiving founder Danny Dreyer. P a g e 5 2 S p r i n g B a r e f o o t R u n n i n g M a g a z i n e

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1 A conversation with ChiLiving founder Danny Dreyer P a g e 5 2 S p r i n g B a r e f o o t R u n n i n g M a g a z i n e

2 anny Dreyer is an accomplished ultramarathon runner and founder of ChiRunning, an approach to running that encompasses many of the mental and physical components of T ai Chi. We caught up with Danny to find out more about the ChiRunning story The beginning Danny had been a keen runner for many years when he reached what he refers to jokingly as a mid-life crisis. It was back in 1991 when he decided he wanted to do something more with his running and wondered at what level he could become competitive. He didn t think he would be fast enough, even over marathon distance, to be up amongst the front runners but he did stand a chance in distances over the 26.2 miles, so he made the decision to begin training for his first ultramarathon. Three and a half years later, he completed his first 50 miler and placed in the top ten finishers! T ai Chi Danny tells me that he was always searching for efficiency in his running, working towards improving distance and speed with the least amount of effort possible. However, it wasn t until five years later that he experienced a kind of epiphany during his first T ai Chi class. His instructor taught him that movement should come from one s centre and most of his first class was focused on posture and development of his grounding stance (which later became one of the fundamental aspects of ChiRunning). Danny immediately recognized that the physical elements of T ai Chi moving from the centre, posture, alignment, etc. could easily relate to running. He points out to me that when you re doing 10,000 steps with every mile of running, you d better have good posture or you re in trouble! He also realized that the mental or spiritual components are of equal importance to physical capabilities and that an overall balance of the mental and physical helps to create a balanced, happy runner. ChiRunning is born In 1999 Danny moved from Boulder to San Francisco which is where he began teaching ChiRunning. Danny tells me that the West Coast of America is very open to new ideas so it was a perfect place to test the water. I was curious to know how Danny had reached out to people with his new concept, given that the internet in those days was still relatively new and certainly not the buzzing, networking hub it is today. , Danny replies. He explains how he visited all the local running clubs, offering lessons on how to run well and during these sessions began gathering a database of addresses so that he could contact students to let them know of forthcoming workshops. These popular sessions continued and he gained individual clients too as the word began to spread. Later on in 1999 he sent out his first newsletter to all the subscribers and things continued to escalate from there, with the ChiRunning subscriber list currently up to 50,000 and growing! Ultrarunning At this point in the interview, I wanted to go back to the subject B a r e f o o t R u n n i n g M a g a z i n e S p r i n g P a g e 5 3

3 of ultrarunning because it seems to me that the further you run, it becomes less about the running and more about mental strength. Danny agrees. In fact, when I asked him whether his motivation to run ultras was purely the competition, he explained that was only part of it. It was also partly a spiritual practice. Because if you re out there for enough hours, it really breaks down barriers breaks your ego down and opens you up to the environment, to change. All the rules start falling apart when you re out there. As Danny talks, I m struck by the parallels between running and the martial arts. As Danny points out, running an ultra, teaches you an incredible amount both on a physical level and emotional level. Crucial elements to a successful running practice are, like the martial arts, focus and discipline. Running can be as mindful as yoga or meditation Danny explains. And you certainly need to tap into those skills when running long distances; they help you work with your own voices when they tell you get out the bus fare and go home! The word mindful featured a lot in our conversation, because that is really one of the key elements of ChiRunning. You don t have to run ultra distances (phew!) to achieve a mindful practice. As Danny says, it can be as simple as walking. What it s about is creating the conditions for energy to flow. Be in your body, not your head. In other words, being in your body helps you to focus on the present moment, whereas being in your head can lead you away from it. The book and DVD Danny s wife Katherine was the inspiration behind the book: ChiRunning: A revolutionary approach to effortless, injury-free running. Katherine s background was in publishing and she felt that it would be a productive step to harness the ChiRunning principles and reach out to more people. She found an agent and together, Katherine and Danny created the book. The first edition was released in 2004 and the second edition in 2009, containing a further 60 pages of information and what Danny describes as being, more applied, meaning that he has outlined the steps to learning ChiRunning in a clearer, structured manner. There is a DVD that complements the book which has also been updated, which allows a student to gain a deeper understanding of the technique through watching the practical demonstrations. ChiWalking After the success of the ChiRunning book and DVD, Danny began to receive requests from people who didn t run but were interested in getting the same benefits from their walking practice as they d seen others experience through ChiRunning. Danny was happy to put together a programme for walkers that followed the same principles of ChiRunning, many of which translate immediately, such as moving from the centre, being mindful and learning not to overuse the legs. The book was released in 2006 and includes 12 different types of walking so that walkers can choose what they d like to achieve from each particular walk, whether it s a cardiovascular workout for fitness, a meditation session to relax or mental focus for inspiration. The feedback has been very positive ChiWalkers are finding that they can walk further and faster with less impact. So, if people are walking further and faster and getting fitter, do they naturally start to want to run? Yes! That s why we developed P a g e 5 4 S p r i n g B a r e f o o t R u n n i n g M a g a z i n e

