One thing I forgot to mention last week: my sessions have been getting shorter recently, and I’m not sure why. (Not horribly short or anything, but still capping out at around 1.5 hours instead of frequently reaching 2 and sometimes doing more.) Some hypotheses that I had was that my wife was out of town and so I was going to sleep at around 11:30-11:45 instead of 11:00-11:15; the seasons were changing and I do better in the summers; or since I thought about what I was doing and decided that I definitely wanted to do less Tai Chi and wasn’t as actively being pulled along by Nei Gong, maybe that’s subconsciously affecting me? Hard to this week, since I got a vaccination which had me take entire days off; yesterday and today were both 2+ hours, though, so maybe it was just my wife being out of town messing up my schedule. Fortunately both last week and after the vaccination this week I was actually feeling active inside, so at least I didn’t feel like I was regressing.

This week’s lesson: Return to Standing. Also watched the Four Components, Three Aspects talk from Assorted Nei Gong Talks.

Wednesday: 25m Dragon 3, 20m Song Breath 1. And then I got vaccinated, so that’s all for today, we’ll see if I’m up for anything tomorrow…

Thursday: Nope.

Friday: Better than Thursday, but still I’m not doing anything today.

Saturday: Regular Chen class. 10m Spine Stretch; 20m Full Moon.

Sunday: 20m Du Stretch; 20m Song Breath 1.

Monday: I think I’m starting to turn a better head/neck position into a habit? Not really established yet, though. 25m four Dragons; 30m each of Wu Ji and standing Dantian Gong, with my Dantian a little bouncier than normal during both; 35m Earth Hui Chun.

Tuesday: 35m Calm Abiding; 25m Dragon 1. Went through Rick’s October 17 Zoom class on Shaping the Tissues of the Spine and Pelvis. 20m of Wu Ji / Lotus Dao Yin; I’m going to remove that latter from my rotation, I’m not getting that much from it and I’m doing other exercises that are I think helping more with opening up my chest.

Tuesday Lesson: Forgiveness 2. Which I decided not to spend time on over the rest of the week; I’m actually having a hard time thinking of people that I’m the right level of being annoyed at for that practice. I also did Shui Gong 3 at night; didn’t seem like it was going well, I certainly wasn’t having the claimed effect, but I did sleep unusually soundly, so that’s good. My wife was out of town all week, so I’ll do a lot of that. (Didn’t end up leading anywhere, unfortunately; even sleeping unusually soundly only happened the one time..)

Good timing for me to have put a pause on doing new Taiji lessons, I seem to be hitting a streak of Nei Gong lessons that I don’t want to spend two weeks on…

Wednesday: 30m Dragon 3; 20m Wu Ji; 25m standing Dantian Gong. Shui Gong 3; more normal sleep, no particular effect.

Thursday: Chen sword weapon forms; Laojia first form; 37 form. 20m Du Stretch; went through Rick’s October 10 class; 20m Song Breath 1.

Friday: Rewatched some of the Dragon 4 videos. 30m Dragon 2, 20m Wu Ji, 40m Water Hui Chun. Shui Gong 3.

Saturday: 20m Four Dragons; 15m Lotus Dao Yin; 30m Song Breath 1. Shui Gong 3.

Sunday: 40m Earth Hui Chun, 15m Du Stretch. Shui Gong 3.

Monday: 25m Wu Ji; 30m standing Dantian Gong; 20m Coiling Snake; 30m Song Breath 1.

Tuesday: 55m Spinal Dao Yin; 35m of (pretty bad) Calm Abiding.

Tuesday’s lesson: Shui Gong 4. I still want to keep at Advancing the Dantian Gong for another week, but Shui Gong 4 is a nighttime practice, so the two don’t interfere, and my wife will be out of town the next two weeks, so it’s a good time to do it. Except that it turns out that Shui Gong 4 isn’t a general purpose exercise, so I might not have a reason to do it; what I’ll probably do is review Shui Gong 3 and try that while she’s out of town, since I never really gave that one a fair shake. Also watched Fire in Alchemy from Assorted Nei Gong Talks.

Wednesday: 35m Song Breath 1. 20m Du Stretch, 40m Wu Ji, 30m Advancing the Dantian Gong.

Thursday: Chen pole weapon forms; 37 form; Xinjia first form, Laojia second form. 25m Dragon 3; went through Warm Up – Making Space from Maryland 2023. 35m Wood Hui Chun.

Friday: 20m Du Stretch; 30m Song Breath 1; 30m Wu Ji with an unusually wide chest; 30m standing Dantian Gong with maybe a bit more bouncing around than normal in my Dantian at the end.

