Nei Gong Notes, September 20, 2022

Not a lot to say for Nei Gong this week: I’m just doing the Kidney (and sometimes Spleen) exercises, and for standing I’m doing a standing exercise from my Tai Chi teacher instead of any of the Nei Gong ones. I’ll probably stick with that one another week, but then I’ll stop; I don’t feel like I’m getting anything specific from it, and my Liver Heat problems are coming back, and I’m worried that that exercise might be sending too much energy to my head. And also I feel like I should get back to my Wu Ji, and it would be good for me to do some standing Dantian Gong too, I think.

Tai Chi was interesting, though. My teacher went over my form this week, even though he’d just commented on it the previous week at the teacher certification. Here are my notes:

• When going forward with my left elbow before the uppercut in Jing Gang, I should strike forward, not at an angle to the side. And the elbow should be a little isolated from the step forward.
• In Dantian Change, don’t focus on a smallish ball in front of me: instead, turn noticeably to the left at the start, and after that farther than I had been to the right, and let this help me to expand my chest more when drawing the silk.
• In Reverse with Spiraling Forearms, turn as I push, so that shoulder goes forward as well and more of the body gets involved.
• I have “sharp corners”: in punches and similar moves, I stop suddenly and the suddenly move into the next move, I should connect them more.

In general (this is my interpretation, not his), this is another sign that I’m too drawn in on myself why doing Tai Chi. I want to continue to lean into feeling Qi in my body, especially my arms and spine, during both Tai Chi and Nei Gong, hopefully this will help with that.

And my teacher did go over that standing posture I’d been working on; he confirmed that my feet should be parallel and my weight on my Bubbling Spring. (And he reminded me that I should repeat four sounds in my mind while doing that, which I forget most of the time!) And I asked him if I should stretch up my right middle finger, and he seemed to think that it was okay to do that! (Though now I’m wondering if my Liver Heat means I shouldn’t.)

Also, when doing the part of the Jian form where you turn forward (bringing the blade over, up, and down), I feel like I need to work on my choreography there: I want to spend some time thinking about what parts of my body are going up when and what parts are going down when. And I should point my left foot down when it’s raised.