Nei Gong Notes, September 17, 2024

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.