Nei Gong Notes, October 3, 2023

I said last week that I was optimistic that I’d be able to normally practice longer amounts; I was wrong! Or at least wrong for this last week. Mostly because my sleep was bad; maybe somewhat due to Velvet, maybe somewhat due to me eating too much, I’m not sure. Not horrible or anything, but not great practice, in fact I only managed three good Hui Chun sessions instead of four.

I went through the Wu Song Shen Fa 3 video again on Tuesday, and just watching the video (and practicing along with it) was surprisingly intense. I did mixed standing practice this week: sometimes doing that, sometimes doing spinal waves, once doing Spinal Dao Yins, once doing the Dragon Dao Yins, and once doing the four energies drill; I’ll move along to Damo’s next Tai Chi video this week.

Tai Chi class was pretty interesting on Saturday: I was feeling particularly connected in my body, and also particularly stable. (Sinking into my Kua and letting my pelvis slide under me is definitely helping.) And I did push hands with somebody that I don’t normally do push hands with, and that was a very interesting experience: I got to feel what it felt like pushing hands with somebody who is good at grounding, and it was pretty odd just pushing away with my right hand and having it seem like it wasn’t having an effect. Definitely something to work on.

I got some new Tai Chi shoes. They seem fine; not necessarily better or worse than my previous ones, I like the purple that I was using and they’re a tad long, but their width is good, they’re nice and flexible, I like the leather they’re made from, and, their soles grip a little better. So at the very least I at least now have a not-out-of-business source of Tai Chi shoes that I like.

Speaking of soles gripping, I found it easier to do Ma Bu with the new shoes without my feet slipping too much. But it was harder than I would like for other reasons; I need to get back to that and do it longer; maybe a little to build up my strength but mostly to improving my ability to relax properly.