I didn’t do a lesson on Tuesday evening, because the “tension release” that my current TCM doctor sometimes does really did a number on me, but I did do it on Wednesday evening instead. It was a Nei Gong Lesson, Subtle Mindset and Posture; rather interesting, both having the idea of actively stretching out your shoulder and elbow more to strengthen the power coming from spreading your Lao Gong and the idea of putting your mind at a more subtle level, the Yang Qi or (ideally, but I can’t really get there yet) the Yin Qi level. And while listening to the lesson, it did feel like I could sense more going on and it was building more strongly? It was harder for me to get that while doing it outside of the video, but still, definitely something to work on.

Still didn’t do much his week: partly because my kid was still here on Wednesday and Thursday, partly recovery from the tension release, and also it was raining a ton which meant less Tai Chi. But I was pretty close to being back to normal yesterday; and while I only did a little bit of Nei Gong today, that was totally on me for being distracted rather than because I wasn’t up for it. (Which was a pleasant surprise, honestly – I had tension release again today, but I held up much better.)

And the tension release is pretty interesting, and I think well aligned with what Damo says – my doctor talked about how he’s having the fascia and muscles (and, in some cases, nerves) not be so bound up with each other, which is I think related to what Damo talks about different layers of your body becoming more independent as you get better at Nei Gong. And of course my doctor also talks about the connections across the body that you see in any of the internal arts.

Anyways, on to the day by day notes:

Wednesday: New Nei Gong Lesson, as mentioned above, and 40m Spleen Hui Chun.

Thursday: 25m of a Wu Ji / Ji Ben 1 combo; 30m Subtle Mindset and Posture.

Friday: 20m Wu Ji; 25m Full Moon.

Saturday: Regular Chen class.

Sunday: 2h good push hands – I felt more connected, and I learned something about using different sizes of spheres in my body. 40m Subtle Mindset and Posture.

Monday: Du Stretch; 30m Wu Ji; 1h DTG + thickening.

Tuesday: 20m Taiji Hook Push variant with guarding; 37 form x2. 25m Spleen Hui Chun.

No lesson Tuesday, because of family visit stuff.

Wednesday: Du stretch (and I took down notes so I won’t have to follow the video going forward); 40m Dantian Gong

Thursday: nothing, spending time on Christmas instead.

Friday: 30m Subtle Body, mostly focusing on the Yang layer, I think at least somewhat successful there? In general I feel like I’m doing a better job of ambiently sensing something during the day, probably Yang Qi? Would be nice to work more on Yin Qi, but still, progress.

Saturday: My regular Chen class.

Sunday: Push hands; not as long as normal, I was a little tired.

Monday: Nothing, spending time with my offspring.

Tuesday: Du Stretch; 30m Kidney Hui Chun.

I was planning to do a lesson tonight, but I was pretty drained, so it didn’t seem like a good idea. My new TCM doctor does something unusual that he calls “tension release” and, as he warned me, it can be pretty draining, and that did actually happen to me this time, after one bit of the treatment today I was actually feeling a little nauseous. So I’ll try to get back to practice more often (my kid is still here the next two days but we’ve done all the specifically planned things) but I’ll try to do a little less and do more nourishing / less potentially draining stuff.

And, assuming I feel okay tomorrow, I will do a new lesson then.

Tuesday evening: No lesson, as mentioned last week. But I watched the Xingyiquan Stages video; it was good, I’ll want to watch it again.

Wednesday: 1h Spinal Dao Yin and 40m Spleen Hui Chun.

Thursday: I rewatched the end of the Taiji Hook Punch video, and did 20m of the Hook Punch variant there, as well as the Chen pole weapon forms. In the afternoon, I went through the Du Stretch, did 40m of observing the breath, and reewatched the Xingyiquan Stages video.

And then I got on a plane at the end of the afternoon on Thursday and didn’t do any Nei Gong or Tai Chi the whole week. I just got back home; so I won’t do a new lesson this week, and my offspring is in town so I won’t do as much Nei Gong or Tai Chi as normal, I expect, but probably more than last week? We’ll see.

This week’s lesson: a Nei Gong one on Absorbing to Breath. Weirdly basic (at least at a technique level) – it was basically taking the previous week’s video and saying to add in reverse breathing, with some technique advice for reverse breathing, but the technique advice was stuff we’d seen a year or so ago? I did get pretty absorbed in while following the instructions, though… And I also watched the Qi Building Deeper Aspects video; nothing super striking though.

