The heart is where the healing begins.
Five days of live grand rounds on the illnesses that seem to never resolve: POTS, MCAS, IBS, Long COVID, fibromyalgia, Lyme and its coinfections, mold. Real Chorus clients, in the room, taken apart and put back together in front of you.
Every morning begins in silence on the lawn. Daoyin with Zhang Laoshi, opening the chest and spine, giving the heart room to come alive. Every evening ends around a table by the sea.
You will go home with a practice method, a formula book, and a heart with more capacity than you knew was possible.
Diagnostic specificity for the patients who never get better.
You know her: Dysautonomia. Long COVID. Lyme. The gut that never settled after the antibiotics. She trusts you, she keeps coming back, and something underneath is not moving. You feel the pattern is in there. You cannot quite get your hands on it.
When the heart is crowded, the spleen cannot transform and the intestines cannot let go. Fire fails to warm Earth. Chronic illness lives in that chaos, and modern instruments finally let us watch it. HRV shows the heart's tone in numbers. EEG shows the five shen as waves. The tongue, pulse and symptoms put it all together.
You already have the education. We'll help you connect the dots.
This week you watch the Chorus clinical team read all of it on real patients, then write the formula, practice the daoyin, and put the plan into action. Then you do it yourself, with us beside you.
Ask the people who came home different.
Magic in the morning, learning after lunch.
Zhang Laoshi's lineage begins with wuji, the nothing before the something. The chest opens, the thoracic cavity widens, spinal waves emerge and the heart gets the space it has been asking for.
Kindle heart warmth as the light comes over Ong Lang beach.
Two patients a day, live. History, pulse, tongue, HRV and EEG read side by side. You will see the second a person opens: the heart rhythm going wide and even, the brain settling into a coherent band.
Then you learn to make it happen on purpose. Acupoint prescriptions taught as acupressure and topical patches. Herbal formulas written in the room.
Two hours on the mechanism behind the morning's cases, with Q and A.
We'll go deep into long term case management, formula architecture, and patient experience.
The afternoon is yours. Dinner is together at 6:30, fresh Phu Quoc seafood and Vietnamese cooking.
Afterward, the Meeting of the Heart: an evening circle on the heart and dreamwork; Liao Fan's ledger: the diary that beats a medical curse; what the night is telling your patients, and you.
Six teachers. Twenty-two of you.
Daoyin and medical qigong teacher, Chengdu. Leads the dawn practice every day, tiered so beginners and long-time practitioners both leave with something to keep.
We follow the feeling of wuwei to the space within the heart; allowing warmth to arrive, connecting heaven and earth.
Doctor of Oriental Medicine. Cofounder of Chorus. Author of Enlightenweight and the Fibro Bible. Teacher of teachers. Leads communications and strategy.
Acupuncturist at the UC Irvine teaching hospital. Doctor of Science in Oriental Medicine. Published peer-reviewed research. Leads grand rounds.
Cofounder of Chorus. Practitioner and educator since 2010, and the steady hand that holds the village. Leads case management: what happens in the months after the visit.
Faculty at Chengdu University of TCM. Physician to Chinese elites. Brings the classical read on every case.
PhD pharmacologist. Screens every formula for herb-drug and drug-drug interactions. The reason our formulas are safe to send home with a patient on six medications.
Relax, Retreat, Remember
We'll create the space for you to level up your practice and obtain the deepest understanding of TCM theory and case management. Simply arrange your flight, we'll handle the rest. Phu Quoc is visa-free for 30 days for every nationality on direct arrival, and it is one nonstop from Seoul, Taipei, Singapore, Bangkok or Hong Kong.
Daoist stories from the Botanical Biohacking Podcast
Nineteen villas. Choose yours when you register.
Chen Sea is a 36-villa resort on Ong Lang beach, the quiet side of Phu Quoc. Every villa has its own terrace and the resort's own stretch of sand. Sharing is the standard: two practitioners to a villa, or you and your partner. First to register, first choice.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
HRV is a direct measurement of autonomic tone. Excess and deficiency, objectively measured. 85% of our clients experience an HRV increase in their first month, with up to 250% improvement over their course of treatment.
EEG brain waves have direct analogues to the 5 Shen of TCM -- Brehan's 2026 ASA presentation was all about this -- measuring and balancing them unlocks your destiny.
The vagus nerve runs the face, the middle ear, the voice, the heart and the gut on one circuit. That is why the same patient misreads an expression and cannot digest her lunch, and why both change together.
Yes... sort of. From the outside, Daoyin resembles hatha yoga poses with the addition of hand postures (mudras) and an emphasis on twisting and ease of breath. Internally, practitioners notice that the spine rapidly unlocks, allowing qi to move through the 12 main and 8 extraordinary vessels, and that it brings shen to the eyes.
Zhang laoshi has repeatedly helped our clients with recalcitrant, difficult illnesses to walk themselves towards health one step at a time. Opening channels this way allows true Qihua of the herbal medicines - they can enter channels and work more effectively.
Yes. A companion shares your villa, eats every meal with us, joins the dawn practice and the beach, and has the days free while you are in the room. $2,350 for the week.
Fresh, local and Vietnamese: Phu Quoc seafood, herbs, fruit, rice and noodles, cooked by the resort's own kitchen.
Fly to Phu Quoc International (PQC). Nonstops from Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok; from the US the easy route is Starlux or EVA through Taipei. Phu Quoc is visa-free for 30 days on direct arrival. We meet you at the airport.
Phu Quoc is a resort island with an international hospital about twenty minutes away and 24-hour first aid on site. Late March is the end of the dry season: about 32 degrees in the afternoon, sea at 29; our morning practice avoids the heat.
This retreat will be in-person only; edited recordings of the grand rounds and lectures will be made available to attendees for later study.
Reserve your seat
Choose your seat, decide who is coming with you, pick your villa and how you want to pay. One step, then checkout.
Get the letters.
A short series from Brehan and Andrew on the heart, the gut, the week in Phu Quoc, and the cases we will teach. No pressure, no drip of discounts. Leave the list any time.
Your seat is confirmed when your first payment clears. Pay in full, or four monthly payments totalling 8 percent more. No refunds: what you have paid is credit toward any Chorus event for 24 months, or your seat transfers to another licensed practitioner. Chorus may house part of the group at a neighbouring property or move the program to a comparable venue on Phu Quoc on the same dates; if force majeure moves the dates, your remedy is credit or transfer. Airfare, insurance and personal expenses are not included. NCBAHM PDA is pending; no point count is promised until approval. The whole week, evening circles included, is recorded on video, audio and stills, and by registering you give Chorus the right to use footage that includes you for education, sale and promotion; tell us before the program if you would rather stay off camera. This program teaches practitioners and makes no claims about any attendee's own health. Full registration terms.