Nei Gong Notes: June 22, 2021

Interesting week. Not too tired most days, so that was good, though I was unusually busy, so I didn’t practice as much as I normally did, and I skipped Saturday Tai Chi. But the practice that I did do seemed effective, even on short practice sessions.

I did do longer practice sessions on Wednesday and Friday, though, and the Wednesday one felt particularly good; I did a decent length Wu Ji session (30 minutes, plus 5 minutes of a Dao Yin and 5 more minutes of Wu Ji), then some seated meditation, some seated Dantian Gong, and a short Wu Ji session, and I was actually feeling my body react strongly enough to the Dantian Gong that I was on the edge of feeling nauseous. So that was pretty neat; Friday wasn’t as strong, but in general it seemed like a concrete sign of progress.

My right thigh is still off, but it’s no longer affecting my back. And actually my lower back was feeling kind of interesting: one of the new moves that I learned was giving a good stretch there, and there were a few other situations where it felt more energetic than normal? I’m not convinced my Live Gate is really completely opened up, I don’t get the same tingling situation there as I do in my Bai Hui or Yong Quan, but at least hopefully it’s no longer super blocked.

Anyways, I finished learning the Swimming Dragon: one last move, which was a nice simple lower back stretch. Which, actually, is very simple indeed, basically just trying to let your body hang down like you’re trying to touch your toes; for whatever reason, though, in that Dao Yin, it really feels like it’s opening up your lower back?

And then I moved on to the Soaring Dragon; no complicated transition moves there, so that was quick to learn. Or at least to mostly learn, I need to watch it again to make sure I understand one detail about the turn around? Also, there’s a low version of the Soaring Dragon; I’m not flexible enough to do it right, though, and Damo says both that the low version isn’t important and that you can actually hurt yourself if you do it halfway, so I’m just leaving that alone.

Also, when practicing the Dragons, I’m noticing that, as I slow down and relax, I can slip pretty quickly into feeling something during the Wu Ji at the start. So hopefully that’s another sign that my body really is starting to change? Not sure if it’s the ongoing practice or if the Dragons are particularly effective or if it’s just my imagination, but it does motivate me to keep on going.

I’ll be leading Silk Reeling next week; I think the week after that, I’m going to ask my Tai Chi teacher to go over my Jian form instead of the first form.