Wednesday: 90m Wu Ji; first time in ages that it’s been that long, body was nicely connected, a little easier putting my mind in my Dantian than it used to be? (I was also noticing that when doing the lesson on Tuesday night.) Don’t get me wrong, though, it still pops out a ton. And things opened up a bit 75 minutes in, especially in my arms. And 40m Dantian Gong.

Thursday: 20m Taiji Hook Punch, and I went through the 37 form and the Chen long weapon forms. My TCM doctor said I was doing worse on Thursday than when he saw me on Wednesday, and he thought the long Wu Ji session might have been a factor. 25m Wu Ji / Ji Ben 1 combo. I started to rewatch the Subtle Body video but I was too sleepy so I decided to take a nap.

Friday: Nothing! Feeling a little off so I slept in and my wife and I were doing things together all afternoon / evening. I wonder if the Wu Ji stressed me too much and got me sick or if it purged something out in a useful way or if it was irrelevant to this and I’d just picked up the fringes of a cold from something else I did on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Saturday; 20m Zhan Zhuang, 10m Taiji Wu Ji, my regular Chen class.

Sunday: 20m Three Circles, the monthly advanced Chen class. And I rewatched the Subtle Body video.

Monday: The Sink to Open Zoom Informal Session. Really interesting; I feel like it helped my understanding of / ability to sink the flesh off the bones, and it was not only opening but also building connectivity in interesting ways. In one Wu Ji in particular I felt connectivity up my arms much more broadly than I normally do – normally it’s like connectivity across cables but that time it was more like connectivity along a sheath. Also one small thing: in the Water Hui Chun he had us angle our hands in a bit when they were above the diaphragm, and that helped with my connectivity, I should do that more.

Tuesday: 20m each WSSF 3 and Taiji Hook Punch. And I went through the Chen sword forms, the 37 form, and the Xinjia first form. And I went through the recording of Rick’s December 10 Zoom class; I liked how I got absorbed while going through that.

Not sure how much I’ll do the next couple of weeks – I’m visiting my brother’s family before Christmas, and then my kid will be here until New Year’s. So my practice will be sporadic; I’m definitely not watching a lesson this week (though that’s actually good timing because the Taiji Hook Punch video includes a different punch at the end which I haven’t been doing, so if I have time to do something like that I can do that second one), we’ll see if I watch a lesson next week but I suspect I’ll skip then too.

This week’s lesson was on Taiji Hook Punch. Which I enjoyed more than I expected do, doing it this week, stuff is moving through my body in an interesting way. And there was a Pushing Hands video on Suppression (An); I’ll try to try that out with a partner, though I’m sure it will fail just like all the other ones I’ve tried…

Wednesday: I went through Sinew Work Principles zoom class again; good, as always.

Thursday: 20m Taiji Hook Punch, Chen long weapon forms, and the Laojia 1st / 2nd forms. And for Nei Gong, 25m Dragon 1, 30m Full Moon, and 35m Spleen Hui Chun. And I reviewed the Hunyuan 48 in the evening.

Friday: 20m Wu Ji, and a 1h MCO attempt. I was feeling really strong interactions with the Qi and my torso when doing thickening in the prep stage (in particular while I dragging Qi up and down between the base of my body and my collar bone), and I had a really big blob of Qi when I got to where I kicked things off. I think I didn’t have it enter my tailbone properly, though, and it was too far forward? So it was hard getting things to go up; it did eventually make it up, but it took like 15 minutes in total, and the blob only barely touched my Baihui, dispersing along the way. So I think ultimately I only nominally completed the orbit, but good signs along the way.

Saturday: 30m Advanced Dantian Gong; my regular Chen Tai Chi class; and a brief run through all four Dragons.

Sunday: While I was driving this morning, I noticed that I was feeling more action in my shoulders and even in my Kua; stuff seems connecting and opening up more than it was? And the thing I was driving to was a Tai Chi marathon; I went through the Lao Jia first form 12 times, been ages since I’ve done something like that, I’m glad I did. In the afternoon, just 35m ineffective Subtle Body.

Monday: I went through the Du Stretch video, did 20m Wu Ji, and 30m Dantian Gong.

Tuesday: I reviewed the Turn Body, Chop, and Push video. And while going through stuff after that, some thought crystallized about leg stability in Tai Chi (and in Nei Gong, for that matter): I think I need to focus first on making sure that I’ve got a connection through my whole leg down to my Yong Quan before worrying about the details of sinking into my Kua or sinking down to my feet: if I try to do those latter ones without having the connection in the whole leg, I’ll still be unstable. I went through the Chen sword weapon forms. I spent 20m each Hook Punch and Four Energies; that latter reminds me that I also want to work on always be sinking to get a stretch on my back that leads to Peng, so I have to make sure that my Kua works to simultaneously support that and support the leg feeling I mentioned above. And I went through the 37 form three times and the Xin Jia first form and the Hunyuan 48. After that, I sat quietly in a church for 20 minutes. In the afternoon, I went through the recording of Rick’s December 6 Zoom class.

