Tuesday evening: no lesson, but I watched The Breath (part 2) from Maryland 2019.

Wednesday: 25m Coiling Snake; 20m Hou Tian Qi 1; 40m Dantian Gong. The seated work was a really good session; I’d been noticing for a while that, if I relax my mind, it does get interested in Qi in my Dantian, and that was happening at the start of the session, and both the main part of the Hou Tian Qi exercise and putting my mind in my whole body at the end were stronger than normal. And that transitioned into a quite strong Dantian Gong; and I think I’m finally starting to understand what Damo is talking about when he refers to a form of Qi that feels like magnetism. (Related to feelings that I’ve had for years, but I think now I understand that specific metaphor better and I better understand what aspect to tune into.)

Thursday: Goofing off today, just 20m Hou Tian Qi 1.

Friday / Saturday: Travel day with a big time change; did 20m Hou Tian Qi 1, but I didn’t get anything out of it, airline economy seats aren’t really conducive to that…

Sunday / Monday / Tuesday: I tried to pay attention to my breath a bit on Sunday but I was mostly too tired to do that. And I didn’t even try to do Nei Gong after that: I’m sightseeing on vacation, and I was getting over jet lag and in a small hotel rooom when I wasn’t sightseeing, none of which is particularly condusive to doing Nei Gong. We’ll see if that changes over the next week and a half, but if next week’s post says I didn’t do any Nei Gong at all over the last week, that will also be totally fine, these last three days have been good days!

Last Tuesday evening I watched a Nei Gong lecture: Hou Tian Qi 1 – The Earth Region. Apparently the start of a sequence of related lessions, and Damo recommends doing it at least once a day, so I’ve been doing it more regularly than exercises from other recent lessons. (Fortunately it’s both short and pleasant.) And I watched the Purging in Nei Gong lecture.

Wednesday: 20m Hou Tian Qi 1; 30m Dragon 1; 40m Dantian Gong.

Thursday: 20m Hou Tian Qi 1; 25m Full Moon practice; 50m Being Present / Ming Men exercise. I noticed during the evening that my diaphragm feels more free, I think because of today’s acupuncture session? (Though that faded some as the week went on.) And I watched The Breath, part 1 from Maryland 2019.

Friday: A longer stretching session, 20m Hou Tian Qi 1, 45m Microcosmic Orbit attempt. Didn’t go particularly well, I didn’t get Qi going into my spine correctly.

Saturday: 20m Hou Tian Qi 1, 35m Wood Hui Chun. Attended some of weekly Chen Tai Chi class.

Sunday: 20m Hou Tian Qi 1. Pretty interesting; about halfway through, it felt like a hole opened up in the middle of my body a little above the diaphragm. Not sure what that was, but it seemed like a good thing. And I watched the “Qi First Talk” video.

Monday: Du Stretch; 10m Hou Tian Qi 1; 35m Dantian Gong.

Tuesday: 25m Dragon 3; I went through the Lotus Dao Yin video again, because I think it’ll be useful for me to do more of that for a while (my acupuncturist thinks that some of my remaining issues are related to my chest being stuck, and my chest has felt a little tight to me for years); 20m Hou Tian Qi 1.

I didn’t do a lesson on Tuesday: it was a Tai Chi week but, because of my foot problems, I’d been (and was planning to continue) babying my feet, so I hadn’t done the previous lesson much and wouldn’t be able to practice a new lesson.

Wednesday: 40m Dantian Gong; 25m Auric Connection. And I saw my TCM doctor (or actually the other doctor in that TCM practice), they did some work related to my foot, it helped some but didn’t solve the problem.

Thursday: A longer stretching session, and then I followed the recording of Anastasia’s Water Hui Chun Zoom class. There was some potentially useful theory at the beginning (giving me a different sense of what “purging” meant), and the exercise itself felt stronger than normal. And there was one weird part, where, during the bit with the hands facing down at the top of your torso, I felt like there was kind of a blank space on the right side of my torso above my diaphragm, about where my liver is; I’ll be curious to see if that recurs.

Friday: 40m Dantian Gong; and I went through the Liver Hui Chun part of the Zoom videos that Damo did for Foundations students a year or so ago.

