No post last week: I was out of town (mostly on vacation) for the last two weeks, and I didn’t feel like writing up a post in the middle of vacation. Especially since I wasn’t doing quite as much Nei Gong / Tai Chi as normal, so I figured I didn’t have so much to talk about.

I did practice most days; not as much as normal, no Tai Chi weapons forms, and no long practice sessions, but hopefully enough to not backslide too much? The one unusual thing I did was walk past a church, notice that it had a labyrinth outside, and then spend maybe 35 minutes slowly walking in and back out of that.

Maybe because of that, one thing I’m wondering about now is whether I’m sinking appropriately when walking. There’s this tension between keeping my head up and hence my spine extended, while still having my pelvis sink; I feel like these days maybe I’m having the upward stretch affect my legs too much? Something to work on.

Because of plane problems, I missed two Tai Chi Saturday classes instead of just one; hopefully that won’t mess up my plans to learn the Xin Jia first form too much. And because of internet problems, I didn’t write this post yesterday and I didn’t start back up on the regular Nei Gong class (which I was planning to do now that I’ve finished the Dragons) videos yesterday, either; and I’m tired enough today that I’m not going to do the Nei Gong video today either, I’ll just wait until next week to start. Though I did get good lunchtime practice on Monday and Tuesday, going through the full Dantian Gong over the course of those two days; because of Delta, the office is almost empty, so I don’t have any hopes of finding people to play board games with over lunch, which is good for my Nei Gong at least.

Done with the Dragons, yay. Definitely glad that I did that; even setting aside potential energetic benefits, it’s definitely been opening up my back, I feel stuff moving around in there. And I do think there’s something going on energetically in my spine, too; I’m finding myself just spending more time in the standing parts of the exercise, because I feel these little unexpected sensations continuing to pop up. This is something that the Lotus Nei Gong folks talk about: it’s okay to do Wu Ji for longer than normal after another exercise if you feel stuff moving around in response to that exercise! But I think I’ve literally never felt that before: not that I don’t feel stuff in Wu Ji, it’s just not in response to an exercise. But Wu Ji (or actually the main standing exercise here is a different one, with your feet close together, I think it’s called Taiyi standing?) definitely has a different feel after you’ve been twisting and opening up your spine.

I still need to get back into longer practice sessions; kind of doing the minimum too many days. Though this week and next week won’t be the times for that, since we’re visiting relatives this week and I’ll be in Ohio next week. And once I get back from that, I’ll get started on arranging for having the carpets removed in our bedroom, hopefully that will give me noticeably more energy.

The one other new thing I’ve done a couple of times now is this version of a walking exercise where you’re paying attention to your environment; I’ve been doing it after my allergy appointments, since they’re on the Stanford campus in a place right next to some forested bits, so I can just wander over there. Nothing particular to report on that yet; and maybe it’s not the best idea to do Nei Gong right after an allergy shot…

In Tai Chi, I’m focusing on learning the second half of the Xin Jia first form; I think I now basically know what’s going on from the first Gao Tan Ma through the Forward / Backward Trick? So that’s progress; hopefully I’ll be able to continue that progress through the end of the form. I’ll be out this week, which is too bad but I think I’m pretty close on Part the Wild Horse’s Mane: I basically know what to do there, there’s just some details I need to memorize. So if they do that this week, I should still be able to catch up okay.

My parents were in town for several days last week, so I didn’t do as much Nei Gong as normal, and I didn’t watch the review video for the fourth dragon last week, just the third dragon. I’m most of the way through the book, too; a few differences from the videos, but the videos are later, so I’ll stick with that. And it talks about the pause at the end of the third closing down as something to vent energy, which is interesting and does gel with what the videos were saying about putting your attention beneath your hands, so I’ve been trying that. So I’ll review the fourth dragon video tonight and finish the book this week; I’ll be out the next two weeks, I’ll restart the Nei Gong class after that.

One day, when practicing the Swimming Dragon, when I got to the part where you’re letting your torso hang to stretch your back, I felt something kind of give in my back. At first, I was worried that that meant that I’d strained something, but my back felt fie after that, so now I’m optimistic that it was a good sign, that my lower back might be getting a little unfused? I continue to be impressed how that exercise (at least in the context of the whole sequence) is surprisingly effective at giving a pull on my lower back, clearly I should keep on spending time in that part of the sequence.