Last week’s lesson was Nei Gong, on The Subtle Body; maybe I’ll finally figure out what Yin Qi and Yang Qi feel like… And I watched Reverse Yi to Find Qi from the Bali 2025 talks; was good but I think it would have had more impact on me if I hadn’t been watching the Sweden 2025 talks recetnly.

Wednesday: 20m Wu Ji; 1h Dantian Gong and thickening.

Thursday: 1h Subtle Body; I’m not really feeling the Yin Qi but maybe I’ve got a bit of an idea about Yang Qi? 35m Dragon 2. I went through the Hunyuan 48 and the Lao Jia second form. At the request of my TCM doctor, I started using a Fitbit to track my sleep; my upshot after a little less than a week of doing it is that I’m getting about an hour a night of deep sleep, and my doctor would like that to be at least an hour and a half. And I was surprised to see that deep sleep actually happens at the start of the night, I’d assumed based on the name that it was later on, but talking with Claude, that’s normal.

Friday: Just 40m of Dantian Gong; I spent the afternoon with a friend, so not much today.

Saturday: 30m Advanced Dantian Gong, 10m Taiji Wuji, and I finished my series of long Silk Reeling with a long Dantian Rotation. (Didn’t feel as much during that one as I expected.) Definitely glad I did that; I certainly won’t do the whole series again, but there are at least half a dozen that are quite useful. Though for the next month or two I want to focus on Song, so I’ll do the who Silk Reeling sequence instead, just with only three or repetitions of each one instead of six and trying to Song it strongly. And then hopefully that Song will carry over into my form. As to the rest of the Chen class, we finished the Hunyuan Pao Chui; I haven’t been focusing on that form at all (and in particular I haven’t been doing it at home) but at least I’ve been paying enough attention that the basic moves are familiar to me, so if I want to learn it next time that should be doable. But I’m also glad that we’re starting the Hunyuan 48 in January, I could definitely use an in-person review on that, I’m trying to solidify it through videos but it’s tough. And I went through the four Dragons.

Sunday: 90m push hands; some interesting / practical discussion of doing tiny Peng/Lu/Ji/An combos within one small bit of the pattern, instead of only looking for the energies in broad strokes. And also an interesting discussion of Ji as deforming the ball from Peng so there’s a pointy part sticking out. (Kind of a three-dimensional version of Damo’s notion of Ji as both hands pushing at a single point.) And 30m attention to breath; I think that, as long as I’m getting TCM treatments on Sunday (which hopefully won’t be for ages) I probably won’t do much Nei Gong on Sundays. And some Shui Gong 2 at night

Monday: 80m Wu Ji; I’d have to go through the archives, but I feel like it’s been months since I’ve done more than 75m, so that’s certainly good. And 30m Dantian Gong, and Shui Gong 1 at night.

Tuesday: 20m each of Horizontal Punch and WSSF1. And I went through the 37 form, the Chen weapon forms, and the Chen Xinjia form, and took a walk after that. In the afternoon, I did 35m of Dragon 2, went through the Du Stretch video, and an hour of Subtle Body. (Maybe I started feeling hints of Yin Qi? I’m really not sure.)

Last Tuesday’s lesson was Taiji Horizontal Punch. Which is the last one in year 1, yay.

Wednesday: 75m Wu Ji, with some pretty good connectivity at times; 40m Dantian Gong.

Thursday: 15m Taiji Standing 5; 20m Horizontal Punch, and the 37 form x2. (No Chen stuff; it was raining pretty hard in the morning, so I stayed inside, and I didn’t feel like doing Chen inside.) In the afternoon, I did 25m Three Circles, 30m Swimming Dragon, and 40m Spleen Hui Chun. And I reviewed Hunyuan 48 in the evening, and I realized that the opening move starts with the first of the Three Circles. I also watched the Mind in Body lecture from Sweden 2025, that’s another good one.

Friday: Du Stretch; 50m unsuccessful Microcosmic Orbit attempt. Still not sure why it was unsuccessful; I had been noticing that my back wasn’t feeling as tingly this week as it had been the last couple of weeks, so maybe I’d been slacking off there or maybe the workshop aftereffects have faded? But then the next day I started to feel on the edge of getting sick, so this might just have been an advanced warning of that.