Saturday: 25m Four Dragons. I did a better job of being forceful during the fourth walk than I normally do; I should watch videos of that to pick up more details, though. 30m Advancing the Dantian Gong.

Sunday: monthly Chen class. 15m Dragon 1.

Monday: I distracted myself today (and have something I’m doing regularly on the end of Monday afternoons these days, so not as much practice time as normal) so just 5m Wu Ji, 15m Coiling Snake, 40m Earth Hui Chun. Surprisingly powerful, though, even that little bit of Wu Ji had much more going on in my body than normal.

Tuesday: 20m Du Stretch, 35m Advancing the Dantian Gong, 30m Song Breath 1; more than normal for an allergy shot day, so that’s something. I don’t think I’ll do Advancing the Dantian Gong frequently, but it was interesting enough today that I’ll try to do it once or twice a month.

This week’s lesson was Advancing the Dan Tian Gong. I also watched the Microcosmic Orbit lecture from Maryland 2023 on Tuesday evening.

A random note on something I’ve bene noticing this week: I feel like my torso, especially my lower back, is getting warmer; hopefully that’s a sign that my Ming Fire is progressing?

Wednesday: My sleep is still off; hopefully stopping Seal Leakages will help, I’ll also do some extra closing down. 35m Song Breath 1; 25m Dragon 3; 20m Wu Ji; 25m standing Dantian Gong; 10m Wood Wu Xing; 25m Earth Hui Chun.

Thursday: Chen sword forms; 20m WSSF 1; 37 form; Xinjia first form. 35m Wu Ji / Coiling Snake, 35m Advancing the Dantian Gong, 40m Water Hui Chun.

Friday: More distracted than normal today. 15m Du Stretch, 35m Wu Ji, 35m seated Dantian Gong.

Saturday: 35m Song Breath 1. Regular Saturday Tai Chi class; I did 40m of Oblique Circles during Silk Reeling. 20m four Dragons.

Sunday: 20m Du Stretch, 40m Advancing the Dantian Gong. 90m Push Hands.

Monday: 30m Wu Ji (with my body being surprisingly interested in widening); 25m standing Dantian Gong; 20m Coiling Snake. I’ve started sometimes playing games with friends at the end of Monday afternoons, so my Monday sessions are frequently shorter than would be ideal.

Tuesday: 70m Calm Abiding; the first half of the session was distracted (I was sitting quietly in a church but then people started showing up to prep for a memorial service, so I ended up moving outside about halfway through), and in general I wasn’t doing a super wonderful job of Songing but I was at least hanging out in my body in a somewhat effective way? 25m Wu Ji, 10m Lotus Dao Yin; I feel like I’m not getting much out of Lotus Dao Yin, either I should take it out of the rotation or do it more seriously. (I guess I’ll start with the latter: bump it up to 20m and get more serious about the connections it works onin my body.) 50m Being Present / Ming Men set, it felt like it was doing a particularly good job with my spine this time. 40m Earth Hui Chun.

Tuesday evening’s lesson: Seal Leakages; end of year three! (Six and a half years after I started the program…) I also watched the Du, Ren & The Filling Process talk from Assorted Nei Gong Talks. And this talk and the August course make me think that I should work on stretching along the Ren channel.

Wednesday: Since the Utah workshop, I’ve been doing some breathing exercises every morning; initially Yin Breathing or Yang Breathing, more recently some of the breathing exercises from lessons I’ve gone through. I think that’s helped my breathing but not my energy level, and it’s taking noticeable amounts of time in the morning; so I’m switching it from something I’ll do every day to something that I’ll do sometimes (e.g. I think Song Breath 1 is still a good idea) but not always. Anyways, this morning I did 15m Yin Breathing and 20m Seal Leakages. And in the afternoon 30m Wu Ji, 10m Lotus Dao Yin, 10m Wood Wu Xing. (Kind of a low energy day…)

Thursday: My sleep has been a little off the last couple of days; might be a coincidence, but it might be Seal Leakages? Hard to say. 35m Song Breath 1. Chen pole weapon forms, 37 form, Xinjia first form, Laojia second form. 15m Wu Ji, 20m Coiling Snake, followed along with the recording of Rick’s September 19 Zoom lesson.

Friday: 20m Seal Leakages. 20m Du Stretch. 45m Wu Ji; spent some of that time doing the lentil exercise, sometimes during that I got little pulses at my Ming Men / Qi Hai / Hui Yin, that was a new experience for me. 55m seated exercises, mostly Dantian Gong but some thickening. That went well, I should probably do the seated version once a week or so instead of always doing standing Dantian Gong.

