This week’s lesson was a Nei Gong one, on Four Gates Breathing. Good timing for me: over the last month, when I do the basic stretch that has us pushing our hands up and curving so we get pressure from your foot on one side to that side of your body to your hands, I’d been noticing a really strong connection to my Lao Gong. So I think internal connections to my Lao Gong (and to my Yong Quan, though not as strong there) have been building pretty well recently; and linking that up to breathing is helpful.

Wednesday: 75m Wu Ji. I kind of wonder why I’m sweating so much during Wu Ji these days (that happened on Monday too), given that it doesn’t feel like I’m exerting all that much muscular effort? And 40m surprisingly sleepy seated work, mostly DTG but including 10m of Four Gates. Or rather, it was surprising at the time (and I was a little disappointed at the time that I did 75m of Wu Ji instead of 90m), but I came down with a (quite mild) cold the next day, so me stopping Wu Ji earlier was in retrospect a good thing, me paying attention to what my body was saying. Also I decided to go back to one round of neck rotations per day: I think three might be stressing my neck a bit too much, and it certainly wasn’t hurting anything.

Thursday: I reviewed Cloud Hands; I’m going to spend a bit of time on isolated practice for that. I went through the Chen pole weapons forms and the Double Dao form, and I did 20m each of Taiji Standing 2 and Cloud Hands. I started to feel weirdly tired at the end of that, though, that’s when I decided that I might be coming down with a cold. So I just went through the 37 form and the Xin Jia first form once each. And in the afternoon, I just went through the Du Stretch video and did 30m of breathing, and I skipped the Hunyuan 48 review in the evening.

Friday: Just 20m of breathing.

Saturday: 20m of Four Gates Breathing; and I skipped Chen Tai Chi class. (A good week for that, fortunately, since my teacher is out of town.)

Sunday: I just did some Shui Gong 1; I was actually feeling noticeably better, it’s just that spent all day up in San Francisco playing board games with a friend I hadn’t seen for months.

Monday: Starting to ramp up again: the Du Stretch video, 20m Wu Ji, 50m of sitting (mostly Dantian Gong), and a stroll.

Tuesday: 20m each of Reverse Stretch and Cloud Hands; and I went through the 37 form 3 times and the, Lao Jia first and second forms. And in the afternoon I watched Rick’s September 6 Zoom class and did 20m of Four Gates Breathing.

This week’s lesson was a Taiji one, on Reverse Stretch. Seems interesting enough?

Wednesday: I did 75m of Wu Ji; it was a good session, my main focus was on getting an an appropriate stretch in my left Kua, hopefully I made progress there. And I did 40m of good Dantian Gong.

Thursday: I watched the Taiji Standing 2 video, since I feel like it’s time to switch over to that one. I practice my Chen pole forms and Double Dao; I did ten minutes each of Taiji Standing 2 and Reverse Stretch; I went through the 37 form three times and the, Xin Jia form once. In the afternoon, I realized I was getting too distracted by a game I’m playing, I’m going to have to start building in longer break times from it, I think it’s interfering slightly both with my practice and my sleep. (And I’ve been decently successful at putting that into practice the rest of the week, fortunately.) For Nei Gong I did 25m of Du Stretch, 15m of Awakening Dragon, 40m of Sun and Moon Turning, and 25m paying attention to the breath. And I did my regular Hunyuan 48 review in the evening.

Friday: 45m Wu Ji; 1h Microcosmic Orbit attempt. Which I think worked, but not as well as two weeks ago? The Qi going up kind of bypassed the usual sticking point in my back, and then it seemed to split, with half (probably a little more than half) going to the Yellow Court or some place like that and hanging out, and the rest going up. But it did seem to go up and make the full circuit. Not sure what was going on there; also for what it’s worth it was moving a lot faster than a couple of weeks ago. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow, if I have aftereffects in my body like I did two weeks ago and, if so, how strong they are. (Update: no strong noticeable aftereffects the next day.)

Saturday: I did 40m of Sun and Moon Turning and went through the four Dragon. I had my regular Chen Tai Chi class, and I led Silk Reeling during that. Which means I have to think about what I want to show my teacher; probably the Xin Jia form? I’ve got some extra time to decide, because I think he’s in China for the next two Saturdays.

Sunday: 25m of a combination of Wu Ji / Ji Ben 1 / Ji Ben 4, and 20m of Awakening Dragon. And I did 50m Bellows Breathing / Martial Breathing attempt / Calm Abiding; nothing particular to report, I had an okay Ming Line during the Martial Breathing attempt and I felt like my abdomen was maybe thinking a little about doing it but ultimately it didn’t.

Monday: 45m Spinal Dao Yin, 40m Dantian Gong.

