Nei Gong Notes, April 28, 2026
I didn’t do a lesson on Tuesday: it was a Tai Chi week but, because of my foot problems, I’d been (and was planning to continue) babying my feet, so I hadn’t done the previous lesson much and wouldn’t be able to practice a new lesson.
Wednesday: 40m Dantian Gong; 25m Auric Connection. And I saw my TCM doctor (or actually the other doctor in that TCM practice), they did some work related to my foot, it helped some but didn’t solve the problem.
Thursday: A longer stretching session, and then I followed the recording of Anastasia’s Water Hui Chun Zoom class. There was some potentially useful theory at the beginning (giving me a different sense of what “purging” meant), and the exercise itself felt stronger than normal. And there was one weird part, where, during the bit with the hands facing down at the top of your torso, I felt like there was kind of a blank space on the right side of my torso above my diaphragm, about where my liver is; I’ll be curious to see if that recurs.
Friday: 40m Dantian Gong; and I went through the Liver Hui Chun part of the Zoom videos that Damo did for Foundations students a year or so ago.
Saturday: 45m, intending to be Calm Abiding but it was kind of weird. My chest felt a little tight but stretchy, like it wasn’t completely stuck but needed help to expand; I’m not sure if this is it trying to return to a tighter position after relaxing some from acupuncture treatments a month ago, or if this was the beginnings of it loosening up even further? And this was grabbing my awareness decently strongly, so it was hard for me to Song my mind the way I try to do in Calm Abiding; I had a few moments of that but not as many as I’d like. Half or two thirds of the way through, the tight-but-not-stuck feeling moved down to my diaphragm; not sure what was behind that shift either. I mostly skipped the weekly Chen class (babying my feet), but I did go to see the Hunyuan 48 section of the class.
Sunday: 20m Wu Ji / Coiling Snake. I’ve been staying away from standing work, but some experiences yesterday evening made me feel like I need to be stretching out my spine more, so Coiling Snake sounded like a good idea. (And I did a bit of Wu Ji at the beginning at the end, but not a lot, I’m still not sure that’s great for my body right now.) I think I’ll get back to Dragons this coming week, for the same reason. And 20m of Auric Connection.
Monday: 30m Dragon 3; 1h10m of Dantian Gong plus other seated work.
Tuesday: Du stretch; an allergy shot meant that I didn’t do much else today. And I had a foot massage; not convinced it helped, though I’ll probably try a longer one next week before going on vacation.
Interesting week, at least, despite the foot problems.
Perhaps Seated Wuji. I liked Anastasia’s recent class on how to practice, more than Damo’s original class.
Don’t know what foot problem you’re having, but I have one that keeps surfacing. How I treat it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRDC8erSNqw
That problem started by trying to hold Taiji Wuji (many years ago, before Damo’s training). I was bouncing up and down rapidly, and I decided to just muscle through it. Not a wise decision. Now I suspect that it was the Qihai and Hui Yin points trying to draw together.
(Yay, I’m getting email notifications about comments again.)
It’s Plantar Fasciitis for me too (maybe Lateral Plantar Fasciitis, heel and outside edge); thanks for the video, that does indeed seem relevant!
When I was thinking of it as a generic foot problem, I was a little nervous about Seated Wuji, but Seated Wuji has your heel elevated, so presumably it is completely safe; maybe I’ll give that Zoom class a look this week, thanks for the nudge! Though right now my main goal is to not make my foot worse and hopefully have it better before I head to Japan at the end of the week, so I might hold off even on that, I’ll see how I feel. (And my secondary goal is to try to get more or less completely cured before the June workshop.) So I’ll definitely be spending time on the stretches you pointed out.
There are a few other stretches available on YT. These were discussed on Facebook (before Discord). If you are interested, I can search for them. I am unlikely to look at this post again, so, if interested, best to send me email or comment on one of my blog entries.
Ah, thanks for the pointer, I see the video you mentioned plus a few more here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/453625358591067/posts/759509711335962/