Last Tuesday’s lesson was Taiji Horizontal Punch. Which is the last one in year 1, yay.

Wednesday: 75m Wu Ji, with some pretty good connectivity at times; 40m Dantian Gong.

Thursday: 15m Taiji Standing 5; 20m Horizontal Punch, and the 37 form x2. (No Chen stuff; it was raining pretty hard in the morning, so I stayed inside, and I didn’t feel like doing Chen inside.) In the afternoon, I did 25m Three Circles, 30m Swimming Dragon, and 40m Spleen Hui Chun. And I reviewed Hunyuan 48 in the evening, and I realized that the opening move starts with the first of the Three Circles. I also watched the Mind in Body lecture from Sweden 2025, that’s another good one.

Friday: Du Stretch; 50m unsuccessful Microcosmic Orbit attempt. Still not sure why it was unsuccessful; I had been noticing that my back wasn’t feeling as tingly this week as it had been the last couple of weeks, so maybe I’d been slacking off there or maybe the workshop aftereffects have faded? But then the next day I started to feel on the edge of getting sick, so this might just have been an advanced warning of that.

Saturday: 40m Advanced Dantian Gong. Regular Chen class, though I took it easy because I was feeling off; I did a long Toe Grabbing during Silk Reeling, not super interesting, though it was at least working my Yong Quan. And 10m of Taiji Wuji. Also I stopped playing a phone game that had been eating into my time more and more over the last few weeks, hopefully that will make it easier for me to calm down my mind as well as giving me some time back.

Sunday: I just did the Chen sword forms, 20m of Wu Ji, and 20m sleepy Calm Abiding.

Monday: Du Stretch and 30m attention to breath.

Tuesday: Feeling a little better today, I think, though the last third or quarter of my sleep was kind of patchy, so I was sleepier than I would have liked Went through Taiji Horizontal Punch video again; it felt pretty interesting this time, my body felt pretty active. And I briefly reviewed Needles to Sea Bottom and Fan Through Back again. I did a slow version of the 37 form, the Chen pole weapons, and the Xinjia first form, and I went on a walk. In the afternoon, 25m Three Circles, and just 15m sleepy attention to breath, my nap wasn’t good enough to catch up with my sleep debt from the night.

This week’s lesson: Nei Gong, Three Circles. Another Hunyuan one, seems fine.

I also started seeing a new TCM practitioner, a recommendation from a fellow student in my Tai Chi class. I liked what he had to say in the intro: seemed plausible from a medicine point of view but also there was stuff (e.g. about physical alignments and relaxing parts of the body) that is consistent with Tai Chi / Nei Gong recommendations. Hopefully it will go well; I decided to sign up for a pretty big package plan, so I’ll feel silly if it doesn’t go well! And I’m going to do this one more regularly (especially at the start, three times a week) than I’d been doing with my prior TCM doctor; for all I know, maybe the main issue there was that I dialed it down too early… Hopefully I’ll still be able to get about as much done (I can nap during moxa treatments, after all), but ifI do less in the future on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and/or Sundays, that’s why. (It actually does seem pretty likely that I’ll do less Tai Chi on Thursdays, but we’ll see.)

Wednesday: 75m Wu Ji, 40m Dantian Gong.

Thursday: 20m Taiji Standing 5, 37 form x2. Not much in the afternoon, I can’t remember and didn’t take good notes – maybe just 20m Three Circles?? And Shui Gong 2 at night, for the first time in ages. And my first appointment with the new TCM doctor, just moxa treatment.

Friday: I slept quite well; not sure if it was the moxa or the extra chewing when eating that he had me do or the Shui Gong or what. (Though that didn’t repeat later in the week, so I suspect it’s the Shui Gong, that has happened to me with Shui Gong 2 in the past.) And I did 30m of Wu Ji, and a 1h Microcosmic Orbit attempt. In some sense it was my most successful MCO attempt – it felt more like descriptions that I’ve heard, stuff went up my back without any particular blockages and at a quite leisurely but not completely glacial pace. Not as much made it all the way to the top as would be ideal, but certainly some did. So if I can build on that, then that would be great. (No obvious aftereffects in my body in subsequent days, though.) Shui Gong 1 at night.

Saturday: 40m Advanced Dantian Gong; all four dragons. Regular Chen class; I did a long Ankle Rotation during the Silk Reeling, I’m almost done with the long Silk Reeling exercises.

Sunday: Two hours of push hands, again very useful: I’m getting more out of touching my partner, I’m feeling more in my body and in particular am using the Kua better, I think. And 30m of bellows breathing / ming line in the afternoon.

Monday: Feeling a little off (purging, maybe?), so I took it easy; 20m Wu Ji, 40m Dantian Gong.

Tuesday: Bad sleep, so I didn’t practice much (though honestly some of that was just me letting myself get distracted.) I went through the Chen pole weapons forms and did the 37 form and the Xinjia first form once each; my only Nei Gong was 55m of Spinal Dao Yin.

I finally (with the help of Claude) got mail notifications about blog comments working again, so if you leave a comment, it shouldn’t take me a week to notice it now.

