Nei Gong Notes, July 27, 2021

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.