4 the walk-run DVD Danny tells me. It explains how to carry the mindful, internal practice that walkers have learnt into their running. There are many walk-run programmes available but the mindfulness is key as Danny points out, In walkrun programmes, people give running their best shot but when they walk, they just stroll! The key is maintaining the right mind-set and focus throughout. Image credit: The other reason why we came up with ChiWalking as well is because you walk many more hours in the day than you will ever run. So it s a really good way to keep your practice going throughout the day - whether you re carrying groceries to the car or sitting at your desk, you can always be working your focuses. Barefoot running Of course, I was keen to get Danny s opinion about running barefoot. Danny will often ask students to remove their shoes as part of workshop training: I give them an experience of what it feels like to run without shoes. Most of Danny s running is on rough trails, so he personally wears minimalist, zero drop shoes but his preferred shoe will always be the one that does the least. It s for protection, not for helping you to run better. You might as well be taking a performanceenhancing drug if you re relying on your shoes to enhance your performance. Well said! Looking forwards So, what does the future hold for ChiRunning? Well, there are many new ventures in development, one of which is a Smart Phone App which has just recently become available within the next two or three months. It will guide the user towards mindful training, they ll be able to check in and monitor what they ve been doing and they ll be given goals something to strive for. There may also be a gaming aspect to it where people can compete on a friendly level, just to give them some extra impetus, the chance to connect with others and to have a bit of fun with it too. The online training programme is also something that Danny is keen to develop further. He feels that many online programmes are too generic and the ChiRunning programmes are unique for two very important reasons: 1) They are technique-based and focus on different areas of the body and 2) They are race specific. So, people can really gear their training towards a specific event, so that they re incorporating similar conditions to those of the race for which they re training. The golden rule for racing is to come prepared this is something that Danny feels very strongly about and he s planning to build specific programmes for the more well-known events such as the London marathon and other world-renowned races. Danny is also looking forward to the introduction of webinars. These will include demonstrations, the opportunity for people to call in and ask questions, etc., so it s an exciting step towards an interactive approach to teaching the ChiRunning principles. Danny and I also discussed the science. We both agree that anecdotal evidence speaks volumes about the benefits and success of any particular running method, but people always want the scientific back up. The good news is that ChiRunning has produced some great results in recent studies, demonstrating in one particular study that ChiRunners experienced the least amount of impact when running, compared with groups of runners in traditional shoes and minimalist shoes. The US army are currently testing ChiRunning in a small, pilot group of special forces soldiers to investigate its impact on injury rates. If all goes to plan, a further study will go ahead with 680 soldiers all following a programme initially taught by Danny and with follow up training from a local ChiRunning instructor and further online coaching. One more avenue which Danny is keen to investigate further is how ChiRunning Principles can be used in other sports. Not long ago he met up with Terry Laughlin, founder of Total Immersion Swimming. Danny tells me that straight away, the two of them were on exactly the same wavelength with their B a r e f o o t R u n n i n g M a g a z i n e S p r i n g P a g e 5 5

5 thoughts; Danny advocates not over-using the legs in ChiRunning and Terry teaches not to use the arms for power in swimming. They both highlight the importance of movement from the centre. Danny said they now refer to each other as, Twin sons of different mothers due to their almost identical philosophies within the two very different modes of movement. Danny and Terry taught each other running and swimming respectively and hope to transform the world of triathlons with their like-minded approaches. All of these different products and pathways are leading towards Danny s overall goal, which is to spread the word about ChiRunning and help as many people as possible to get outside and enjoy running more. Day to day Danny and his wife Katherine run the business together. They also have a 13 year old daughter, a cat and a dog. We conceived our daughter and our business in the same month January 1999, Danny tells me. We ve always said we raised twins! Katherine is the business side of things (Danny says he wouldn t know how to run a business if I had a gun to my head! ) and half the authorship. Danny is the face out in the world and developer of new material. Both he and Katherine are creative people. We think the same and feel the same and that s why you feel the language in the book. Over the years, they ve learnt how to work together and support each other in their work. I wonder how Danny fit his training in too and ask him what a typical week will look like for him in terms of his own exercise. He runs 5 times per week (he d already been for a run when we spoke at 9am) as well as taking an advanced, hour and a half T ai Chi class each week. On top of this, Danny fits in a further 15 minutes each day of his own T ai Chi practice and ensures that he spends some time each day just meditating. Other than the word mindful, the other recurring word in our conversation was balance. People ask about stretches and strength training and you do need to work your core a lot but you don t want to be going out and just building a bunch of muscles. His philosophy is akin to the functional or natural training that people are moving towards and Danny describes his T ai Chi as, Outside the studio Pilates. In T ai Chi, you strengthen and stretch through movements rather than just isolating certain muscles that may well lead to imbalances. We touched briefly on treadmill training, which Danny described as mindnumbing; the opposite of mindful! When people ask him about using a treadmill, he tells them that running on a treadmill is in fact not running but, Keeping balance on a moving object. The only reason he would advocate using a treadmill is, purely for convenience i.e. when the weather is too extreme for running outside. What s Danny s take on diet? Again, the concept of balance is Danny s main goal don t eat too much of any one particular thing. He tends towards a diet with less meat and more grains but is careful to source organic, natural food sources and steers clear of wheat, which he thinks is probably too processed in today s society for most people s systems to tolerate. I remember Danny s enjoyment of cheese which he wrote about in the book he claims he is still very much a fan of cheese but it doesn t seem to be doing him any harm! As we wind up the interview, I wish Danny luck in his upcoming marathon, only a few days away. He has been coaching a number of runners to run this race alongside him the hilly, off road Asheville Marathon. 75 people signed up to join his training group and he has regularly had at least 15 runners turn up for each coaching session. He was looking forward to racing with the group and crossing the finish line together. This sense of giving and genuinely caring about other people s running enjoyment is what gives Danny his motivation to continue on his path and this is apparent both when speaking with him and reading his books. As ChiRunning continues to spread across the world (there are 200 registered instructors worldwide, including the US, UK, Germany, Singapore and Australia) there will be more and more happy runners. Visit Danny s website: for information regarding tuition, courses, books and DVDs. We d like to say a huge thank you to Danny for taking the time to speak with us and look forward to running with him one day in the future! P a g e 5 6 S p r i n g B a r e f o o t R u n n i n g M a g a z i n e