Saturday: Interrupted sleep last night, so I’m skipping Tai Chi today. 30m Full Moon Practice, 40m Earth Hui Chun, 20m four Dragons.

Sunday: 35m Song Breath 1; 30m Dragon 2. And I skipped Push Hands, because I needed to get some baking donethat morning.

Monday: 25m Dragon 1. 35m surprisingly good Wu Ji – my body was nicely stretchily connected, and felt more active than normal. 30m standing Dantian Gong, and in the Bao Yuan at the end my Dantian was a little more active than normal. (Still not moving a ton, but more.) And 10m Lotus Dao Yin.

Tuesday: 20m Seal Leakages; I think that’s enough for that, so I set it for a four month recurring reminder. Read Michael Taft’s new booklet More Than Enough Room. 20m Du Stretch. Went through the Fire Hui Chun zoom class with Anastasia; now I’m caught up with her Zoom classes, though there are lots of older ones with Damo for me to go through.

No lesson last Tuesday evening (since in the past it would have been a Taiji week). I thought about doing a Nei Gong lesson but I wanted to spend a bit more time on Song Yi. I did watch the Qi Gong, Nei Gong, Nei Dan lecture from Assorted Nei Gong talks.

Also I forgot to mention last week but I feel like I’m doing a better job at and/or getting more out of internal stretching than I had been; nice to feel the inside of my body change a bit. And I was noticing some this time that my lower spine was starting to actually feel a little stretchy.

Wednesday: 20m Du Stretch; 45m Wu Ji; 25m standing Dantian Gong; 40m Wood Hui Chun. I liked how my body felt after that.

Thursday: 45m Song Yi. 20m Releasing the Feet; went through the 37 form and Xinjia first form. Went through the recent Body Opening zoom class with Anastasia. 35m Calm Abiding; I wish I’d had more time and could have done an hour, it was a good session.

Friday: 20m Coiling Snake; 30m Wu Ji; 1h failed Microcosmic Orbit attempt. Same issue as in the last few, where Qi doesn’t really go all the way into my spine and ends up kind of stuck under my diaphragm too far forward. The volume of Qi felt decent but the texture was also a little less thick than sometimes, maybe I need to spend more time thickening it?

Saturday: 35m Song Breath 1, 40m Earth Hui Chun. The middle of my chest was weirdly tight; I’d hoped the Song Breath 1 would help with that but it didn’t help as much as I hoped. 15m iffy Releasing the Feet. Regular Chen class; during the Silk Reeling at the start, I did 40m of Hand Maneuvers, it was pretty different from the last time I tried that, a lot more Qi moving around in my torso and interacting with stuff. (A little like the move at the beginning of the Hui Chuns, though of course going on longer.) Hopefully the was it was interacting with my body was useful in a Yi Jin Jing way? (And maybe it opened up my chest a bit, I’m not sure.) 15m four Dragons.

Sunday: 45m Song Yi; 20m Du Stretch. 75m Push Hands.

Monday: 30m Dragon 3; 20m Wu Ji; 25m standing Dantian Gong.

Tuesday: 50m Calm Abiding; 60m Spinal Dao Yin; 40m Earth Hui Chun.

Last Tuesday’s lesson was Song Yi. (A Nei Gong one; they’ll all be Nei Gong ones for the next while, since I’m dialing down the amount of Tai Chi that I’m doing.)

Wednesday: 40m Song Breath 2; 15m Du Stretch. And I participated in Rick’s Zoom course.

Thursday: It was quite warm outside, so the only Tai Chi I did was the sword weapon forms and the Xinjia first form. 40m Song Yi; 70m Wu Ji; 50m Being Present / Ming Men sequence. And I watched the Mental Barriers lecture from Maryland 2023.

Friday: I didn’t feel like doing all that much; 10m Coiling Snake, 25m Dantian Gong, 10m Ji Ben 2, and 30m in total of Wu Ji mixed in around those various parts.

Saturday: 35m Song Breath 1. 20m Releasing the Feet. Regular Chen class. 15m going through all four Dragons.

Sunday: 20m Du Stretch, and the monthly advanced Chen class.

Monday: 45m Song Yi, following along with the video again because I (correctly!) suspected I’d missed a step when originally taking my notes. 25m Dragon 1, 20m Wu Ji, 30m standing Dantian Gong, 30m Earth Hui Chun.

