My parents were in town for several days last week, so I didn’t do as much Nei Gong as normal, and I didn’t watch the review video for the fourth dragon last week, just the third dragon. I’m most of the way through the book, too; a few differences from the videos, but the videos are later, so I’ll stick with that. And it talks about the pause at the end of the third closing down as something to vent energy, which is interesting and does gel with what the videos were saying about putting your attention beneath your hands, so I’ve been trying that. So I’ll review the fourth dragon video tonight and finish the book this week; I’ll be out the next two weeks, I’ll restart the Nei Gong class after that.

One day, when practicing the Swimming Dragon, when I got to the part where you’re letting your torso hang to stretch your back, I felt something kind of give in my back. At first, I was worried that that meant that I’d strained something, but my back felt fie after that, so now I’m optimistic that it was a good sign, that my lower back might be getting a little unfused? I continue to be impressed how that exercise (at least in the context of the whole sequence) is surprisingly effective at giving a pull on my lower back, clearly I should keep on spending time in that part of the sequence.

Practice in general went pretty well, though, I did a decent amount of Dantian Gong in particular.

In terms of Tai Chi, we’re getting to the part of the Xinjia first form that I don’t know so well. So I’m goin to work at learning those; a pity that I’ll have to skip one week of class soon, but there’s not much that I can do about that.

At first I was thinking this week wasn’t going very well for Nei Gong – I had to work on Wednesday, my practice on Friday morning wasn’t as good as normal. And, thinking about it, in general there have been way too many days where I do 25 minutes of sitting in the morning and then go through the Dragons in the late afternoon; that’s not nothing, but it’s also worse than I’d been doing on days when I’d been working at home regularly. And, when I start going back through the Nei Gong course, it’ll be hard to find time to regularly practice new stuff; of course, I won’t have to practice the Dragons every day then because the Dragons won’t be the new thing that I’m learning, but still.

So I should practice over lunch at work more reliably; but I’m also thinking that, on days off, I should practice a second time in the morning? (Or maybe in the early afternoon, right before lunch.) If I were doing two two hour practices, then one in the morning and one in the afternoon would make sense; but, in practice, I’m always too tired in the afternoon to do a second long practice. So I should figure out if I’m more awake before lunch and, if so, practice then.

Though, having said that, yesterday and today went well. Yesterday I was feeling pretty tired, but I had free time over lunch, and I figured I had the energy to do some Ji Ben Qi Gong; and, actually, I felt a little more awake the rest of the day? Probably coincidence rather than the Qi Gong helping, but still, I wouldn’t complain. And today I was feeling awake all day, and I got in a good Dantian Gong session over lunch, yay.

On Saturday, I asked my Tai Chi teacher about the first Jin Gang; it turns out that, after hooking your opponent with your leg, you should continue turning even further to your right after lowering your leg. (But you should face forward the whole time, because that’s where your opponent mostly is.)

I’m done with the review videos for the first two Dragons; a few things I needed to correct from the first one, though I had the second one basically correct. I’ll do the third one tonight; probably the fourth one on Thursday, though I’m not completely sure since my parents are in town. And then I guess I’ll start back on the Nei Gong course? Though I might wait a bit, since I’ll be on vacation the week after next. Also, I’ll read the Dragon book one more time, this time actually paying attention to the description of the forms, to see if I can pick up more pointers.

Pretty good week? I did standing Dantian Gong for the first time in a while, I’m almost done with the Dragons (the only thing left is to watch the four videos at the end reviewing each of the forms), Tai Chi was going well. No huge practice sessions or anything, but in general it was solid.

I’ve now gone through all four dragons; yay. A few lessons left in that course, but soon I’ll be starting the regular lessons again. Which reminds me, there was one lesson at the end of year one that had something I’d been hoping to work on, but I haven’t really practiced it since then. Unfortunately, it’s a seated practice that works best when I’m awake, and I feel like I’m already doing enough seated practices during the morning when I’m most awake? Still, maybe I should get back to it…

I got my Jian form reviewed on Saturday. As expected, I remembered the moves well enough, but have a lot to work on beyond that. My notes: I should make everything more clean. If something is circular, make it a real circle; if I’m lifting my leg, really lift my leg; if I’m extending my sword, don’t let my wrist droop. Keep the lower half of my body stable. Compared to the no-weapon forms, focus more on extending; compared to Dao, focus more on being fluid.

Also, while doing the first form, I’m feeling slight sensations of winding and unwinding on some moves; I should explore that. It’s related to the focusing on lines of connection and spiraling that I’d been doing a month or two ago, presumably?

I actually took yesterday off from Nei Gong; mostly accidental, I was just goofing off for a little longer than planned in the morning because of the three-day weekend, and then we had friends over. Didn’t seem to have had any serious negative effects, though, today’s practice was fine, so while I won’t make a habit of it, I won’t feel guilty about it either.