Nei Gong Notes, October 29, 2024
Pretty solid week. At least modulo sleep issues – definitely caused by allergies (I’m getting telltale sleep apnea signs), hopefully getting the air ducts cleaned will help with that, that’s scheduled for a week and a half from now. And I’ve bumped up my allergy medicine mix a bit.
Tai Chi week, covering the next move in the form, White Snake Creeps Down. Seemed pretty straightforward, and I was glad that my body is flexible enough for it not to be a problem. I also watched the next Year Three one, Practicing with Incense: my wife is allergic to all sorts of things so I’m not about to burn incense in the house, so I figured I’d just watch it but not worry about it otherwise. Interesting enough, but not so interesting that I’m sad to not be able to easily practice it; honestly, even if my wife weren’t allergic, I don’t know that I’d spend the money on getting incense and an appropriate pot now?
On Wednesday I watched the second Uluwatu video; feels good to sometimes do sessions of that length. (Admittedly, it’s not that much longer than my solo sessions on good days.) And some different stuff than I’m in the habit of doing in my weekly practice, e.g. a shoulder blade loosening exercise. Other than that, pretty normal stuff on Wednesday and Friday; and I did get back on track going through all my forms over the course of the week. And on Sunday I spent some time with the beginning of a video on the Double Dao form, so I think I more or less understand the basics of what I’m supposed to do there; I’ll definitely want to review that but it should be in acceptable shape by the time of the November Sunday class.
On Saturday, I continued focusing on a single Silk Reeling exercise; this time I did Wrist Rotations and Arm Circles. I was surprised how strongly the sensation went from my arm to my hip on the same side: I was expecting it to go to my Dantian but really it kind of touched the Dantian and then moved down to my hip. And when I did it with both hands, it got even stronger, especially on the direction where I was rotating inward; eventually I got to where it was going down my leg and then bouncing off my foot, which is pretty cool. (And vaguely reminiscent of what happens with the Wu Song Shen Fa, but I think the mechanism of force transmission is different.)
I was feeling like I should do more shoulder opening, so I went back to the arm stretching exercise that Rick taught in a workshop that involves stretching via how you put attention in and then above your body. I did that a couple of times; still works, wasn’t as strong as it was during / after that workshop, so I think I’ll keep at it more.
I read an interesting Tai Chi book, The Heart Treasure of Taijiquan by Ren Gang. Honestly kind of inspiring, I liked the view of high level Tai Chi that it provides, and it was nice to see enough in there that was familiar that I felt like I’ve at least taken a couple of steps along that path. But also kind of frustrating, because his guidance as to how to actually progress along that path isn’t nearly as concrete as I’d like: way too much advice to have your teacher show you stuff in picture. And I do like and respect my local Tai Chi teacher, but also I think the route that my Tai Chi Teacher shows for advancing isn’t particularly closely aligned with the details of what Ren Gang is showing, so I don’t think asking my teacher about something specific that Ren Gang mentions will be too helpful? Still, hopefully between my local teacher and the online stuff and that book, I’ll make progress; I certainly feel like I am.
Also on the Tai Chi not, I’d been a little unsure as to whether I would teach the same Silk Reeling Principles course next summer as I taught this summer. But I got another idea today: I’ve been thinking a fair amount about Song recently, and maybe I understand enough about that to help beginners step up their game a bit? So I’ll think about that more, and see if I can flesh that out into a sketch of a course; if it seems plausible, I’ll ask other local students what they think and if they’re more interested in that than in the Silk Reeling Principles course then I’ll give that a try.