Saturday: 45m, intending to be Calm Abiding but it was kind of weird. My chest felt a little tight but stretchy, like it wasn’t completely stuck but needed help to expand; I’m not sure if this is it trying to return to a tighter position after relaxing some from acupuncture treatments a month ago, or if this was the beginnings of it loosening up even further? And this was grabbing my awareness decently strongly, so it was hard for me to Song my mind the way I try to do in Calm Abiding; I had a few moments of that but not as many as I’d like. Half or two thirds of the way through, the tight-but-not-stuck feeling moved down to my diaphragm; not sure what was behind that shift either. I mostly skipped the weekly Chen class (babying my feet), but I did go to see the Hunyuan 48 section of the class.

Sunday: 20m Wu Ji / Coiling Snake. I’ve been staying away from standing work, but some experiences yesterday evening made me feel like I need to be stretching out my spine more, so Coiling Snake sounded like a good idea. (And I did a bit of Wu Ji at the beginning at the end, but not a lot, I’m still not sure that’s great for my body right now.) I think I’ll get back to Dragons this coming week, for the same reason. And 20m of Auric Connection.

Monday: 30m Dragon 3; 1h10m of Dantian Gong plus other seated work.

Tuesday: Du stretch; an allergy shot meant that I didn’t do much else today. And I had a foot massage; not convinced it helped, though I’ll probably try a longer one next week before going on vacation.

Interesting week, at least, despite the foot problems.

Last Tuesday evening I did a Nei Gong lesson, on Auric Connection. And I watched the Tai Chi Hurts video and the Path of Daoism lesson from Maryland 2022.

Wednesday: 50m Advanced Dantian Gong. Participated in Rick’s Zoom class; more Dao Palms, quite intense this time.

Thursday: I’m giving my foot a rest (acupuncture Wednesday helped but it’s not clear that it completely fixed the issue) so I skipped Tai Chi in the morning. 25m Dragon 3 in the afternoon, then an interruption came up so that was all the Nei Gong for the day.

(And, unfortunately, the acupuncture really didn’t fix the foot issue – some aspects are better but real problems are still there. So I’m doing much less standing Nei Gong and Tai Chi until that gets better – I want to give my foot as much time as possible to heal before going on vacation in a few weeks.)

Friday: 50m Dantian Gong, 20m Auric Connection.

Saturday: 40m Spleen Hui Chun. I did some of my regular Chen class, but I skipped most of it because of the aforementioned foot problem.

Sunday: No Tai Chi (foot); 35m Calm Abiding.

Monday: Du Stretch; 1h10m Microcosmic Orbit attempt, some Qi eventually made it up there but not a lot

Tuesday: I watched Foundations of Sitting Zoom class. Which was mostly theory, so my actual Nei Gong practice time was low today; the theory seemed familiar, I wonder if it was once in a different section of the library or if it was excerpted into a lesson in the course or if it’s just that he talks about the same thing in multiple places.

And it would be a Tai Chi week but I’m skipping that because of the foot problems. (And because the foot problems mean that I’ve only done Taiji Standing 6 once.)

The Tuesday lesson was Taiji Standing 6 – Shoulder Press. Been a while since I’ve done Taiji Standing, hopefully I’ll be up for it now.

Wednesday: 25m Wu Ji + Coiling Snake; I was surprised how, during the initial Wu Ji part, the front of my torso (Tian Tu and a little below that) wanted to sink decently strongly on its own. I attended Rick’s Zoom course. And I started looking for beta testers for the iPhone app I’m writing that, among other things, I use for suggesting Nei Gong exercises. (Probably everybody reading this saw that announcement, but if not and if you want more info, let me know.)

Thursday: Watched the Yang Taiji Basics Zoom class; I think probably I’ll spend some time going through the IAA Taiji Zoom classes instead of restarting the review of the 37 form videos. I did the 37 form, the Chen sword forms, and the Chen Lao Jia first and second forms. For Nei Gong I did 25m Dragon 3 and watched a recent Zoom class that Anastasia gave about seated Dantian Gong. And I reviewed the Hunyuan 48 in the evening.

Friday: 30m Wu Ji, 1h Dantian Gong and other seated work. I felt tingling not just in my abdomen but in other places, including my thigh, after that; not used to that feeling in my thigh. Though the downside is that, in the evening, the back of my knees ached, which I think is a sign of Jing depletion; not sure if that was because of something about practice or because sleep was bad the previous night.