Saturday: 40m Advanced Dantian Gong. Regular Chen class, though I took it easy because I was feeling off; I did a long Toe Grabbing during Silk Reeling, not super interesting, though it was at least working my Yong Quan. And 10m of Taiji Wuji. Also I stopped playing a phone game that had been eating into my time more and more over the last few weeks, hopefully that will make it easier for me to calm down my mind as well as giving me some time back.

Sunday: I just did the Chen sword forms, 20m of Wu Ji, and 20m sleepy Calm Abiding.

Monday: Du Stretch and 30m attention to breath.

Tuesday: Feeling a little better today, I think, though the last third or quarter of my sleep was kind of patchy, so I was sleepier than I would have liked Went through Taiji Horizontal Punch video again; it felt pretty interesting this time, my body felt pretty active. And I briefly reviewed Needles to Sea Bottom and Fan Through Back again. I did a slow version of the 37 form, the Chen pole weapons, and the Xinjia first form, and I went on a walk. In the afternoon, 25m Three Circles, and just 15m sleepy attention to breath, my nap wasn’t good enough to catch up with my sleep debt from the night.

This week’s lesson: Nei Gong, Three Circles. Another Hunyuan one, seems fine.

I also started seeing a new TCM practitioner, a recommendation from a fellow student in my Tai Chi class. I liked what he had to say in the intro: seemed plausible from a medicine point of view but also there was stuff (e.g. about physical alignments and relaxing parts of the body) that is consistent with Tai Chi / Nei Gong recommendations. Hopefully it will go well; I decided to sign up for a pretty big package plan, so I’ll feel silly if it doesn’t go well! And I’m going to do this one more regularly (especially at the start, three times a week) than I’d been doing with my prior TCM doctor; for all I know, maybe the main issue there was that I dialed it down too early… Hopefully I’ll still be able to get about as much done (I can nap during moxa treatments, after all), but ifI do less in the future on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and/or Sundays, that’s why. (It actually does seem pretty likely that I’ll do less Tai Chi on Thursdays, but we’ll see.)

Wednesday: 75m Wu Ji, 40m Dantian Gong.

Thursday: 20m Taiji Standing 5, 37 form x2. Not much in the afternoon, I can’t remember and didn’t take good notes – maybe just 20m Three Circles?? And Shui Gong 2 at night, for the first time in ages. And my first appointment with the new TCM doctor, just moxa treatment.

Friday: I slept quite well; not sure if it was the moxa or the extra chewing when eating that he had me do or the Shui Gong or what. (Though that didn’t repeat later in the week, so I suspect it’s the Shui Gong, that has happened to me with Shui Gong 2 in the past.) And I did 30m of Wu Ji, and a 1h Microcosmic Orbit attempt. In some sense it was my most successful MCO attempt – it felt more like descriptions that I’ve heard, stuff went up my back without any particular blockages and at a quite leisurely but not completely glacial pace. Not as much made it all the way to the top as would be ideal, but certainly some did. So if I can build on that, then that would be great. (No obvious aftereffects in my body in subsequent days, though.) Shui Gong 1 at night.

Saturday: 40m Advanced Dantian Gong; all four dragons. Regular Chen class; I did a long Ankle Rotation during the Silk Reeling, I’m almost done with the long Silk Reeling exercises.

Sunday: Two hours of push hands, again very useful: I’m getting more out of touching my partner, I’m feeling more in my body and in particular am using the Kua better, I think. And 30m of bellows breathing / ming line in the afternoon.

Monday: Feeling a little off (purging, maybe?), so I took it easy; 20m Wu Ji, 40m Dantian Gong.

Tuesday: Bad sleep, so I didn’t practice much (though honestly some of that was just me letting myself get distracted.) I went through the Chen pole weapons forms and did the 37 form and the Xinjia first form once each; my only Nei Gong was 55m of Spinal Dao Yin.

I finally (with the help of Claude) got mail notifications about blog comments working again, so if you leave a comment, it shouldn’t take me a week to notice it now.

This week’s lesson was Taiji Standing 5 – Single Whip (plus Pushing Hands – Press). Pretty intense, I like that one.

Wednesday: My monthly going through the Sinew Changing Principles Zoom class; good, as always. Also, a random note: I’ve been feeling over the last month or so that the left side of my torso is weaker than the right, I think my TCM doctor was correct about my Kidney being weaker on that side. Probably related to why I normally lean to the left when I’m standing.