Tuesday: 30m Dragon 3; 25m Lotus Dao Yin / Wu Ji; 30m Water Hui Chun; 30m Song Breath 1. I wasn’t planning to do three exercises that all affect the chest, but I guess having a theme isn’t a bad idea? Like last week, Dragon 3 was pretty interesting, affecting a good range of my torso during both the walking part and the standing part.

Last Tuesdays’s lesson was Taiji Standing 8 – Brush Knee.

Wednesday: 20m Du Stretch. 1h Wu Ji; 15m Ji Ben 3 and 5m more Wu Ji. 40m Calm Abiding.

Thursday: 40m Song Breath 2. Rewatched the Releasing the Feet for Taiji video, because that feels important for me to work on. Busy morning, so no weapon practice today; 15m Releasing the Feet, 10m Taiji Standing 8, went through the 37 form and the Xinjia first form. (The latter of which felt good, more than normal going on inside my body.) 20m of Wu Ji and 10m of Coiling Snake; I think I should have stretched more before doing that, my lower back was surprisingly unhappy. Went through the Reverse Abdominal Breathing / Wood Wu Xing zoom class; that version of the Wood Wu Xing is very different from my memory of how it was presented in year 1! Reviewed the Hunyuan 48; honestly, I’m getting tired of doing that on my Thursday evenings, but I think rather than stop the correct thing would be to push through and actually learn the form, instead of half-assing too much of it the way I am now… (Update: actually, I think I am going to pause: learning it might the correct thing but I don’t feel motivated enough in practice to actually do it, so no sense constantly feeling guilty about that.) Watched Maryland 2022 Qigong Cultivation 5 lecture.

Friday: 25m Du Stretch, 30m Wu Ji, 30m standing Dantian Gong, 40m Earth Hui Chun.

Saturday: 35m Song Breath 1. 20m Releasing the Feet. Regular Chen class, trying to work Releasing the Feet into my form. 30m Dragon Dao Yins, going through all four. And I’ve been noticing the last couple of days that my spine is hanging wrong and I’m doing less well at figuring out how to fix it than last week. Also I’m not sinking into my left Kua properly.

Sunday: 40m Song Breath 2. 75m Push Hands. 25m Dragon 2.

Monday: 25m Du Stretch; 30m Wu Ji; 30m standing Dantian Gong; 10m Lotus Dao Yin / Wu Ji. Was planning to do longer on that latter, but my bowels had a different opinion; not sure if I was just a little off or if I’d moved stuff around wrong during Dantian Gong…

Tuesday: 40m Song Breath 1. Chen pole weapons. 20m (slightly iffy) Sinking the Feet; 15m Taiji Standing 8. 37 form, Laojia first and second forms. 30m Dragon 3; emphasized the chest part more than normal in the walk, and during one of the standing sections there was a lot more stuff moving around in my chest than normal, helping get it open. Went through the recording of Rick’s September 5 Zoom course; good to have a second Wood Wu Xing refresher in close succession.

Also, I’m thinking I’m going to dial back my Tai Chi practice. I’m feeling like I don’t have enough unscheduled time during my weeks, and also I’m not getting as much programming done as I’d like, so I think I’m spending too much time on internal arts. And right now I’m making more progress in Nei Gong than in Tai Chi, and I’ve got teachers that I’m learning more from in Nei Gong than in Tai Chi; that latter might change next year once the Foundations weekends end and I potentially start taking a push hands course, but for now dialing down Tai Chi seems right.

Concretely, I think I’ll stop doing Tai Chi on Tuesday mornings, and pause the IAA Taiji course. And I might go to Saturday class and Sunday push hands a little less often, but those are good for me for social reasons as well, so I think what I’ll do instead is continue going to them by default but I won’t feel guilty if I’ve got a reason to skip them on one particular week.

And it’s possible I’ll try to free up all of my mornings: switch my Thursday Tai Chi practice to the afternoon and only do a little bit of Nei Gong those days? We’ll see.

Ths week’s lesson was a Nei Gong one, Song Breath 2. More different from 1 than I expected; I’ve been swapping some of my morning breathing exercises for them, they’re both useful for me now, though finding time for 35 or 40 minutes is different than finding time for 15 minutes, so we’ll see how long that lasts…

Wednesday: 25m Dragon 3. 40m Wu Ji, mostly focusing on physical hip / spine / head alignment; about 35 minutes in, I got a line in my body to actually feel like it was lining up with my spine (as opposed to either not feeling it or feeling it a little to the left of my spine), which feels really useful, hopefully I can recapture that in the future. 50m seated Dantian Gong (and a bit of thickening); first time I’d done that seated for a while, glad I did that, though, it’s interestingly different, maybe more substantial?

