Nei Gong Notes, February 1, 2021

This week’s lesson from Damo was some exercises to get more room around your heart center. Interesting enough because it really was just moving your hands around in front of your chest and/or holding your hands stable in certain configurations in front of your chest; I wouldn’t have thought before doing Tai Chi that that would lead to me feeling much of anything, but it really does. Not a super intense feeling or anything, but still: absolutely noticeable.

Part of me feels like I’ve been feeling things a little less intently inside recently. But, actually, I’m not sure that’s at all true: e.g. when going through the Ji Ben Qi Gong, Flying Dragon feels pretty intense, which I’m pretty sure is relatively new. So hopefully I’m making progress?

Anyways, pretty good week. My back started to ache a bit in midweek, which was honestly kind of weird: I hadn’t been doing as much Coiling the Snake the last few days, but I’d kept up with my Tai Chi, and even after I did both of those, it still wasn’t feeling great the next day? Never horrible, though, and it faded over the next few days. Hopefully I’m not getting sensitive to weather changes; I’ll deal with it if I am, though.

I did 45 minutes of Wu Ji on Saturday, and honestly I thought I was at more like the 30 minute or maybe 35 minute mark when the timer went off for 45. So that was nice. Probably still means that I’m still sitting a little high, though I do notice that I’m settling to a lower position as I get into more of a sitting position instead of squatting. And I also was feeling fairly soon after the beginning like there were lines of connection going down the top of my legs; I suspect that’s a good sign.

On Sunday I gave up after 25 minutes; I chalk that up to not having gotten quite enough sleep the previous night, and while I thought it was okay when I started practice, it became clear pretty quickly that I was sleepier than I’d thought and would have done better getting back to sleep and trying to practice later. Ah well, live and learn; in general, though, the week has been fine for sleep, hopefully a change in my allergy routine has helped.

Good to get back to Calm Abiding as a meditation practice; I’d missed that, and I’m feeling out of shape with it. For now I’m trying to do a three day rotation, Calm Abiding / Anchoring the Breath / Song Breathing, but I might actually switch to four days, with Calm Abiding every other day?