Tuesday evening’s lesson: Seal Leakages; end of year three! (Six and a half years after I started the program…) I also watched the Du, Ren & The Filling Process talk from Assorted Nei Gong Talks. And this talk and the August course make me think that I should work on stretching along the Ren channel.

Wednesday: Since the Utah workshop, I’ve been doing some breathing exercises every morning; initially Yin Breathing or Yang Breathing, more recently some of the breathing exercises from lessons I’ve gone through. I think that’s helped my breathing but not my energy level, and it’s taking noticeable amounts of time in the morning; so I’m switching it from something I’ll do every day to something that I’ll do sometimes (e.g. I think Song Breath 1 is still a good idea) but not always. Anyways, this morning I did 15m Yin Breathing and 20m Seal Leakages. And in the afternoon 30m Wu Ji, 10m Lotus Dao Yin, 10m Wood Wu Xing. (Kind of a low energy day…)

Thursday: My sleep has been a little off the last couple of days; might be a coincidence, but it might be Seal Leakages? Hard to say. 35m Song Breath 1. Chen pole weapon forms, 37 form, Xinjia first form, Laojia second form. 15m Wu Ji, 20m Coiling Snake, followed along with the recording of Rick’s September 19 Zoom lesson.

Friday: 20m Seal Leakages. 20m Du Stretch. 45m Wu Ji; spent some of that time doing the lentil exercise, sometimes during that I got little pulses at my Ming Men / Qi Hai / Hui Yin, that was a new experience for me. 55m seated exercises, mostly Dantian Gong but some thickening. That went well, I should probably do the seated version once a week or so instead of always doing standing Dantian Gong.

Saturday: Interrupted sleep last night, so I’m skipping Tai Chi today. 30m Full Moon Practice, 40m Earth Hui Chun, 20m four Dragons.

Sunday: 35m Song Breath 1; 30m Dragon 2. And I skipped Push Hands, because I needed to get some baking donethat morning.

Monday: 25m Dragon 1. 35m surprisingly good Wu Ji – my body was nicely stretchily connected, and felt more active than normal. 30m standing Dantian Gong, and in the Bao Yuan at the end my Dantian was a little more active than normal. (Still not moving a ton, but more.) And 10m Lotus Dao Yin.

Tuesday: 20m Seal Leakages; I think that’s enough for that, so I set it for a four month recurring reminder. Read Michael Taft’s new booklet More Than Enough Room. 20m Du Stretch. Went through the Fire Hui Chun zoom class with Anastasia; now I’m caught up with her Zoom classes, though there are lots of older ones with Damo for me to go through.

No lesson last Tuesday evening (since in the past it would have been a Taiji week). I thought about doing a Nei Gong lesson but I wanted to spend a bit more time on Song Yi. I did watch the Qi Gong, Nei Gong, Nei Dan lecture from Assorted Nei Gong talks.

Also I forgot to mention last week but I feel like I’m doing a better job at and/or getting more out of internal stretching than I had been; nice to feel the inside of my body change a bit. And I was noticing some this time that my lower spine was starting to actually feel a little stretchy.

Wednesday: 20m Du Stretch; 45m Wu Ji; 25m standing Dantian Gong; 40m Wood Hui Chun. I liked how my body felt after that.

Thursday: 45m Song Yi. 20m Releasing the Feet; went through the 37 form and Xinjia first form. Went through the recent Body Opening zoom class with Anastasia. 35m Calm Abiding; I wish I’d had more time and could have done an hour, it was a good session.

Friday: 20m Coiling Snake; 30m Wu Ji; 1h failed Microcosmic Orbit attempt. Same issue as in the last few, where Qi doesn’t really go all the way into my spine and ends up kind of stuck under my diaphragm too far forward. The volume of Qi felt decent but the texture was also a little less thick than sometimes, maybe I need to spend more time thickening it?