Saturday: 40m Water Hui Chun; no Chen class today, I’m went to see my TCM doctor to talk about foot pain during that time slot. (Except that he didn’t actually do anything about the foot pain; I understand why but I’m still not thrilled.)

Sunday: The monthly advanced Chen class. 10m of bad Enquiry 3; I keep on bouncing off of that, I think I’ll just give up on it for now. And I started a Calm Abiding attempt but I was too sleepy so I stopped after 15 minutes. (I skipped my nap; was okay for doing normal stuff but not good if I wanted to do Nei Gong.)

Monday: Du Stretch, and 15m Wu Ji. And a 1h15m Microcosmic Orbit attempt; Qi got stuck for quite a while in the normal lower back place, and when it made it past there, it had a hard time making it through various other places in my lower back. It did eventually make it to the top, though; doesn’t feel like it’ll be as effective as it was last week but we’ll see how I feel the next couple of days. (Update from one day later: not completely ineffective but definitely not as strong an effect as the previous week.) At any rate, nice that it succeeded at all.

Tuesday: The Chen long weapon forms; my left hand was basically fine, yay. 20m each Taiji Standing 6 and Wu Song Shen Fa 1. And I went through the 37 form and the Chen Xinjia first form. For Nei Gong I did 30m Dragon 2 and 50m of the Being Present / Ming Men sequence.

I didn’t do a new lesson on Tuesday, I was too tired and I hadn’t done enough Tai Chi over the last few weeks to want to progress.

Wednesday: 25m surprisingly strong full moon practice. Then I went through the recording of Rick’s March 21 zoom, and took notes on the Dao Palms. Also, at the start of the recording when settling in, I felt like I was doing a better job of feeling what it means to sink flesh off the bones and to get my mind in that space, hopefully I can get better at that.

Thursday: I went through one of the sections of Practical Tai Chi Training. I did the Chen sword forms, 20m Wu Song Shen Fa 3, the 37 form, and the Chen Laojia first and second forms. For Nei Gong, I did a 20m stretching set, 30m Dragon 3, and 40m Water Hui Chun.

Friday: 25m Wu Ji + Ji Ben 1; 70m Dantian Gong + Qi Thickening + Dao Palms.

Saturday: Regular Chen class. And, unfortunately my left foot is hurting enough that I’m going to dial down standing Nei Gong stuff a bit, I think. (Update from a few days later: my foot is starting to get better, but it’s still not great; hopefully my TCM doctor can help but he’s out of town until Saturday. So, in the meantime, no long Wu Ji sessions.)

Sunday: A couple of hours of push hands. Working with Jason, the inside of my body is working a lot more than it had been – doing more, reacting more instinctively, being more effective. (Or maybe I’m noticing it more? But Jason found it surprising.) So that was very interesting, I hope I can build on that. And I did 35m of Calm Abiding in the afternoon.

Saturday: 1h Spinal Dao Yin, and 80m of my first successful Microcosmic Orbit attempt in months, yay. Things were stuck at the top of my lower back for ages, but my Dantian had felt quite full during the prep part of the attempt, and it felt like things had gone up the spine in a plausible location, so I decided to just sit and wait it out. And after 5-10 minutes (probably closer to 10, but who knows), it finally started moving past that clipping pass; it was still moving very slowly, so it took it ages for it to actually make it up the rest of my back and then to the top of my head (and down the middle of my body), but it did manage it eventually. So that was good, glad to be back at succeeding at that, hopefully I can build on that.

Tuesday: I went through the section in Practical Tai Chi Training on “Drawing Up Perineum on Inhale, Relaxing on Exhale”; surprisingly interesting / useful, it’ll help me in postures with one leg raised, I’d never really felt effects from my perineum before but now it’s starting to connect up in productive ways. I did Chen pole weapons for the first time in several weeks, and they went pretty well, yay; no left hand pain at all when doing the Guan Dao, the staff led to a couple of small jolts and the spear maybe one so things aren’t completely healed but they’re much better. And I went through the Chen Xinjia first form, paying attention to my perineum. For Nei Gong, I did the Du Stretch, 25m of Dragon 1, and I rewatched the Enquiry 3 video.

