When he hung up his boots midway through the 2009 season after 104 games for Adelaide and 116 for Richmond, Kane Johnson was undecided about his post-football career. The then 31-year-old did some work as a development coach with the Tigers, but quickly decided he didn't want to follow a well-worn path.
He didn't want to be a coach, didn't want to work in sports administration, didn't want to own a pub, didn't want to be in the media, and didn't want to don a suit and enter the corporate world.
"I wanted to travel, I wanted to experience things," Johnson said when the AFL Record caught up with him at his beautifully restored terrace house in the inner-northern Melbourne suburb of Abbotsford.
It was only after one of his best friends, Peter Wright, was diagnosed with cancer in 2010 that his post-footy life began to take shape.
Johnson had long held an interest in the links between physical and mental health and the role alternative medicines and therapies can play in people's lives. Wright's illness gave them the chance to explore these ideas.
"We started doing a lot of work together," said Johnson, a two-time premiership player with the Crows. "I don't want to say spiritual work, but it was about how to let go of beliefs to deal with his diagnosis. We were looking into natural healings and other ways to help with the disease that had formed in his body.
"It was not about going anti-western medicine, but just trying to find a good balance between the two. That's where my journey to what I'm doing now started out."
These days Johnson runs a business called Chi Lab, which specialises in helping a broad range of people, from athletes to business people and mine workers, improve their lifestyles.
He advises them how to improve themselves through nutrition, exercise and flexibility and meditation. He also introduces some of them to the basics of Qigong, a Chinese practice centred on meditation and rhythmic breathing (the word Qigong literally means 'life energy cultivation').
Johnson's first experience with Qigong came when he travelled to China with Wright and his former Richmond teammate Troy Simmonds. The trip took place not long after Wright had been diagnosed with cancer, and the trio spent a short period living under the supervision of monks at the Qufu Shaolin Kung Fu School, situated 550 km south of Beijing.
"You stay and train on campus," Johnson explained. "You sleep on hard wooden beds in two-person dorms that have concrete floors and extremely basic facilities.
"There was probably 30 of us there, aged from 16 to 45 or so. We were from all over the world and from all walks of life. And they were there for any length of time between one month and five years. Someone was seriously there for five years."
Read the full feature story on Kane Johnson in the Grand Final edition of the AFL Record. The national edition is on sale now at selected newsagencies across the country. The souvenir match-day edition, featuring a gold cover, will be on sale at the MCG on Saturday.