Saturday: 35m Song Breath 1, 40m Earth Hui Chun. The middle of my chest was weirdly tight; I’d hoped the Song Breath 1 would help with that but it didn’t help as much as I hoped. 15m iffy Releasing the Feet. Regular Chen class; during the Silk Reeling at the start, I did 40m of Hand Maneuvers, it was pretty different from the last time I tried that, a lot more Qi moving around in my torso and interacting with stuff. (A little like the move at the beginning of the Hui Chuns, though of course going on longer.) Hopefully the was it was interacting with my body was useful in a Yi Jin Jing way? (And maybe it opened up my chest a bit, I’m not sure.) 15m four Dragons.

Sunday: 45m Song Yi; 20m Du Stretch. 75m Push Hands.

Monday: 30m Dragon 3; 20m Wu Ji; 25m standing Dantian Gong.

Tuesday: 50m Calm Abiding; 60m Spinal Dao Yin; 40m Earth Hui Chun.

Last Tuesday’s lesson was Song Yi. (A Nei Gong one; they’ll all be Nei Gong ones for the next while, since I’m dialing down the amount of Tai Chi that I’m doing.)

Wednesday: 40m Song Breath 2; 15m Du Stretch. And I participated in Rick’s Zoom course.

Thursday: It was quite warm outside, so the only Tai Chi I did was the sword weapon forms and the Xinjia first form. 40m Song Yi; 70m Wu Ji; 50m Being Present / Ming Men sequence. And I watched the Mental Barriers lecture from Maryland 2023.

Friday: I didn’t feel like doing all that much; 10m Coiling Snake, 25m Dantian Gong, 10m Ji Ben 2, and 30m in total of Wu Ji mixed in around those various parts.

Saturday: 35m Song Breath 1. 20m Releasing the Feet. Regular Chen class. 15m going through all four Dragons.

Sunday: 20m Du Stretch, and the monthly advanced Chen class.

Monday: 45m Song Yi, following along with the video again because I (correctly!) suspected I’d missed a step when originally taking my notes. 25m Dragon 1, 20m Wu Ji, 30m standing Dantian Gong, 30m Earth Hui Chun.

Tuesday: 30m Dragon 3; 25m Lotus Dao Yin / Wu Ji; 30m Water Hui Chun; 30m Song Breath 1. I wasn’t planning to do three exercises that all affect the chest, but I guess having a theme isn’t a bad idea? Like last week, Dragon 3 was pretty interesting, affecting a good range of my torso during both the walking part and the standing part.

Last Tuesdays’s lesson was Taiji Standing 8 – Brush Knee.

Wednesday: 20m Du Stretch. 1h Wu Ji; 15m Ji Ben 3 and 5m more Wu Ji. 40m Calm Abiding.

Thursday: 40m Song Breath 2. Rewatched the Releasing the Feet for Taiji video, because that feels important for me to work on. Busy morning, so no weapon practice today; 15m Releasing the Feet, 10m Taiji Standing 8, went through the 37 form and the Xinjia first form. (The latter of which felt good, more than normal going on inside my body.) 20m of Wu Ji and 10m of Coiling Snake; I think I should have stretched more before doing that, my lower back was surprisingly unhappy. Went through the Reverse Abdominal Breathing / Wood Wu Xing zoom class; that version of the Wood Wu Xing is very different from my memory of how it was presented in year 1! Reviewed the Hunyuan 48; honestly, I’m getting tired of doing that on my Thursday evenings, but I think rather than stop the correct thing would be to push through and actually learn the form, instead of half-assing too much of it the way I am now… (Update: actually, I think I am going to pause: learning it might the correct thing but I don’t feel motivated enough in practice to actually do it, so no sense constantly feeling guilty about that.) Watched Maryland 2022 Qigong Cultivation 5 lecture.

Friday: 25m Du Stretch, 30m Wu Ji, 30m standing Dantian Gong, 40m Earth Hui Chun.

Saturday: 35m Song Breath 1. 20m Releasing the Feet. Regular Chen class, trying to work Releasing the Feet into my form. 30m Dragon Dao Yins, going through all four. And I’ve been noticing the last couple of days that my spine is hanging wrong and I’m doing less well at figuring out how to fix it than last week. Also I’m not sinking into my left Kua properly.

