Tuesday evening: no lesson, but I watched The Breath (part 2) from Maryland 2019.

Wednesday: 25m Coiling Snake; 20m Hou Tian Qi 1; 40m Dantian Gong. The seated work was a really good session; I’d been noticing for a while that, if I relax my mind, it does get interested in Qi in my Dantian, and that was happening at the start of the session, and both the main part of the Hou Tian Qi exercise and putting my mind in my whole body at the end were stronger than normal. And that transitioned into a quite strong Dantian Gong; and I think I’m finally starting to understand what Damo is talking about when he refers to a form of Qi that feels like magnetism. (Related to feelings that I’ve had for years, but I think now I understand that specific metaphor better and I better understand what aspect to tune into.)

Thursday: Goofing off today, just 20m Hou Tian Qi 1.

Friday / Saturday: Travel day with a big time change; did 20m Hou Tian Qi 1, but I didn’t get anything out of it, airline economy seats aren’t really conducive to that…

Sunday / Monday / Tuesday: I tried to pay attention to my breath a bit on Sunday but I was mostly too tired to do that. And I didn’t even try to do Nei Gong after that: I’m sightseeing on vacation, and I was getting over jet lag and in a small hotel rooom when I wasn’t sightseeing, none of which is particularly condusive to doing Nei Gong. We’ll see if that changes over the next week and a half, but if next week’s post says I didn’t do any Nei Gong at all over the last week, that will also be totally fine, these last three days have been good days!

Last Tuesday evening I watched a Nei Gong lecture: Hou Tian Qi 1 – The Earth Region. Apparently the start of a sequence of related lessions, and Damo recommends doing it at least once a day, so I’ve been doing it more regularly than exercises from other recent lessons. (Fortunately it’s both short and pleasant.) And I watched the Purging in Nei Gong lecture.

Wednesday: 20m Hou Tian Qi 1; 30m Dragon 1; 40m Dantian Gong.

Thursday: 20m Hou Tian Qi 1; 25m Full Moon practice; 50m Being Present / Ming Men exercise. I noticed during the evening that my diaphragm feels more free, I think because of today’s acupuncture session? (Though that faded some as the week went on.) And I watched The Breath, part 1 from Maryland 2019.

Friday: A longer stretching session, 20m Hou Tian Qi 1, 45m Microcosmic Orbit attempt. Didn’t go particularly well, I didn’t get Qi going into my spine correctly.

Saturday: 20m Hou Tian Qi 1, 35m Wood Hui Chun. Attended some of weekly Chen Tai Chi class.

Sunday: 20m Hou Tian Qi 1. Pretty interesting; about halfway through, it felt like a hole opened up in the middle of my body a little above the diaphragm. Not sure what that was, but it seemed like a good thing. And I watched the “Qi First Talk” video.

Monday: Du Stretch; 10m Hou Tian Qi 1; 35m Dantian Gong.

Tuesday: 25m Dragon 3; I went through the Lotus Dao Yin video again, because I think it’ll be useful for me to do more of that for a while (my acupuncturist thinks that some of my remaining issues are related to my chest being stuck, and my chest has felt a little tight to me for years); 20m Hou Tian Qi 1.