Nei Gong Notes, June 23, 2020

Rough practice this week. I’ve been trying to stand a little lower when doing Wu Ji: paying attention to my hands during Compressing the Pearl, I think I had been moving my center of gravity down to my navel instead of my Dantian. (This week I was also trying to pay attention to the inside of my body and see if I got the sort of bright sensation I get when contacting my Dantian there; sometimes I do?) And, for whatever reason, that is making Wu Ji a lot more tiring: I’m more tired after 10 minutes of standing than I had been after 25 minutes. And, to make matters worse, I’m also trying to fold in my right Kua a bit more, which sometimes makes it ache, and also my shoes had been wearing out in ways that affected my back. So, basically, practice was more painful this week than normal, which meant it was shorter.

I think it’s getting better now, though? I’m realizing that yeah, I have to build my stamina back up: if 10 minutes is where I’m at (and based on how bad I smell from sweating after those 10 minutes, it’s not entirely me being wimpy!), then that’s where I’m at, I just have to get it up to 11 minutes, 12, 13. Which is where I’m at today, and actually the first 10 minutes weren’t so bad today, so that’s an improvement?

But I also do feel like I’m out of in other ways: e.g. it had been the case that I’d felt surprising internal sensations when doing silk reeling, but now that’s not happening any more? And, in general, I haven’t been doing as much silk reeling during meetings or as much Tai Chi. So I need to spend more time on those.

Which I’m doing a little? And today was pretty good: more Wu Ji than I had been doing, did a few other kinds of meditation, did a bit of Tai Chi. My start of the morning meditation has been going well in general: I’ve settled on a routine of sinking down to my Dantian for maybe 5 minutes then just trying to leave my attention there while I calm down my breathing. And I’ve been working on the exercise from the last couple of weeks of expanding my awareness out from my body; still not good at it, but I’m better than I was, so that’s good.

One thing I noticed while doing Tai Chi: at the end of Dantian Change, when moving your hands apart, my right knee was collapsing slightly, I should fix that.