Last week’s lesson was on Kua Development, from the Taiji course. I’ll wait for a while to do the exercise because of the ankle problems I’m having, but the principle is useful. (Maybe more useful than the specific exercise, honestly, I’ve been doing other Kua exercises for a while.)

On Wednesday I did 1 hour of Spinal Dao Yin and 1 hour of Dantian Gong / Qi thickening.

On Thursday I’d had bad sleep overnight and termite inspection during the middle of the day, so the only Tai Chi I did in the morning was going through the Xin Jia form a couple of times. And I didn’t do much Nei Gong in the afternoon either, just 40 minutes of Water Hui Chun and 10 minutes of Wu Ji. And I did my regular Hunyuan 48 review in the evening, and I also watched the first Texas 2025 talk.

On Friday I did an hour of Wu Ji and an hour of Dantian Gong / Qi thickening / trying to kick off the Microcosmic Orbit. Things were more juddery than normal when thickening, so it felt like stuff was thickening noticeably. But the MCO attempt was less successful than in the previous week: it didn’t go very far up my back, I mostly needed more juice, but it also felt like some resistance in the middle of my back wasn’t helping. And I went on a brisk walk for a while.

Also sometime around then (maybe starting Thursday evening), I noted that I’d had abnormally bad sleep for a little over a week, and that coincided with an experiment I was doing with some pillows. My standard had been one thick pillow and one thin pillow; then I’d experimented with adding in a third (thick) pillow into the mix, which seemed fine from a sleep point of view and helped things drain more. But for the last week I’d been experimenting with two thick and no thin pillows, and that lined up with the bad sleep; I think what’s going on there is that puts a bend in my neck at a location where my airway can constrict a bit. So I’ve gone back to the three pillow configuration, and it’s working better (the bend is further down my throat in a place less vulnerable to constriction); I’ll probably switch back to the thick plus thin two pillow configuration soon so I can compare that again.

On Saturday I did 30 minutes of Advanced Dantian Gong, and I got back to the long versions of the Silk Reeling exercises, this time doing a Four Energies drill. (Which worked decently well in the long form – in particular, that specific drill has a reverse direction part where the extra time helps with the silk. And of course I had my regular Chen Tai Chi class.

On Sunday I did 25 minutes of Long Loops, 40 minutes of Spleen Hui Chun, and 10 minutes of Wood Wu Xing; and for Tai Chi practice I went through the Chen pole weapons and through the first and second Lao Jia forms.

On Monday I did 75 minutes of Wu Ji; it went well, I got a good Song on my lower back that turned into a good stretch, my lower spine actually started to get a hint of a taffy feeling. I remember getting a similar feeling (with a different exercise) when I was working on my shoulders, hopefully it’s a sign that my spine is starting to get unbound in a meaningful way? And I did an hour of Dantian Gong / thickening.

Today I rewatched the 37 Form – Lifting Hands into White Crane video; I went through the Yang 37 form four times (twice with video, twice without); I went through my Chen sword weapon forms and the Hunyuan 48, and I did 20 minutes each of Taji Standing 4 Push and Wu Song Shen Fa 3. And I decided to restart acupuncture, so I had my first appointment today. My doctor tried out something different and he was pleased with the difference in my Kidney before/after readings, but we’ll see if that holds up and makes a difference. And I did an hour of Calm Abiding after that; fine, nothing special, but also I wasn’t sleepy so that made it better than any attempt at that over the previous week.