Sunday: 40m Song Breath 2. 75m Push Hands. 25m Dragon 2.

Monday: 25m Du Stretch; 30m Wu Ji; 30m standing Dantian Gong; 10m Lotus Dao Yin / Wu Ji. Was planning to do longer on that latter, but my bowels had a different opinion; not sure if I was just a little off or if I’d moved stuff around wrong during Dantian Gong…

Tuesday: 40m Song Breath 1. Chen pole weapons. 20m (slightly iffy) Sinking the Feet; 15m Taiji Standing 8. 37 form, Laojia first and second forms. 30m Dragon 3; emphasized the chest part more than normal in the walk, and during one of the standing sections there was a lot more stuff moving around in my chest than normal, helping get it open. Went through the recording of Rick’s September 5 Zoom course; good to have a second Wood Wu Xing refresher in close succession.

Also, I’m thinking I’m going to dial back my Tai Chi practice. I’m feeling like I don’t have enough unscheduled time during my weeks, and also I’m not getting as much programming done as I’d like, so I think I’m spending too much time on internal arts. And right now I’m making more progress in Nei Gong than in Tai Chi, and I’ve got teachers that I’m learning more from in Nei Gong than in Tai Chi; that latter might change next year once the Foundations weekends end and I potentially start taking a push hands course, but for now dialing down Tai Chi seems right.

Concretely, I think I’ll stop doing Tai Chi on Tuesday mornings, and pause the IAA Taiji course. And I might go to Saturday class and Sunday push hands a little less often, but those are good for me for social reasons as well, so I think what I’ll do instead is continue going to them by default but I won’t feel guilty if I’ve got a reason to skip them on one particular week.

And it’s possible I’ll try to free up all of my mornings: switch my Thursday Tai Chi practice to the afternoon and only do a little bit of Nei Gong those days? We’ll see.

Ths week’s lesson was a Nei Gong one, Song Breath 2. More different from 1 than I expected; I’ve been swapping some of my morning breathing exercises for them, they’re both useful for me now, though finding time for 35 or 40 minutes is different than finding time for 15 minutes, so we’ll see how long that lasts…

Wednesday: 25m Dragon 3. 40m Wu Ji, mostly focusing on physical hip / spine / head alignment; about 35 minutes in, I got a line in my body to actually feel like it was lining up with my spine (as opposed to either not feeling it or feeling it a little to the left of my spine), which feels really useful, hopefully I can recapture that in the future. 50m seated Dantian Gong (and a bit of thickening); first time I’d done that seated for a while, glad I did that, though, it’s interestingly different, maybe more substantial?

Thursday: 40m Song Breath 2. 20m each Peng Separation and WSSF1; interesting slight buzzing going up my legs during the last few minutes of the latter. Went through the 37 form and the Laojia first form. Longer stretching set; 25m Wu Ji, 20m Coiling Snake; 25m (somewhat sleepy) Full Moon practice, 40m Earth Hui Chun. Watched Qigong Cultivation 4 from Maryland 2022.

Friday: Travel day. 20m Du Stretch, 35m Song Breath 1, 25m Calm Abiding. Hope I can find time to do Calm Abiding more often…. Played around with spine and neck positioning while sitting for hours on the plane. 10m Wu Ji / Wood Wu Xing.

Saturday: Foundations workshop.

Sunday: Foundations workshop. When doing breathing exercises on the flight home, my chest was expanding more than normal; not sure if that was the workshop or the Song Breath 1 that I’d been doing the last few weeks or what.

Monday: 45m Song Breath 2; supposed to be 40m, not sure what I did extra! 20m Du Stretch, 40m Wu Ji / Lotus Dao Yin, 35m Earth Hui Chun. Feeling a little off; hopefully I’m purging instead of getting sick normally.

Tuesday: 35m Song Breath 1. Sword weapon forms; 20m each Peng Separation and WSSF3; 37 form, Laojia first and second forms. 30m Dragon 3; went through Rick’s August 15 Zoom course. (And fortunately I’m not feeling any worse off today than yesterday.)