Nei Gong Notes, November 8, 2022

Pretty solid week. On Wednesday, I went through an hour-long Spinal Dao Yin video from Sweden; it was more internal than I expect from Dao Yins, but it seemed pretty effective in opening up my spine, I think I’m going to do that once a week for the next while. On Friday I did a 45 minute Wu Ji session; I’d been planning to do an hour, but for whatever reason I didn’t, in retrospect I think I should have pushed on? Still, the longest session I’ve done for a while. My energy level did start to dim after maybe 30 minutes, and I was getting some unexpected pressure on the inside of my thighs towards the end; nothing bad or anything, though. And on Sunday, since I’d already done long versions of the Kidney and Spleen Hui Chuns that week, I decided to do a long Calm Abiding session, for the first time in I don’t know how long. That one I did manage to keep going for an hour; I was worried that I was going to fall asleep partway through, but I got a second wind maybe halfway through and then kept it up. I did have a weird feeling where I wasn’t sure pretty much the whole time whether my attention was quite on my Dantian, but also my attention was staying surprisingly well fixed in approximately the right area, so that was good.

And yesterday and today were the monthly full moon practice. Though my sleep wasn’t that great last night, so I worked from home instead of going into work, and I decided to use the extra commute time by doing a 40 minute Kidney Hui Chun instead. I am getting worried that I might be backsliding on my sleep, so I did the Liver Wu Xing this afternoon; I might try out the Liver Hui Chun tomorrow morning to see how that feels?

I got an email about the next local Nei Gong workshop, in January; glad that those are happening regularly again. I’m still really getting a lot out of the last one, my Wu Ji is continuing to be much more interesting and, I think, productive. (Also, in terms of random recent changes, I feel like I’m relaxing my stomach more while standing and letting stuff sink in a productive way as a result?)

In terms of Tai Ji: I was thinking about something Damo said about moving via releasing, and I’m thinking about where that might apply in the form that I’m doing. One place I had in mind was Reverse with Spiraling Forearms, where I feel like I can push out my arms via Songing; I asked Tony about that, and he said that you can either do as a Fa Jin, so more of a strike, or you can do it as a push, with the energy going out to your palms. Also he mentioned again on Saturday that, when kicking with one foot, you should use your back arm to balance the kicking foot; I think I’ve been having both arms be behaving similarly instead, doing it as he suggests definitely helps with my balance.

And the Jian continues to be interesting. I was noticing a lot on Saturday how it feels in the curve of my arm, especially the arm that’s not holding the sword. In general, a lot of the moves feel like that; some of them are more Fa Jin (and those are the ones I have the most trouble with), some are moving like they’re creating more of a plane rather than a curved line, and there are a few where you turn your hand that I should probably think of as more of a spiral?