Nei Gong Notes, December 3, 2024

This week’s lesson was a Nei Gong one, showing a Du Stretch. I was a little worried because, towards the end of year two, there had been an Opening the Du lesson that I couldn’t do because it messed with my sleep, but fortunately this one didn’t come with that warning. And, even more fortunately, it’s an awesome stretch: I honestly think that I could bend further down after doing that once than I ever could before. So it’s helping open up my spine; and, a few days later, I realized my leg muscles were aching in ways that made me think it’s helping with my hamstrings, too. Both of which are parts of my body that I definitely could use help with, so I’m going to work this one into my regular routine.

Pretty solid Nei Gong week in general. A good Calm Abiding on Thursday; an hour of Wu Ji on Friday (still getting antsy towards the end, but a little better this time than last time); an okay Calm Abiding on Sunday and a good 15 minute arm stretch; and a good Compressing the Pearl on Monday, I’m doing a much better job of maintaining contact on the way down. A good mixture; I’ll want to stick with the hour-long Wu Ji session every week.

On Saturday, I did 40 minutes of Dantian to Wrist Circling Out. Pretty interesting, I had a surprisingly strong correction between my hand and Kua. (Oddly, it was stronger with my left hand than with my right.) And I did high Zhan Zhuang on my pre-Tai Chi-class standing, I’ll probably stick with that through December.