Practice in general went pretty well, though, I did a decent amount of Dantian Gong in particular.

In terms of Tai Chi, we’re getting to the part of the Xinjia first form that I don’t know so well. So I’m goin to work at learning those; a pity that I’ll have to skip one week of class soon, but there’s not much that I can do about that.

At first I was thinking this week wasn’t going very well for Nei Gong – I had to work on Wednesday, my practice on Friday morning wasn’t as good as normal. And, thinking about it, in general there have been way too many days where I do 25 minutes of sitting in the morning and then go through the Dragons in the late afternoon; that’s not nothing, but it’s also worse than I’d been doing on days when I’d been working at home regularly. And, when I start going back through the Nei Gong course, it’ll be hard to find time to regularly practice new stuff; of course, I won’t have to practice the Dragons every day then because the Dragons won’t be the new thing that I’m learning, but still.

So I should practice over lunch at work more reliably; but I’m also thinking that, on days off, I should practice a second time in the morning? (Or maybe in the early afternoon, right before lunch.) If I were doing two two hour practices, then one in the morning and one in the afternoon would make sense; but, in practice, I’m always too tired in the afternoon to do a second long practice. So I should figure out if I’m more awake before lunch and, if so, practice then.

Though, having said that, yesterday and today went well. Yesterday I was feeling pretty tired, but I had free time over lunch, and I figured I had the energy to do some Ji Ben Qi Gong; and, actually, I felt a little more awake the rest of the day? Probably coincidence rather than the Qi Gong helping, but still, I wouldn’t complain. And today I was feeling awake all day, and I got in a good Dantian Gong session over lunch, yay.

On Saturday, I asked my Tai Chi teacher about the first Jin Gang; it turns out that, after hooking your opponent with your leg, you should continue turning even further to your right after lowering your leg. (But you should face forward the whole time, because that’s where your opponent mostly is.)

I’m done with the review videos for the first two Dragons; a few things I needed to correct from the first one, though I had the second one basically correct. I’ll do the third one tonight; probably the fourth one on Thursday, though I’m not completely sure since my parents are in town. And then I guess I’ll start back on the Nei Gong course? Though I might wait a bit, since I’ll be on vacation the week after next. Also, I’ll read the Dragon book one more time, this time actually paying attention to the description of the forms, to see if I can pick up more pointers.

Pretty good week? I did standing Dantian Gong for the first time in a while, I’m almost done with the Dragons (the only thing left is to watch the four videos at the end reviewing each of the forms), Tai Chi was going well. No huge practice sessions or anything, but in general it was solid.

I’ve now gone through all four dragons; yay. A few lessons left in that course, but soon I’ll be starting the regular lessons again. Which reminds me, there was one lesson at the end of year one that had something I’d been hoping to work on, but I haven’t really practiced it since then. Unfortunately, it’s a seated practice that works best when I’m awake, and I feel like I’m already doing enough seated practices during the morning when I’m most awake? Still, maybe I should get back to it…

I got my Jian form reviewed on Saturday. As expected, I remembered the moves well enough, but have a lot to work on beyond that. My notes: I should make everything more clean. If something is circular, make it a real circle; if I’m lifting my leg, really lift my leg; if I’m extending my sword, don’t let my wrist droop. Keep the lower half of my body stable. Compared to the no-weapon forms, focus more on extending; compared to Dao, focus more on being fluid.

Also, while doing the first form, I’m feeling slight sensations of winding and unwinding on some moves; I should explore that. It’s related to the focusing on lines of connection and spiraling that I’d been doing a month or two ago, presumably?

I actually took yesterday off from Nei Gong; mostly accidental, I was just goofing off for a little longer than planned in the morning because of the three-day weekend, and then we had friends over. Didn’t seem to have had any serious negative effects, though, today’s practice was fine, so while I won’t make a habit of it, I won’t feel guilty about it either.

Good week. I’m almost done with the dragons; I still need to see the whole sequence for the Drunken Dragon, but I’ve seen all the parts there. And I continue to enjoy the dragons more as I do them more, I’m slowing down and getting more out of them.

I had to work last Wednesday, so not as many long practice sessions as normal. But still, I chipped away at things, and today in particular felt good, I was feeling things move when doing silk reeling during a meeting, and I got a lot of sleep so I had energy (and time) to do standing Dantian Gong over lunch for the first time in rather too long.