This week’s lesson was Taiji Standing 5 – Single Whip (plus Pushing Hands – Press). Pretty intense, I like that one.

Wednesday: My monthly going through the Sinew Changing Principles Zoom class; good, as always. Also, a random note: I’ve been feeling over the last month or so that the left side of my torso is weaker than the right, I think my TCM doctor was correct about my Kidney being weaker on that side. Probably related to why I normally lean to the left when I’m standing.

Thursday: I rewatched the Golden Rooster video; interesting one, lots of details for me to fix. I did 15m of TS5 (that was interesting inside), 20m WSSF3, and I went through the 37 form twice, the Hunyuan 48 form, and the Xinjia first form (I did a surprisingly bad job, honestly). In the afternoon, I did 30m of Dragon 2, 25m Pulling Down Heaven, and 25m attention to breath.

Friday: I did 45m Wu Ji; my back felt stretchier than it ever has, I think the Dragon 2 is making a difference. And a 65m successful MCO attempt; this is the second time that I’ve gotten it to work after a Foundations workshop, so that’s good. Like the previous one, I initially didn’t think it was going to work, but it just kept on going up, and after about 15 minutes it made it to the top of my head. And there wasn’t any particular blockage anywhere along my spine. Though, unlike the previous time, it didn’t leave my torso tingling for days after…

Saturday: 30m attention to breath, 10m Tai Chi Wu Ji. And the regular Chen class; I was doing a good job of Fang Song, it felt quite different inside, I’ll definitely want to keep on working on that.

Sunday: 20m Pulling Down Heaven, 20m attention to breath, plus the monthly Sunday Tai Chi class. And 30m of indifferent attempt at doing Scholar Breathing that turned into a decent job of feeling the Ming Line, at least.

Monday: Du Stretch video; 20m Wu Ji; 1h DTG / thickening. Also, I’ve recently been noticing a bit of pulsing in my left leg while doing Wu Ji; I’m not sure if it’s blood vessels or fascia. (Somewhat irregular, which argues against blood vessels.)

Tuesday: I reviewed Needles to Sea Bottom and Fan Through Back, and I went through all the Chen weapon forms. I did 20m each TS5 and WSSF1; I felt a weird full body tingling halfway through the latter, I’m honestly not sure if I was just overexerting myself and feeling slightly dizzy or if something was clearing in a useful way or what. I went through 37 form and the Lao Jia 1/2 once each. And in the afternoon I did 20 minutes of Wu Ji, 25 minutes of Dragon 2, 35 minutes of Kidney Hui Chun (been a while since I’ve done that, I should probably get back to it?), and 30 minutes of attention to the breath.

I feel like my back is doing better; not sure if it’s the weekly Du Stretch videos or Dragon 2 or what, probably a combination. Would be nice if that helps make the MCO attempts more successful, instead of only working right after a workshop, we’ll see.

The lesson last Tuesday was a Nei Gong one, Pulling Down Yang. Seems like a pleasant enough one, another in the Hunyuan series And I also watched Qi Building and Filling from the Sweden 2025 video set; very interesting, I should watch it again.

Wednesday: I did 45m of Wu Ji and a 1h MCO attempt. I didn’t have enough juice in that; one random thought is that the CPAP has been making my sleep annoyingly fragmented recently, I wonder if that’s related?

Thursday: I did 20m of Taiyi Standing, 20m of Wu Song Shen Fa 2, and 10m of Foot Pump; the Foot Pump still isn’t doing anything for me. And I went through the 37 form twice and the Xin Jia first form once. In the afternoon I went through Rick’s October 25 Zoom class and did 30m of attention to breath. And in the evening I watched the Qi Building & Filling lecture a second time, and packed for the workshop; no Hunyuan review, I should get back to that this week.

Friday: This was a travel day; I did 20m of standing work, Wood Wu Xing plus Wu Ji, and 30m of attention to breath.

Saturday and Sunday: A Foundations workshop. I think Rick wouldn’t approve of those Nei Gong goals that I posted a week or so ago on the other blog; clearly I should work on consolidation more. And on connection some, but I feel like I’m not doing horribly with that? At any rate, good weekend, and the second Dragon seems more interesting to me now.

Monday: I got tired of getting annoyed at the CPAP machine, and I enjoyed sleeping better over the weekend without it, even though I was in a hotel! So I’m declaring an end to that experiment, and I sent back the CPAP machine. I did my weekly going through the Du Stretch video; I wonder if I should do it more often, it definitely seems useful but it’s a little less clear if I’m getting sustained benefits from it or if I’m just taking two steps forward and then two steps back every week. (It’s not like it’s the only back thing I’m doing, but still.) And I did 45m of Wu Ji and 40m of Dantian Gong.

Tuesday: I went through my Chen pole weapon forms. I did 20m of Wu Song Shen Fa 1 and 10m of Foot Pump; more going on in my torso than normal in the WSSF, presumably because of the workshop. I went through the 37 form three times and the Lao Jia first and second forms once each. And a bunch of smaller things in the afternoon: 25m Wu Ji, 10m Ji Ben 1, 30m Full Moon, 30m (sleepy) attention to the breath, 25m Pulling Down Yang.