Wednesday and Thursday were the last two days of the workshop. My most concrete takeaways are that I should spend more time opening the body (especially opening my torso laterally), that the next milestone should be to get my Dantian activated, and that I should do more Wu Ji and more standing Dantian Gong to that end. (Wu Ji is good for body opening, too; I think I’ll try to spend the first 10 minutes of each Wu Ji session actively opening more and then try to more ambiently maintain a more open shape during the rest of the session.) And Damo also showed us a breathing exercise that I’m going to try to do for 15 minutes a day: I’d been thinking for a while that my breathing could use improvement, and that seems like something tractable to do that might help with my fatigue. (Though Damo said that I wasn’t actually doing too bad with regard to either of the symptoms that the exercise is designed to target, so who knows; he also encouraged me to do the Spleen Hui Chun more often.) So you can just pretend that each of these notes has an extra 15 minutes of breathing exercise added to it every day.

Also on a health note: I’m going to pause seeing my current TCM doctor. He’s tried out a bunch of things, and none of them have solved my fatigue issues (or gotten them significantly past my baseline of last summer). I actually wasn’t too tired during the workshop; maybe the last thing my doctor tried (some herbs) helped, but if I had to guess, it’s a combination of the energized environment and the body opening. And I’ve been a little less tired than I expected since the workshop, too? So I’ll try taking Nei Gong in general and some of the stuff from the workshop more seriously; Nei Gong is supposed to help with your health, maybe I’m close to getting to a stage where that can happen. And, even if I don’t, I will appreciate not having both the financial cost and the time cost of my current TCM doctor. (The time cost really is starting to eat at me: I’m getting more enthusastic about doing various things, I want to lean into that, not spending time driving to doctor’s appointments!)

Anyways, here are the notes since the workshop:

Friday: Mostly a travel day, but I did also do 25m of Hou Tian Qi 2.

Saturday: I skipped my regular Chen class because of a doctor’s appointment. 25m Dragon 3; it felt like my hands were driving my spine movement, that experience was actually reminiscent of some of the Silk Reeling exercises I do. And 25m Hou Tian Qi 2.

Sunday: 25m Hou Tian Qi 2, 20m Zhan Zhuang 1, 90m Push Hands.

Monday: 40m Wu Ji, 30m Standing Dantian Gong, 40m Spleen Hui Chun; a pleasantly solid session overall.

Tuesday: 25m Hou Tian Qi 2, 25m Wu Ji / Coiling Snake. (A little less Nei Gong than normal, but actually more than I normally get done on days where I’m getting allergy shots, this is a sign that my fatigue is doing a little better since the workshop.) I went through the Chen sword forms; Double Dao continues to need review. And 20m Zhan Zhuang 1, 37 form x1, Chen Laojia first form x2 (it felt good), Laojia second form x1.

I’ve been at a Nei Gong workshop with Damo all week, so no report this week. Though I guess I will say I’ve felt my Dantian activate a little more than it had before, so hopefully I can build on that.

Tuesday lesson was Zhan Zhuang 1, from the Taiji course. Good timing, given that I’d been starting to finally get sinking flesh off the bone and should be spending more time practicing that.

Wednesday: 30m Dragon 2, 25m Hou Tian Qi 2, and Rick’s Zoom class. Did those in two separate parts (the first two together and then the Zoom class later); that worked well, I should experiment with that more. Maybe do some stuff in the morning, assuming I’m not too tired?

Thursday: I went through a section in Practical Tai Chi Training on the organs. (Didn’t get a ton out of it, alas.) I did the Chen sword forms; they actually went pretty well, I need to work more on the Double Dao but that’s nothing new. And I did 20m Zhan Zhuang 1, 37 form, and the Lao Jia first and second forms. For Nei Gong, I did 60m Spinal Dao Yin, 25m Hou Tian Qi 2; I tried to do Calm Abiding but I was too sleepy so I gave up after 10 minutes. I reviewed the Hunyuan 48 in the evening, and watched the Qi and Mind talk from Maryland 2019.

Friday: 20m Dragon 1; 30m Wu Ji; 25m Hou Tian Qi 2; 40m Dantian Gong.

Saturday: 25m Hou Tian Qi 2; 20m Zhan Zhuang 1. Regular Chen class. Went through all four Dragons.

Sunday: 2h push hands; 25m Hou Tuan Qi 2. My torso was feeling surprisingly active that afternoon / evening; not sure if it was because of the push hands or because of an accumulation of benefits. (Practice during last week or so felt like it was going rather well.)