I led silk reeling on Saturday, it felt fine? Hopefully I’ll be able to get my jian form looked at this coming Saturday.

Interesting week. Not too tired most days, so that was good, though I was unusually busy, so I didn’t practice as much as I normally did, and I skipped Saturday Tai Chi. But the practice that I did do seemed effective, even on short practice sessions.

I did do longer practice sessions on Wednesday and Friday, though, and the Wednesday one felt particularly good; I did a decent length Wu Ji session (30 minutes, plus 5 minutes of a Dao Yin and 5 more minutes of Wu Ji), then some seated meditation, some seated Dantian Gong, and a short Wu Ji session, and I was actually feeling my body react strongly enough to the Dantian Gong that I was on the edge of feeling nauseous. So that was pretty neat; Friday wasn’t as strong, but in general it seemed like a concrete sign of progress.

My right thigh is still off, but it’s no longer affecting my back. And actually my lower back was feeling kind of interesting: one of the new moves that I learned was giving a good stretch there, and there were a few other situations where it felt more energetic than normal? I’m not convinced my Live Gate is really completely opened up, I don’t get the same tingling situation there as I do in my Bai Hui or Yong Quan, but at least hopefully it’s no longer super blocked.

Anyways, I finished learning the Swimming Dragon: one last move, which was a nice simple lower back stretch. Which, actually, is very simple indeed, basically just trying to let your body hang down like you’re trying to touch your toes; for whatever reason, though, in that Dao Yin, it really feels like it’s opening up your lower back?

And then I moved on to the Soaring Dragon; no complicated transition moves there, so that was quick to learn. Or at least to mostly learn, I need to watch it again to make sure I understand one detail about the turn around? Also, there’s a low version of the Soaring Dragon; I’m not flexible enough to do it right, though, and Damo says both that the low version isn’t important and that you can actually hurt yourself if you do it halfway, so I’m just leaving that alone.

Also, when practicing the Dragons, I’m noticing that, as I slow down and relax, I can slip pretty quickly into feeling something during the Wu Ji at the start. So hopefully that’s another sign that my body really is starting to change? Not sure if it’s the ongoing practice or if the Dragons are particularly effective or if it’s just my imagination, but it does motivate me to keep on going.

I’ll be leading Silk Reeling next week; I think the week after that, I’m going to ask my Tai Chi teacher to go over my Jian form instead of the first form.

Kind of frustrating week; sleep was a bit on the bad side, and I strained something in my right kua or right thigh and that, I think, had me walking or standing in a weird way that got my back unhappy with me. So the end of the week and the weekend weren’t very good from a practice point of view.

There were some good things, though. On Wednesday, when I was doing my start-of-vacation-day practice, it really did start to feel different after a while; nothing I haven’t felt before, but I’m getting the feel that, if I put in an hour and a half of practice, it starts to feel different. And my practice yesterday and today over lunch were both pretty good; not super long, I just spent half an hour doing half of the Ji Ben Qi Gong each day, but my body was definitely reacting. Reacting more in physical stretch way than in a qi movement way, but that’s interesting too, it feels like a sign that my wetsuit is coming together?

I’ve been working on the Swimming Dragon; I should learn the last bit of that tonight.

We had Sunday Tai Chi this week; coming in, I’d been wondering if, during Sweep the Hall, I should try to be more upright. (Normally I’d say “yes, definitely”, but when I try that, I feel like the weight distribution interferes with my turning.) And, watching my teacher and then asking him about that, it’s correct to lean; you don’t want to lean too far, but a bit of leaning is right for that move.

I’ve now learned the complete first dragon; there’s one bit where I need to make sure I understand the connection right, but still, progress. The main surprise there is that the actual walking part is pretty short; not what I was expecting given how much time I’d been spending on that! On to the second dragon tonight.

I’d been walking to a local park to practice Tai Chi on my days off, but I think I’m going to stop doing that; I wear my walking shoes when I do that, and it makes them stick a little more than I would like for Tai Chi.

And I went into the office for the first time yesterday and today. Yesterday I didn’t do any Nei Gong over lunch but I did go through the dragons at the end of the work day; today I did lunch practice as well as end of day practice. I’ll try to keep that up for now, though once the office opens up more, I’ll be playing board games on many of the days when I’m in the office. Maybe I’ll end up practicing a bit more in the evenings, we’ll see.