I’m still in a bit of a holding pattern: I’m feeling quite a bit better than I was last week, but I’m still coughing a lot (and still testing positive as of yesterday), so I hadn’t been restarting Nei Gong or Tai Chi practice and lessons. Though today I did do some seated work for the first time in a while, the Kidney Hui Chun exercise; I think I’ll probably try alternating between that one and the Spleen one over the next week? And I might start light standing practice and/or Tai Chi tomorrow, we’ll see how I feel. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to go to Tai Chi class this Saturday; can’t say I’m looking forward to catching up after missing three weeks of spear, but it is what it is.

I’d been helping my offspring move the previous week, which had really bean eating into my ability to practice, so last week was a bust. But that move happened last Tuesday; I was visiting my parents for a half week after that, though, so I wasn’t going to be back to normal, so I didn’t expect this past week to be good either. (And in particular I didn’t watch a lesson from Damo’s class, because I didn’t have any confidence that I’d be able to practice it.)

But then actually things went surprisingly well during that visit, and I got a few days of better practice in. Not abnormally good practice or anything, but at least I was back do doing my Nei Gong routine at about the level of days when I’m working? So that was a pleasant surprise.

Or at least it was a pleasant surprise until I started to feel more tired than I expected in the middle of one bit of practice. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, I just figured I still needed a bit more of a break. But, in retrospect, I’m pretty sure that was a first warning sign.

Because the good news is that I’m home back now; the bad news is that I’ve got COVID. (And, unlike a month and half ago or whenever it was, this time I tested positive, so it was definitely COVID.) It came on pretty hard, though I at least seem to be past the worst of it now; hopefully I’ll continue to recover at a decent clip and won’t have any long COVID symptoms. And hopefully I didn’t infect my parents or anybody on the airplane flight home; my parents aren’t showing an issues yet, which is a good sign.

So I’m taking another week off; no new lesson this week. (Hopefully next week!) I am a bit sad that I’ll probably have to skip Tai Chi on Saturday; that class is outside, so maybe if I’m testing negative before then and am not active symptomatic, it would be safe, as long as I wear a mask and stay away from other people more than normal? Not sure, I should probably skip a third week of class just in case…

I’ve been visiting family for the last week, helping my offspring pack boxes and move apartments, so very little Nei Gong this week: I did do a bit of sitting and a bit of standing every day, but it was quite minimal indeed most days, and I wasn’t working on anything specific. And I’ll be out for most of the upcoming week, too, visiting my parents.

So, nothing to report about Nei Gong or Tai Chi; I did watch the next video in Damo’s class, it was about True Perception, not much to say about that, almost entirely theoretical. Or, well, a report of real experience, but without much in the way of guidance how to reach that experience; at any rate, good that it didn’t have any exercises for me to work on because of how the week has gone!

Still having a hard time getting the Microcosmic Orbit going; if anything, this week was worse than the previous week. As before, on Wednesday I did a thickening exercise, and I felt like it went well; and then I did an MCO exercise on Friday, and unlike the previous week, I was alert during the exercise, so I hoped it would go well. And it seemed like it was going well through most of it, until I got to the bit where I was setting up a rotation within the Dantian; that rotation was very weak, and when I tried to kick off the MCO itself, almost nothing went up my spine.

I felt like, in the past, I’d had a much more self-sustaining rotation when I’d done it right after doing a bit with my hands where I drag Qi through my tailbone / spine / diaphragm / front muscles: those two steps are part of the thickening sequence I’ve been doing, and I think one of the times in the workshop they were together in the MCO practice? So I thought I might try it that way; but then on Sunday I decided to do the thickening exercise again, and this time, the rotation wasn’t strong.

So my conclusion for now is that I probably just need to build up Qi in my Dantian: probably the workshop built it up a lot, and now it’s drained down to more or less the level it was right before the workshop. Which isn’t anything, but which also isn’t enough. Who knows; I’ll keep on chipping away and see if it slowly builds up further.

(Speaking of the workshop, one of the people there mentioned that he read this blog; that was a pleasant surprise, I literally wasn’t sure if anybody was reading it. So hi there! I’m bad at names, so I will take a stab at saying “hi, Boris”, but I apologize in advance if I’ve misremembered your name.)

This week’s lesson in Damo’s online course was on the Qi mobilization version of the seventh Ji Ben Qi Gong. This one is about moving the Yin Qi field, and is pretty subtle, I’m honestly not completely sure if I’m feeling what it’s talking about. But I think I might be; I kind of get a feeling of something right around the surface of my body (but not on my skin, so hopefully it’s not Yang Qi tingling), which twists in a kind of interesting way when I do the exercise.

In terms of Tai Qi: Tony went over my form. He talked about me stretching more in Golden Rooster, which got me to think that I should work on feeling lines of connection through my body during the form. (I’ve been doing that during Silk Reeling, but not as much during the form.) So I’ve been trying that, it’s been a good experiment. And I’m rushing Flash the Back a bit, I should turn (at least my torso, not sure about my feet) before doing the flip with my hands.

I’ve given up on trying to learn the Hunyuan 48, but I actually really enjoy doing it in class: it feels pretty strongly like moving Qigong in a way that other Tai Chi forms don’t to me. So hopefully I’ll be able to learn it for real the next time through. I am back to being caught up with the spear, and I’m caught up (or even a little ahead, I think?) with the Guan Dao as well. Which is good, because I’ll be away visiting relatives for the next two weekends, including one Sunday class.

The acupuncture is going okay; helping some, but I’m still more tired than I would like. My doctor says that my Kidney Qi is improving, but that there’s still noticeable room for further improvement; hopefully the improvement will continue. (I’m a little worried that the improvement so far might to some extent have also been caused by the Nei Gong workshop and might be going away; hope not…)