Thursday: 40m Song Breath 2. 20m each Peng Separation and WSSF1; interesting slight buzzing going up my legs during the last few minutes of the latter. Went through the 37 form and the Laojia first form. Longer stretching set; 25m Wu Ji, 20m Coiling Snake; 25m (somewhat sleepy) Full Moon practice, 40m Earth Hui Chun. Watched Qigong Cultivation 4 from Maryland 2022.

Friday: Travel day. 20m Du Stretch, 35m Song Breath 1, 25m Calm Abiding. Hope I can find time to do Calm Abiding more often…. Played around with spine and neck positioning while sitting for hours on the plane. 10m Wu Ji / Wood Wu Xing.

Saturday: Foundations workshop.

Sunday: Foundations workshop. When doing breathing exercises on the flight home, my chest was expanding more than normal; not sure if that was the workshop or the Song Breath 1 that I’d been doing the last few weeks or what.

Monday: 45m Song Breath 2; supposed to be 40m, not sure what I did extra! 20m Du Stretch, 40m Wu Ji / Lotus Dao Yin, 35m Earth Hui Chun. Feeling a little off; hopefully I’m purging instead of getting sick normally.

Tuesday: 35m Song Breath 1. Sword weapon forms; 20m each Peng Separation and WSSF3; 37 form, Laojia first and second forms. 30m Dragon 3; went through Rick’s August 15 Zoom course. (And fortunately I’m not feeling any worse off today than yesterday.)

This week’s lesson was a Taiji one, on Peng Separation. An interesting one; I liked the Zhang Zhuang series so it’s good to see a moving lesson building on that.

Wednesday: 20m Dragon 3; 35m Song Breath 1; 35m Water Hui Chun.

Thursday: Read some more Practical Tai Chi; went through the Chen sword forms; did 15m Peng Separation, 20m WSSF3; went through the 37 form, the Xinjia first form, and the Hunyuan 48. I did the Du Stretch; I feel like doing that once a week isn’t really helping much, I should either do it more often or less often. Honestly, if I want the hamstring benefit, maybe I should do it daily, but I think for now I’ll try doing it every two or three days, and try to do something spine-related (a Dragon or Coiling Snake or something like that) on days when I’m not doing it, so at least I get regular somewhat intense spine work. (I do throw in some spine waves multiple times a day, but that alone doesn’t seem to be making a difference for me.) 45m Wu Ji, 20m Jing Gong 1; I did the Wu Ji in a room with a mirror on the side, I’m leaning forward a lot, when I fixed that I got a surprising amount of stretch on the lower third (maybe a bit more even) of my back. 40m Earth Hui Chun. And I reviewed the Hunyuan 48 in the evening.

Friday: A longer stretching session than normal; 30m Dragon 2; 30m Wu Ji; 30m standing Dantian Gong. 5m of closing down at the end, to see if that helps with sleep, because my sleep had been off the last few days.

Saturday: 35m Song Breath 1. Went to my regular Chen course; more stuff moving around than normal, maybe Peng Separation knocked something loose? Went through the four Dragons.

Sunday: I woke up with a stiff back (but I slept extremely well; you win some, you lose some, I guess), probably because I was cold overnight. Did the Du Stretch, though not as well as normal because my lower back muscles were fighting. 20m Wu Ji / Lotus Dao Yin, but then I decided I’d rather sit on a sofa with a heating pad instead of doing a Hui Chun.

Monday: 25m Dragon 1. 30m Wu Ji, 30m standing Dantian Gong, 20m Wu Ji / Ji Ben 1 combo. 40m Earth Hui Chun.

Tuesday: A dishwasher delivery and achy back (better than it was on Sunday but still definitely not healed) meant I didn’t do as much Tai Chi as normal, but I did (quickly) go through the 37 form and the Xin Jia first form. 35m Song Breath 1, 60m Spinal Dao Yin, 40m Wood Hui Chun; good practice session, I felt unusally focused. (And from watching myself in the mirror: when I threw out my back, my hips started wanted to go really far to the right, instead of their traditional slight bias to the right.) Finished reading Practical Tai Chi Training; I can’t say I’d recommend it, I think the authors are probably quite good at Tai Chi and at teaching in person (I’ve learned a lot about push hands from one of them!) but there’s too much in the book and it’s material that’s hard to convey in book form.