Tuesday evening’s lesson was a Nei Gong one, on Enquiry 3. Which I was thinking I’d kind of do occasionally, but on the few times when I’ve tried, I feel like I’m not actually doing what the lesson recommends, so I should probably rewatch it? I also watched the Maryland 2022 Errors in Qigong lecture that evening; very relevant to what I was talking about last week, I really should (and have been oven the last week and a half) work on keeping my head raised and having everything hang off of it, and on trying to figure out how to get Bones Up, Flesh Down working in practice.

Wednesday: 40m of Rick’s exercise of relaxing and connecting to sink. And 50m of a not particularly successful Microcosmic Orbit attempt.

Thursday: I reviewed Tear Tiger to Finish, so now I’m done with my second time (first review) of the 37 form videos. (I’ll probably start the form review from the beginning again next week!) I did Chen spear form; my finger is getting better but not completely healed, so I’m holding off on staff and Guan Dao for now. And 20m of WSSF1 for the first time in maybe two months; the 37 form twice, trying to do some Jin Strengthening on one of them; and the Lao Jia first and second forms. (And then a walk, and I ended up sitting in a church and spending about 20m paying attention to my breath.) In the afternoon, I went through Roni’s preparatory stretch video and an old Zoom session on Dantian Gong.

And then there was a Foundations workshop; Friday was a travel day, Saturday and Sunday were workshop days.

Monday: Du Stretch; and 25m Earth Hui Chun. (I got in quite late, so I was pretty sleepy.)

Tuesday: 20m of Dragon 2; 65m Dantian Gong combined with other seated stuff. No Tai Chi, because of an allergy shot appointment; and I got surprisingly tired at the end of the day, not sure if I had a stronger reaction to the allergy shots than normal or if it’s still travel sleep debt or if I’m coming down with something. So I won’t do a new lesson tonight.

No lesson on Tuesday: I hadn’t done nearly as much Tai Chi as normal over the previous two weeks, so I figured I should just punt on that for another couple of weeks.

Wednesday: 15m Enquiry 2 and 30m Calm Abiding; I should do that latter one more, it really is a good practice. (Hopefully I actually will, I’ve added it to my list in an app that I’m writing to, among other things, remind me of stuff like that!) And I attended Rick’s Zoom class; mostly pretty familiar stuff, but there was one exercise I hadn’t seen before.

Thursday: I eviewed Sweep and Kick from the 37 Form. I went through the 37 form once, the Chen sword weapon forms, and the Chen Lao Jia 1/2 first and second form. I think I need to work more on bones up, flesh down (I think doing that wrong is hurting my Spleen Qi and leading to fatigue); I did 35 minutes of Wu Ji / Coiling Snake today with that in mind, and 65 minutes of Dantian Gong + Qi Thickening (with the extra five minutes being trying to do the extra bit that Rick showed us yesterday), and that all went quite well.

Friday: I followed along with the waterfall stretch video, and did 10m Enquiry 2, 15m Balancing Upper and Lower, and 20m Wu Ji. And then I spent 50m going through the Being Present / Ming Men exercise from a recent Zoom class, but from my notes instead of following the video.

Saturday: 30m Advanced Dantian Gong. I attended my regular Chen class; I led Silk Reeling at the start, that was pleasant enough, though I really do do things more slowly than my classmates. And I did 30m of Dragon 2.

Sunday: I did 15m Dragon 1, and 75m push hands; I didn’t get to push with my favorite person, but I learned some stuff from the other two people I pushed with, so that’s okay. And I did 40m of Water Hui Chun (again with trying to stretch out a bit more), it felt good.

Monday: Talking with my TCM doctor; he’s convincing me that I should sink less to my feet, that right now I should focus on lifting my head and having everything fall off of that in a relaxed way, to avoid too much internal compression / stress. (Which relates to what I talked about in the Thursday section.) I did the Du Stretch, and then 45m Wu Ji, focusing on having everything fall off of my head. Which took some playing around at first, but I think I ended up some place plausible; interestingly, I simultaneously felt like I was floating on my feet but also, as the stand went on, that there was a pretty strong downward pressure on my feet anyways! (Not sure what my doctor would think about that.) And then, 30 minutes in, my body started expanding internally; I don’t normally get Qi building that way so early, so that seemed like a good sign too. But, once the expansion happened and I started feeling puffy, I honestly couldn’t tell if I was hanging off of my head or not, my body wasn’t loose in the right way. Anyways, I think that was a good experiment; and then I did 40m of Dantian Gong after that.