Monday: A travel day, and my sleep was bad the previous night so I skipped today.

Tuesday: The first day of Damo’s USA summer workshop.

No lesson on Tuesday evening (bad time management), but I did the Hou Tian Qi 2 lesson from the Nei Gong course on Wednesday.

Wednesday: Du Stretch; went through the Hou Tian Qi 2 lesson; 15m Dragon 3.

Thursday: 20m Taiji Standing 6, 20m Wu Song Shen Fa 3. It’s been too long since I’ve done that latter one, I should probably rewatch the video to make sure I’m doing it right. The base of my palms were weirdly tingly during it, not sure if that was caused by the Taiji Standing or something else or just a coincidence. I went through the 37 form and the Chen Lao Jia first form. In the afternoon, I did a longer stretching sequence than normal; 25m Hou Tian Qi 2; and 50m Being Present / Ming Men exercise.

Friday: 25m Wu Ji / Coiling Snake; 25m Hou Tian Qi 2.

Saturday: 25m Hou Tian Qi 2; my regular Chen class. Felt better than last week, though I’m still a little off.

Sunday: I had to skip push hands, alas. For Nei Gong I did 25m Hou Tian Qi 2 and 20m Full Moon.

Monday: 40m Wu Ji, my first decent length Wu Ji in ages. It went well; I’m getting better at having flesh sinking from the bones and getting a feeling of energy being produced from that. But I definitely still need to be relaxed more, so I can be in that state more often and so that I can get to what Adam described recently. At any rate, yay for getting back to this. And then 25m of Hou Tian Qi 2 and 55m of Dantian Gong + Qi thickening; those were good too, my lower back was getting tingly during the Dantian Gong much more than I expected. So a very solid session, I’m quite happy with that.

Thursday: 20m Taiji Standing 6; 37 form. Du Stretch; 25m Hou Tian Qi 2; 35m Wood Hui Chun.

I was on vacation through Thursday, so no lesson this week and no Nei Gong through Thursday. (And some ramping back up since then.)

Friday: 20m Hou Tian Qian 1; I was still jet lagged, but hey, it’s something.

Saturday: I attended my regular Chen class. My form is bad; not sure how much is because I haven’t been doing much Tai Chi for over a month and how much is because of jet lag.

Sunday: 1h push hands; 40m Water Hui Chun.

Monday: 20m Hou Tian Qi 1; 40m of a combo of Wu Ji, Lotus Dao Yin, and Wood Wu Xing.

Tuesday: I rewatched the Taiji Standing 6 lesson; it’s the current lesson that I’m on, but it’s been ages since I originally watched it so I wanted a refresher. I went through the 37 form. And I went through the video of the recent Earth Hui Chun zoom class.

I’ve been on vacation and not doing Nei Gong all week. (Sometimes I do Nei Gong while on vacation, but skipping it this time felt right.)

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.

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.

Last Tuesday evening I did a Nei Gong lesson, on Auric Connection. And I watched the Tai Chi Hurts video and the Path of Daoism lesson from Maryland 2022.

Wednesday: 50m Advanced Dantian Gong. Participated in Rick’s Zoom class; more Dao Palms, quite intense this time.

Thursday: I’m giving my foot a rest (acupuncture Wednesday helped but it’s not clear that it completely fixed the issue) so I skipped Tai Chi in the morning. 25m Dragon 3 in the afternoon, then an interruption came up so that was all the Nei Gong for the day.

(And, unfortunately, the acupuncture really didn’t fix the foot issue – some aspects are better but real problems are still there. So I’m doing much less standing Nei Gong and Tai Chi until that gets better – I want to give my foot as much time as possible to heal before going on vacation in a few weeks.)

Friday: 50m Dantian Gong, 20m Auric Connection.

Saturday: 40m Spleen Hui Chun. I did some of my regular Chen class, but I skipped most of it because of the aforementioned foot problem.

Sunday: No Tai Chi (foot); 35m Calm Abiding.

Monday: Du Stretch; 1h10m Microcosmic Orbit attempt, some Qi eventually made it up there but not a lot

Tuesday: I watched Foundations of Sitting Zoom class. Which was mostly theory, so my actual Nei Gong practice time was low today; the theory seemed familiar, I wonder if it was once in a different section of the library or if it was excerpted into a lesson in the course or if it’s just that he talks about the same thing in multiple places.

And it would be a Tai Chi week but I’m skipping that because of the foot problems. (And because the foot problems mean that I’ve only done Taiji Standing 6 once.)