Thursday: I rewatched the Golden Rooster video; interesting one, lots of details for me to fix. I did 15m of TS5 (that was interesting inside), 20m WSSF3, and I went through the 37 form twice, the Hunyuan 48 form, and the Xinjia first form (I did a surprisingly bad job, honestly). In the afternoon, I did 30m of Dragon 2, 25m Pulling Down Heaven, and 25m attention to breath.

Friday: I did 45m Wu Ji; my back felt stretchier than it ever has, I think the Dragon 2 is making a difference. And a 65m successful MCO attempt; this is the second time that I’ve gotten it to work after a Foundations workshop, so that’s good. Like the previous one, I initially didn’t think it was going to work, but it just kept on going up, and after about 15 minutes it made it to the top of my head. And there wasn’t any particular blockage anywhere along my spine. Though, unlike the previous time, it didn’t leave my torso tingling for days after…

Saturday: 30m attention to breath, 10m Tai Chi Wu Ji. And the regular Chen class; I was doing a good job of Fang Song, it felt quite different inside, I’ll definitely want to keep on working on that.

Sunday: 20m Pulling Down Heaven, 20m attention to breath, plus the monthly Sunday Tai Chi class. And 30m of indifferent attempt at doing Scholar Breathing that turned into a decent job of feeling the Ming Line, at least.

Monday: Du Stretch video; 20m Wu Ji; 1h DTG / thickening. Also, I’ve recently been noticing a bit of pulsing in my left leg while doing Wu Ji; I’m not sure if it’s blood vessels or fascia. (Somewhat irregular, which argues against blood vessels.)

Tuesday: I reviewed Needles to Sea Bottom and Fan Through Back, and I went through all the Chen weapon forms. I did 20m each TS5 and WSSF1; I felt a weird full body tingling halfway through the latter, I’m honestly not sure if I was just overexerting myself and feeling slightly dizzy or if something was clearing in a useful way or what. I went through 37 form and the Lao Jia 1/2 once each. And in the afternoon I did 20 minutes of Wu Ji, 25 minutes of Dragon 2, 35 minutes of Kidney Hui Chun (been a while since I’ve done that, I should probably get back to it?), and 30 minutes of attention to the breath.

I feel like my back is doing better; not sure if it’s the weekly Du Stretch videos or Dragon 2 or what, probably a combination. Would be nice if that helps make the MCO attempts more successful, instead of only working right after a workshop, we’ll see.

The lesson last Tuesday was a Nei Gong one, Pulling Down Yang. Seems like a pleasant enough one, another in the Hunyuan series And I also watched Qi Building and Filling from the Sweden 2025 video set; very interesting, I should watch it again.

Wednesday: I did 45m of Wu Ji and a 1h MCO attempt. I didn’t have enough juice in that; one random thought is that the CPAP has been making my sleep annoyingly fragmented recently, I wonder if that’s related?

Thursday: I did 20m of Taiyi Standing, 20m of Wu Song Shen Fa 2, and 10m of Foot Pump; the Foot Pump still isn’t doing anything for me. And I went through the 37 form twice and the Xin Jia first form once. In the afternoon I went through Rick’s October 25 Zoom class and did 30m of attention to breath. And in the evening I watched the Qi Building & Filling lecture a second time, and packed for the workshop; no Hunyuan review, I should get back to that this week.

Friday: This was a travel day; I did 20m of standing work, Wood Wu Xing plus Wu Ji, and 30m of attention to breath.

Saturday and Sunday: A Foundations workshop. I think Rick wouldn’t approve of those Nei Gong goals that I posted a week or so ago on the other blog; clearly I should work on consolidation more. And on connection some, but I feel like I’m not doing horribly with that? At any rate, good weekend, and the second Dragon seems more interesting to me now.

Monday: I got tired of getting annoyed at the CPAP machine, and I enjoyed sleeping better over the weekend without it, even though I was in a hotel! So I’m declaring an end to that experiment, and I sent back the CPAP machine. I did my weekly going through the Du Stretch video; I wonder if I should do it more often, it definitely seems useful but it’s a little less clear if I’m getting sustained benefits from it or if I’m just taking two steps forward and then two steps back every week. (It’s not like it’s the only back thing I’m doing, but still.) And I did 45m of Wu Ji and 40m of Dantian Gong.

Tuesday: I went through my Chen pole weapon forms. I did 20m of Wu Song Shen Fa 1 and 10m of Foot Pump; more going on in my torso than normal in the WSSF, presumably because of the workshop. I went through the 37 form three times and the Lao Jia first and second forms once each. And a bunch of smaller things in the afternoon: 25m Wu Ji, 10m Ji Ben 1, 30m Full Moon, 30m (sleepy) attention to the breath, 25m Pulling Down Yang.