Linda Blum, center, leads a class at Dragonfly Fitness and Training, Eau Claire.

Professional jockey. Champion body builder. Sought-after personal trainer. Mom. Horse stable and riding lesson facility owner/manager. Group fitness instructor and wellness coordinator. And now in Eau Claire, Linda Blum is a certified and experienced instructor of qigong and tai chi – slowly moving, disciplined, and mindful Eastern practices, in a hectic, fast-paced, Western world.

She learned qigong and tai chi later in life from a well-known master of tai chi when she worked in California.

“At first, I was hesitant to take on the task of learning something ‘SO SLOW’ when I like to do everything fast,” she shared. “But after a couple of lessons, I was hooked. I had not felt this sense of calmness and presence like this for a very long time or perhaps ever before.

“Plus, there is nothing so beautiful as to see a group of people move slowly and mindfully in perfect harmony,” she added. 

Blum currently teaches in Eau Claire at Dragonfly Fitness and Training (308 N. Barstow St.) and the Downtown and South YMCAs (700 Graham Ave. and 3225 Lorch Ave., respectively).

“Both qigong and tai chi are practices,” she said. “The styles I am certified to teach are fairly easy to learn as some moves have been simplified and standardized. They incorporate balance, muscle memory, and breath control – all harmonized together.”

“At first, I was hesitant to take on the task of learning something ‘SO SLOW’ when I like to do everything fast. But after a couple of lessons, I was hooked. I had not felt this sense of calmness and presence like this for a very long time or perhaps ever before.” –Linda Blum

Blum, who continues to teach online to students on both coasts, is definitely not your typical fitness trainer and health/wellness coach.

She started out being a professional female jockey, when few if any women were racing. Women were not even allowed to be licensed jockeys until 1968. In 1976, Blum was training and working at The Ponderosa, her parents’ boarding stable and riding lesson facility on Highway 37, where The Trinity Equestrian Center is now located. After asking around for a small guy to ride his horses, local horse trainer Pete Helmrecht came to the farm looking for Blum after her name kept popping up and no one suggested any guys. Helmrecht trained Blum, and she was off to the races on both coasts, as well as British Columbia.

Her interest in fitness came about though after her riding career ended. “In 1981, I took a spill at the Penn National Race Course in Grantville, Pennsylvania; when my horse broke a shoulder in the stretch,” she shared. “I had three spinal fractures and was hospitalized for 23 days. The recovery was long and challenging. While I did make a comeback to riding, I chose to retire the saddle and return to Wisconsin in 1983.

“As a jockey, I weighed just over 100 pounds. Adding muscle was critical to support my weakened spine. I had to get strong again. So I got a job at a gym where I learned about strength training from a local power lifter. Weight lifting saved my life,” she stressed.

Blum moved to the Twin Cities in 1984, and worked in gyms where bodybuilding for women was growing. She became a champion bodybuilder within a few years just as women were starting to lift weights and compete on a stage prior for men only.

“People kept telling me I had the perfect genetics for the sport of bodybuilding, and turns out they were correct,” she shared. “I also had a knack for coming into a man’s world on the cusp of the beginning of female involvement. I was successful competing in nine shows, earned eight first-place finishes, and won Ms. Minnesota in 1991.”

Her success with bodybuilding led into her personal training career initially for 15 years at The Gym in Plymouth, Minnesota; and then as an independent, in-home, personal trainer, which gave her more time to raise her daughter, Logan, as well as running her own horse farm, bought in 2003, and taking in horses in 2004, similar to her parents’ Ponderosa yet smaller in scale. She focused on sport horses specializing in barrel racing, ranch rodeos and team penning, a team sport in which each three-rider team, on horseback, separates three specific type of identifiable cattle from a herd of 30.

In 2015, Blum moved to Santa Ynez, California; in search of a warmer climate and to be closer to her sister Barbara and her family. There, she worked as a personal trainer and a group-exercise instructor at the local YMCA. Three years later, she was offered a position at a retirement community there as a wellness coordinator working with slightly older clients. She took classes on functional aging, the importance of balance and strength as people age, and how to keep the brain aging properly. One of the wellness activities offered was tai chi, which is where she learned qigong and tai chi from a master and after 200 hours, became certified to teach both.

Six years later, she moved to Lubbock, Texas; to be closer to her daughter who had entered Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico, on a full-ride rodeo/barrel racing scholarship and successfully graduated with a bachelor of science degree in large animal science. Blum found a wellness center there. She taught tai chi and other fitness classes as well as personal training. She had a large following. Four of her students had Parkinson’s disease; two were recovering from strokes.

“The benefits of qigong and tai chi were obvious to them and their families,” she said. “Their balance improved, and their nervous systems calmed down almost immediately.”

In 2024, once Logan was established in the buying/selling cattle business in Clovis, New Mexico; Blum returned in Eau Claire, her hometown, where her sister Barbara, who also teaches yoga, also resides.

According to Blum, her new career has been a perfect transition for her as she ages, because she can relate to her older clients, many over age 60.

“For me personally, I find doing my strength training, cardio workouts, yoga/stretching, and my qigong and tai chi practices, have helped me age slowly and with excellent health,” she concluded. “And, you also realize your years are no longer about quantity, but rather quality.”

JUST WHAT ARE QIGONG AND TAI CHI?

Qigong, pronounced chee gong, is an ancient Chinese healing art involving meditation, controlled breathing, and movement exercises. Qi means life force, the energy that powers our body and spirit. Gong is the term meaning work or gather.

Qigong is the umbrella over Tai Chi, an ancient Chinese discipline of meditative movements practiced as a system of exercises; Kung Fu, any of various Chinese martial arts and related disciplines that are practiced especially for self-defense, exercise, and spiritual growth; and Karate, a Japanese art of self-defense using hand strikes and kicks to disable or subdue an opponent. 

Tai chi, pronounced tie chee, is an ancient Chinese discipline of meditative movements practiced as a system of exercises. Tai means supreme, and chi means boundary. It implies a form of movement to create a form of power that has no boundaries.  

What’s the difference between qigong and tai chi? Qigong can be thought of as a movement you do for a certain situation, such as one move that helps open the lungs. Tai Chi is a series of movements that works on the entire body in a flowing sequence.