Tuesday: I reviewed Repulse Monkey into Diagonal Flying. I did 20 minutes each of Taiji Standing 2 and Reverse Stretch, I went through the 37 form four times, and the Hunyuan 48 form and the Lao Jia 1/2 forms once each, and I went through the Chen sword forms. I had an acupuncture appointment that went long, so the only Nei Gong I did was 30m of paying attention to my breathing. And I think I’m going to pause acupuncture, at least with my current doctor; I am going to ask one of my fellow Tai Chi students about the doctor she goes to and potentially I’ll give that one a try.

Last week’s lesson was a Nei Gong one, on Sun and Moon Turning. It didn’t really fit into my schedule last week so I only did it once, I should find more time for it this week.

Wednesday: I did 40m of Dantian Gong, and took Rick’s Zoom class, covering some bits of Awakening Dragon. (I still need to watch the full video of the previous Saturday’s class, hopefully I can do that this week.)

Thursday: I did 20 minutes each of Taiji Standing 1, Torso Movement, and WSSF1, and I went through the 37 form 3 times and the Xin Jia form once. And in the afternoon I went through the Spine Spa video; I continue to like it quite a bit but I think I don’t want to have it take up all of my Nei Gong practice time one day every four weeks, given that I’m getting what seems to be an effective amount of spine stretching in other ways. So I’m going to swap it in the rotation with the Sinew Work Principles class; I think I’ll try to do the Du Stretch once a week, though, I could use that level of work on my spine and hamstrings. And I did my regular Hunyuan 48 review in the evening.

Friday: I got way too distracted goofing off in the middle of the afternoon, so all I did was about 30m of Awakening Dragon-related stuff. It felt really strong, though, at least…

Saturday: For Nei Gong, I did 30m of Advanced Dantian Gong and I went through all four Dragons; glad I did the latter, I’m on the edge of forgetting some bits of those. And I did my regular Chen Tai Chi class; I got back to doing long versions of the Silk Reeling exercises, this time was Kua Circling In With a Kick. (Which, unsurprisingly, didn’t benefit from being done for longer.)

Sunday: I did 20m of Hunyuan Qigong exercises, and went to the regular Sunday Tai Chi class. I got info there about a local Push Hands group, maybe I’ll start doing that most Sundays. And I spent 10m paying attention to breathing; and then I planned to do Scholar breathing in the afternoon, and since I slept well I was optimistic that I didn’t need a nap, but that turned out to be false, so I gave up on that sit after 30m and me repeatedly dozing off briefly during it.

Monday: 1h of very good Wu Ji; wish I could have gone longer but I wanted to leave time for an MCO attempt. Just as a note for myself during my next session: I started by relaxing near my pelvic bone like Rick’s been telling us, and made sure that that led to a stretch behind my butt into my lower Kua as I sank down. And then once I got my feet weight in the proper position, I tuned in there, and the stretch coming up the Yong Quan linked in well, so I felt pretty strongly supported in my lower body in a way that made it easier to create a stretch by sinking. And that stayed surprisingly strong the whole time. Though I noticed it was weaker on my left side, which isn’t too surprising since I’ve always been asymmetric there, but I found that it was easier to try to reduce the asymmetry by sinking more into the stretch on the left than to try to figure out the asymmetry by sensing my body positionally; hopefully that can build up my left side more if I stick with that? (Though of course I also should spend more time doing Wu Ji in front of a mirror…) So that was good; and I was optimistic about the MCO attempt, since the last one had gone well and my spine had been feeling good all day. And the prep seemed fine, but the attempt itself was kind of a dud; basically, I got stuck at the same spot as I had frequently gotten stuck at in the past, and while maybe a little bit of Qi made it past there and even up to my head, it was only a tiny amount and even that tiny amount didn’t really complete a cycle. So that’s too bad, I guess I still have more work to do. (Random thought – I feel like, in the previous successful attempt, I didn’t spend as much time thickening first as I’ve been in the habit of doing? So maybe I should dial that down some: Damo always does some thickening when teaching MCO, in my experience, but also last summer he did say that your Qi kind of craps out after doing a certain amount of it.)

Tuesday: I had both an acupuncture appointment and a dentist appointment in the afternoon, so the only Nei Gong I did was 25m of Sun and Moon Turning. And my Tai Chi practice was a bit shorter than normal; I went through the Chen sword forms (and I think I have the basic shapes of the Double Dao more or less in place now?), Taiji Standing 1, Torso Rotation, and two repetitions of the 37 form and one of the Lao Jia 1st/2nd forms. Taiji Standing 1 is making less of a dramatic difference than it was a few weeks back when I started doing it, so probably I should move on to Taiji Standing 2 on Thursday, I should have time to go through that several times before I hit Taiji Standing 5 in the regular sequence of lessons.

