Nei Gong Notes, July 8, 2025
A Nei Gong lesson week, on Dan Tian Governance. I didn’t really get that one; feels like something to return to if I start making progress with Scholar / Martial Breathing.
Anyways, the middle of the week was good (as Tuesday had been); I think it’s because sleep was going better? I had a hypothesis there that something I was doing was getting me to breathe more deeply with my diaphragm while sleeping and that was helping things (not fixing things, but maybe if I could work on that, it would); unfortunately, my sleep and energy levels were back to a so-so level after that, so maybe it’s just random variation. I do want to push on that, though, I’m no longer as convinced as I was that obstructive sleep apnea is all that’s going on.
Anyways, on Wednesday I did 1h Wu Ji, 1h Dantian Gong plus Thickening the Qi. Both went well – 1h was totally fine for the Wu Ji, my mind felt back in shape for the first time since I got a little sick after the workshop, and my body is aching in ways that, if I’m optimistic, might mean that things are expanding inside? And my body was doing some interesting “bump bump bump” movements during the DTG instead of letting my hands move smoothly.
On Thursday, I had another good Tai Chi day: I reviewed the Grasping the Sparrow’s Tail lesson(though I should probably go back to review the Ba Men lesson); did Jian form 6 times; 20m each Taiyi Standing and WSSF2; went through 37 form 4 times (once with video, three on my own); and the Lao Jia first form three times. For Nei Gong, I did 1h of Spine / Shoulder Dao Yin and 45m Calm Abiding. In the evening, I reviewed the 48 form, watched the Qi Connects Body lecture in the Foundations set, and skimmed a couple more sections of the Audio Guide.
On Friday we had friends over, so not much time for Nei Gong: 20m Wu Ji, 15m breathing exercises, but that’s all.
On Saturday I lead Silk Reeling in my Chen Tai Chi class, and did the other normal stuff in that class; for Nei Gong I did 10m Pushing the Tides, 20m Dragons, and 30m ADTG.
On Sunday, I rewatched Lotus Dao Yin video and I did 1h Bellows Breathing / Scholar attempt / Calm Abiding. That latter did not go well; what with the workshop there had been a several week gap since the last time I tried it, and that turned out to be enough that I didn’t feel confident that I was doing the exercises correctly. So I might have to review those videos again. (Or, of course, decide to stop pushing on that.) And I did half my Tai Chi forms.
On Monday, I did 1h Wu Ji, 35m breathing exercises. A little disappointing: I was hoping to do 90m of Wu Ji but, for whatever reason, I didn’t. This is actually a theme: the attentive reader will notice that my Nei Gong times have almost never added up to two hours since the workshop, even though that’s my goal. Some of that is fatigue, but also something’s off with the timing of my afternoon maps, which is having the effect of me not leaving enough time for Nei Gong and/or not wanting to do Nei Gong? (I still do do Nei Gong, I just goof off more before starting and give up more easily.) That latter could also be related to fatigue, but I think that I also need to spend less time getting distracted by pointless stuff; it might be a good idea for me to delete all the puzzle apps off of my iPad, for example.
And in my Tai Chi session this morning, I did 20m each of the four energies and WSSF1; my feet ached more than normal towards the end of that, which I’ll take as a good sign. And I finished going through the different Tai Chi forms, and I went through the Jian 3 times. In the afternoon, I did 45m Spinal Dao Yin, 30m Calm Abiding (bad planning there, I was doing it in a central part of the house because I expected my wife to be out longer than she actually was, whoops), 10m Wood Wu Xing.