Nei Gong Notes, October 31, 2023

Still more tired than I would like, my sleep’s a little interrupted, but practice is going okay despite that? I’ve started getting back to stretching before Nei Gong on my days off; I saw a note in the IAA Discord that made me think I should do planks, too, so I’ve done that once or twice but I should do that more. And I went through the Ji Bens for the first time in ages; nothing huge to report there but I was glad I did that.

I mentioned last week that my right leg was feeling super tight; still not sure what caused that, but I’ve been decently diligent about touching my toes regularly to stretch my leg and back, and it’s definitely helped, it’s almost back to normal now. And I feel like I’ve also made progress in my range of motion while doing that, so hopefully I can maintain that as my new normal and improve further.

And, tiredness aside, I’ve actually been feeling energetic in other ways? Like, yesterday I didn’t get enough sleep but I took a nap in the morning, and I felt actively good in the afternoon, with my body feeling active inside but also with me just feeling more energized. So hopefully I can get the sleep problems tamed a bit and, if I do that, maybe I’ll find myself having made progress in other ways?

In terms of Tai Chi, in a couple of videos Damo’s mentioned sinking still more into your Kua before taking a step; it really does work to generate a feeling of release in the other foot coupled with stability on the leg that you’re sinking into. I’ve always had trouble with the step forward in Jing Gang, but doing this sink seems to help with that; I want to experiment more with that this week but I’m optimistic.

I wrote up some notes about the Silk Reeling course I taught earlier this year on my main blog.