Pretty good week. It’s a Nei Gong week, I learned Cloud Hands; I spent some time on it as an isolated exercise, it’s coming together, though I’m definitely still learning something from it. E.g. partway through today’s practice I got the feeling that the Jin from my leg was both going down the opposite side to the An and my leg but also up in the same arm and turning into the Peng.

And I’ve done the Jade Pillow exercise most days, sometimes adding it in as a second seated exercise even when I was mostly working on something else. It might be helping with my sleep; maybe it’s just a coincidence, but I’ve noticed that, at bed time, I’m feeling quite sleepy in a healthy way, like my body is sending the right signals. I’ll probably start dialing down the frequency of the exercise, but I’ll keep it up occasionally for a little while longer.

I can’t remember what all I was doing on Wednesday; not much Tai Chi because I normally do that in the afternoons but I had an allergy shot appointment that kind of got in the way. Friday was good, though: I did a version of an arm / shoulder expansion exercise that Rick taught in a workshop a year or two back, and I’m glad I did that variant: definitely effective, but there’s more to do there, I remember it going deeper when I was focusing on it before (it hit my bone once), and I remember Rick even saying that it could go inside your bone. So I think I’ll start throwing that back into the mix.

And then I had a very good Calm Abiding session. I was worried that I was too sleepy to have a good session, and honestly I was dozing off some during the first 30 minutes. But then I woke up and I had 40 quite solid minutes after that.

Not as much Tai Chi as I’d hoped on Friday afternoon – I was starting to get tired in a specific way that I’ve noticed happens when I do a lot of Tai Chi or internal work, so I thought I shouldn’t push myself, so I didn’t put in my hour of Wu Song Shen Fa that I’ve been doing most weeks. But I did do my regular form work, so I got in all of the forms I know this week for the first time in a month or so. Still work to do: there are bits of the staff form that I need to solidify and one bit of the guan dao. And there is a bunch of the Hunyuan 48 that I have not learned at all solidly; I have to make a decision as to whether I’m really learning it or not this time, and if I am going to try that, I need to find significant time to carve out and work on videos. (Hmm, maybe Thursday evenings would work for that?)

My Chen teacher reviewed my form on Saturday, and I got some useful advice from him. He said that I shouldn’t be so external and I shouldn’t telegraph my movements so much: e.g. if I’m going to do something to the left, don’t move right first, keep that inside. And he said to expand a wider range of my body inside. I tried that second one out while he was talking, and it was pretty interesting; I think it might be a way into understand how to build and use Qi in a Chen Tai Chi context?

I was feeling energized after the Calm Abiding on Friday and a good Zhan Zhuang on Saturday, so I decided to try kicking off the Microcosmic Orbit on Sunday for the first time since the beginning of the summer. The prep stuff went okay but it didn’t seem quite as thick as I would have liked, so I wasn’t too surprised when stuff got stuck in the middle of my back. It probably also didn’t help that I was rushing stuff so I didn’t prepare as much as I should have, maybe it would have been different if I’d stretched out my back some first…

And I taught the final lesson of my Silk Reeling course on Sunday, about connecting up your body. I’m pleased with how that lesson went: while writing up the notes, there’s one exercise in particular that I figured out how to show mechanically how rotational movement has effects across your body; definitely helped my understand, and hopefully it made sense to my students too? And it’s having a real effect on my form, too: e.g. my body is moving quite differently now in the second move of the form. We’ll see if I teach the course again next year or if I decide to take a year off; depends on how much interest I can drum up, I guess.

My arms are wanting to sink pretty heavily during Wu Ji now; I wonder if this is related to the form of Zi Fa Gong where people fall prostrate? My arms are often ending up a little forward, which feels like it’s collapsing my body; I don’t think the forward pull is a Zi Fa Gong thing, though, I think it’s just bad positioning? So I’m moving my arms back further to my side, so the pull goes straight down my torso. That then raises the question of how worried I should be about my spine compressing; sometimes I’m trying to pull up physically more than I normally want to do, but on Monday I also experimented with letting the sink really make it down my spine into my pelvis and that was interesting, that felt like the way to go. Even with that, though, stuff might be compressing too much; maybe the answer there is to put my attention into my whole torso and hope that that leads to an inflation that protects me? I’ll see how it goes.

Good week. It was a Nei Gong week, and this week’s lesson was on The Jade Pillow; neck exercises, I think it’s helpful? Though honestly I’m not sure, because I’ve been feeling like things have been going well for a while, basically since I started doing a hundred or so Spinal Waves a day, but also it’s just getting easier to Song my neck. There’s still some noticeable tiredness in the background, but it’s not in the foreground, and my sleep is doing better; at first I thought the Jade Pillow exercises might have actually worked a bit against that, but I did a good Wood Wu Xing set and the last couple of nights have been good. And I’m feeling my back responding more when twisting it after sitting, so I think something in my spine is opening up; I don’t know if it’s related but also I’m feeling random little tingles over my body, similar to how I used to feel when the Ming Line was doing well, so hopefully that’s a sign that I’m building Qi?

I did an hour of Wu Ji on Wednesday, and no particular problem; that was a pleasant surprise, I expected it to be a bit more of a trouble. It might have helped that I entered the position in a way that Rick taught us in a workshop a year or two ago, by a certain sequence of relaxing, I felt more supported in my legs? I was also working on Wu Ji later in the week, focusing on putting my mind in my whole body instead of either in my Dantian or letting it bounce around at random; my torso definitely inflates when I do that, so I should keep that up.

I did an hour of Wu Song Shen Fa 3 on Wednesday afternoon, and this time it did actually feel a little different from when I do it for 20 minutes. About 25 minutes in, the sides of my chest started feeling more open than normal; and about 55 minutes in, the turn of my hips and the way I sink into my Kua got more pronounced. So that was cool; and I did a 20 minute WSSF 4 session and rewatched the WSSF 4 video this week since I hadn’t been doing it super regularly and it’ll be next on the list.

I didn’t do as much on Friday as on Wednesday, but I did at least do a ten minute Pushing the Tides session; first time in a while for that. Which reminds me that I should get back to trying the arm stretch that Rick taught once about putting your mind inside and then moving it. Also I’m continuing to do push-ups on Wednesday and Friday, just to get up to a bare minimum level of arm strength; I honestly wasn’t sure if doing that only two days would have me make any progress at all, but it is, I’m up to 20 pushups now.

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.