Tuesday: I went through the Chen sword forms (I’m still holding off on the pole while my left middle finger heals); the 37 form, with some Strengthening the Jin Line mixed in; and the Chen Xinjia first form. And I followed along with the recording of Rick’s March 14 Zoom class. And then I did 25m Wu Ji / Coiling Snake and 10m Enquiry 2.

The Tuesday lesson was Enquiry 2 (Nei Gong). Typing that reminds me that I haven’t actually done any of that over the last week, I should fix that…

Wednesday: 50m of relaxing and connecting to sink, i.e. trying to do the exercise from Rick’s February Zoom classes by following my notes instead of the video. I rewatched the video for The Subtle Body; hope I’m getting the Yang Qi part right, I’m less sure about the Yin Qi part.

Thursday: I went through the Chen sword forms, and did a decently slow 37 form in a Continual Jin direction. 25m Dragon 1, 1h Dantian Gong + thickening. And I reviewed the Hunyuan 48 in the evening.

Friday: 20m Wu Ji, 50m Microcomic Orbit attempt. Not enough juice, but good to be trying again. (Hmm, I should ramp my Wu Ji back up…)

Saturday: 30m Advanced Dantian Gong (yay for not having acupuncture in the weekends). My regular Saturday Chen class. And I went through all four Dragons.

Sunday: 90m push hands. 40m Water Hui Chun.

Monday: Du Stretch; 40m Earth Hui Chun.

Tuesday: I tried doing the spear but it was a bad idea; I should get some padding on the finger that’s messed up. I did a decently slow 37 form, and I went through the Xin Jia first form trying (but only spottily succeeding) to pay attention to my feet. I did 45m Wu Ji; was thinking of going an hour but that seemed like it might be a bit too much stress on my system. (Which worries me a bit, hopefully once I get back to doing it more then that’ll get better?) And 40m Dantian Gong.

A random thought: I should stretch more before doing Nei Gong, I’ve been slacking off on that.

And I’m going to skip doing a lesson tonight: I’ve done an unusually small amount of Tai Chi over the last couple of weeks, so I don’t think I should move on there yet.

The Tuesday lesson was a Tai Chi one, on Strengthening the Jin Line. Seems pretty interesting, though I need to put more time on Continual Jin first.

Wednesday: My feet were a bit achy today, as were my knees; maybe related to the walking yesterday? Not so worried about the feet, though having knees that hurt isn’t great. Still, things weren’t bad enough to make me want to really avoid standing work, so I did 30m of Wu Ji as well as 40m DTG.

Thursday: Acupuncture ended up giving me a leg cramp today, so I didn’t do any Tai Chi or standing work; I just did 20m sleepy Enquiry 1, 30m DTG. And, looking ahead, the acupuncture made my big toe feel bruised on Friday and Saturday, though not in a way that really stopped me from doing anything.

Friday: 25m Wu Ji + Coiling Snake; 40m Kidney Hui Chun. It felt good, I might have done more stuff if I hadn’t mismanaged my time this afternoon.

Saturday: I had my regular Chen class. And this was my last scheduled weekend acupuncture (I’m dialing back from three times a week to twice a week), so hopefully I’ll be able to get my Saturdays back to normal.

Sunday: Monthly Chen class. One finger of my left hand was hurting (I think because of Acupunture on Monday), so I mostly sat out the Guan Dao. And I did 10m of Enquiry 1.

Monday: I did the Du Stretch, and I went through the Ming Men zoom exercise again; I took notes, I’ll try doing this once a week for a while.

Tuesday: A bruised toe again (again caused by acupuncture), so I skipped Tai Chi. But solid Nei Gong: 25m Dragon 2, 1h DTG + thickening.

(Since I’ve mentioned acupuncture a few times above: my current TCM doctor also does something called “tension release” where he actively works to loosen up various spots in my body. Which usually doesn’t cause any more problems than any other form of acupuncture, but it turns out that both my left hand and right foot have unusual amounts of hard material inside, which took a lot of work (and will still require more work, especially on my right foot). So that required quite a lot of poking around in those part of my body, and also probably stuff shifted around more, and those body parts can feel it. But I’m pretty sure the problems are temporary.)