Good week; nothing individually as good as the Calm Abiding the previous week, and I’ve been a little tired many days, but not super tired, and things feel like they’re going well inside my body? E.g. when doing Wu Ji I’m getting a nice tingly feeling much more quickly than I used to; it feels like my body is making space and getting some Qi inside
Anyways, a Tai Chi week this week; another part of the 37 form, Repulse Monkey into Diagonal Flying. Went fine, and I think I have things okay in my memory.

On Wednesday morning I did Concentration 2, Channel Opening 1 and 2, and a noticeably sleepy Calm Abiding in the morning. In the afternoon I did an hour of Wu Song Shen Fa 2; I’m still not convinced that the hour-long WSSF sessions are pulling their weight, though I’ll probably stick with them until I’ve given all of them an hour? And of course I practiced the parts of the 37 form that I’m up to. I can’t remember what I did on Friday, nothing particularly distinctive. It was still pretty hot last week, so no Chen weapons form practice (because there isn’t shade in front of our house where I practice those), though I did at least go through the Xin Jia first form. So I need to get back to weapons forms, and also to really go through the Hunyuan 48, because I definitely don’t have the last several movements there properly memorized.

On Saturday I had the regular Tai Chi class. I continued to do the Chen Xiaowang version of Zhan Zhuang before it, and I continue to like it. Paying attention to it, it sets up a bit of a stretch in my Yellow Court, presumably because of the hand position? And it gets me a decent feeling of stuff opening up inside; nothing super strong or anything, but it’s noticeable, and I feel like Tai Chi after that is more productive. I led Silk Reeling, which went decently well; one thing I’m noticing while doing Silk Reeling these days is that I’m feeling more in my shoulder than I used to, presumably because of the shoulder opening work. Also on the Silk Reeling note I started writing up notes for the fifth and final class that I’ll be giving on that in a few weeks, with that topic being on connecting the body; I’m pleased how the writeup is going, I think I can give good examples of exercises that connect the hand to the arm to the shoulder to the Dantian, and also ones that show the effects of twisting the hands and what that connects to.

The monthly Tai Chi class was on Sunday; it went really well, I felt like, both during the Pao Chui part and the Xin Jia part, my body was feeling really connected and coherent inside. And we started the Double Dao; once I’ve learned that, I’ll know all the weapons forms that my teacher teaches. I also decided to start following along with the Xin Jia Pao Chui, since we’re starting from the beginning; I’m not going to try to learn it this time, since two new Chen forms (the Hunyuan 48 and the Double Dao) is enough, but hopefully following along will give me a leg up when I do try to actually learn it the next time we restart it. And when I got home it was cool enough that I went through half of my weapons forms, so hopefully I’ll be able to go through them all this week. And fortunately none of them were disastrous.

This morning my Concentration 2 practice was better than normal, about halfway through my mind started feeling a bit quieter? There was still a bunch of chatter going on, it wasn’t like my concentration was actually good or anything, but at least the chatter wasn’t as loud?

A couple of things I forgot to mention last week: in the Foundations course, Rick mentioned getting the correct height when doing Wu Ji by paying attention to when your stomach muscles tighten up. And I started some different kinds of heart-related herbal medicines, plus one which is supposed to give me more energy; we’ll see if those help. (The latter one doesn’t actively make me feel more energetic while I take it, but I’m open to the possibility that it is helping over the course of the day.

This week’s lesson was a Nei Gong one, Channel Opening 3. A seated one; I kind of wish it were standing, because I’ve got other stuff that I want to work on while sitting! (In particular it’s making it harder to find time to keep up with Concentration 2.) It’s going decently well so far: sometimes I feel like something is relaxing physically inside me in a way that seems consistent with whatever bit I’m stretching? Not 100% sure whether that’s the main goal of the exercise or if it’ll eventually add in an active feeling of Qi movement, I’ll keep at it.

Anyways, it’s actually been a quite good practice week this week: maybe the Foundations course has given me a boost, maybe the new herbal supplements have made me less tired, who knows. On Wednesday morning I did Spinal Dao Yin, 30 minutes of Calm Abiding (I wish I’d had time for 60), and 30 minutes of Channel Opening 3, that all felt solid. Basically no time for Tai Chi in the afternoon, though, because I had an allergy shot. Friday wasn’t as good in terms of Nei Gong practice in the morning (I was noticeably more tired), and I had acupuncture, so, again, not much Tai Chi in the afternoon. Which is kind of a problem: I don’t want to lose the progress I’ve been making on forms with weapons, I definitely need to catch up with learning the Hunyuan 48, and I was doing some of Damo’s Tai Chi today and realized that I’d forgotten the last bit again. Though I did find time on a couple of days to do Damo’s 8 Energies drill, I continue to be impressed as to how strong that one feels inside of my body.

Saturday’s Chen Taiji class went well, I might actually be starting to connect to my Dantian in a productive way? And on Sunday there was a special Xinjia review class, that went really well too: it was useful in terms of reminding me of some of the details of the movements from the Chen Xiaowang workshop, but also, bits of my abdomen (some around my Dantian, some around my Yellow Court) were tingling a bit? I did some of the Zhan Zhuang variant that Chen Xiaowang taught us before both practice sessions, so that might well have helped, I’ll definitely want to keep that up. And then when I got home on Sunday, I did an hour of Calm Abiding; that was the best Calm Abiding session that I’ve had, my body was pretty perky inside while I was doing that and that feeling kept up for a while. Certainly helped that my energy level was good that day; I don’t know how much of that is the new medicines, how much is me being better at opening up my spine, how much is me actually managing to build Qi, but I’m not complaining either way.

And, speaking of opening up my spine, I’ve been good about doing a hundred or so spinal waves a day, I think that’s helping? (I might have been slacking a bit on touching my toes, I should make sure to continue with that, though.) And Wu Ji feels more interesting / productive: more of an active, healthy-feeling stretch inside my body, more of a feeling of Qi building or something inside there. I’ve also noticed that I’m sweating more than normal while practicing, even though I don’t feel like I’m working harder; if I’m optimistic, maybe that’s another sign of setting up better stretches inside my body, and perhaps of opening up space; heck, for all I know I’m managing to build Qi in that space, and the sweating is a byproduct of that? (No repeat of the feeling of warm liquid from last week, though.)

Definitely looking forward to this week; I wish it weren’t quite so hot, though, because I could really stand to spend a decent amount of time doing Tai Chi on Wednesday and Friday. Hopefully there will be a cool enough space in the park for that.