Last week’s lesson was Torso Movement, from the Taji course. And it was paired with Push Hands – Roll Back, that looks like one that’s worth trying some Saturday, though I wasn’t able to try it out this week.

Wednesday: I did 1h Wu Ji, 1h seated stuff (mostly Dantian Gong). Both really good, my abdomen felt really full and tissues were doing interesting things. And I started using the CPAP – for now it’s interfering with my sleep more than it’s helping.

Thursday: For Tai Chi, I reviewed 37 form Punch Under Elbow; 37 form x3; 10m Torso Movement; I recorded a video of me doing the First Road; I went through the Chen sword weapons; and did the Xin Jia form. I asked in the IAA Discord for feedback on the video, and I got some useful pointers, but also just watching it gave me some ideas; I should probably record more of my forms (especially ones that I think are getting solid), I bet I’d see a bunch of stuff on video. (Maybe I should ask some of my fellow Chen students if they want to review videos?) For Nei Gong I did 30m Awakening Dragon, 30m paying attention to the breath, 30m Song Breathing. And in the evening I did my regular Hunyuan 48 review.

Friday: 35m Spine Shoulder Dao Yin. And then I did a 75m Microcosmic Orbit attempt; I wasn’t super optimistic during the prep, my Qi wasn’t feeling as intense as it had on Wednesday, and when I kicked off the attempt proper, it didn’t seem like I had any more Qi going up than in prior attempts. But it kept on going up (and was going up in a narrower column than before); I think maybe the spine work I’ve been doing (e.g. the Awakening Dragon at the workshop, but also a lot more Spine Waves during the day) has had an effect? It took 10-15 minutes to make its way up (and 10-15 minutes again to make its way down after that), but it really did seem to be the full Orbit. (Which I succeeded in for the first time in ages, and it’s only the second time I’ve done it in a non-workshop context.) Pretty unexpected, because I’d been stuck at the same place for a while, and that place wasn’t particularly close to the top of my head, but I’ll take it!

Saturday: minimal Nei Gong, just a bit of Awakening Dragon practice; and I did my regular Saturday Chen class. But my body felt really good inside; not sure if it’s lingering effects from the workshop or that I’ve been working on my spine or side effects of the MCO work or if it’s the CPAP (though I actually didn’t use the CPAP on Friday night) or if it’s just random or what, but I feel like I’m noticeably more full of Qi than I every have been in the past. (And it’s a broader sort of fullness – sometimes in the past after a good session I’ve felt noticeably tingling along my Ming Line, but this is different.) And Tai Chi was, as a result, quite a bit more interesting than normal. And, looking ahead, that fullness is still present in my body as I’m writing this; not as strongly as on Saturday, but not nothing. So hopefully something has changed; and hopefully I can keep it up through a combination of spine work and Microcosmic Orbit work? We’ll see.

Sunday: I went through the Chen pole weapons; the Lao Jia first and second form; the Hunyuan 48 form. And I did 20m Wu Ji, 30m Anchoring the Breath, 30m Calm Abiding.

Monday: I had a stiff back after I woke up; didn’t mess me up too much, though, but maybe kept the Wu Ji short? Though I think that was really mostly a mental thing… At any rate, I did 65m Wu Ji (which would be fine if my target had been 60 minutes but not great with a 90 minute target!), and 60m DTG and other seated stuff, both of which were quite intense.

Tuesday: 20m each of Taiji Standing 1 and Torso Movement, the 37 form 3 times, the Xin Jia form, and all the Chen sword forms. I watched Rick’s September 6 Zoom class recording, but it was weirdly truncated; hopefully that’ll get fixed. And then I did 30 minutes of observing the breath and 30 minutes of Calm Abiding. Also, my TCM doctor continued to claim that my sleep apnea is related to / caused by an enlarged disc at my C3 / C4 vertebrae, and that doing neck rotations will help; I’ve been doing the quantity of neck rotations that he’s recommended for the last through years and it hasn’t helped, but honestly I’m not sure I’ve got the quality right? So I’ll slow them down and try to Song more, and I’ll do three sets a day instead of one, we’ll see if that helps.

Anyways, a really good week overall, I’m happy very happy with that, it feels great to be able to concretely see what the (or a) next step in my practice might feel like.

I didn’t do a new lesson on Tuesday. But I did review the lesson about stretching your palate, and I added in a recurring daily reminder for that, we’ll see what results from it.

Wednesday: My sleep was bad; it’s been happening a few days in a row, noticeably worse than a week or two ago. I haven’t been doing as much back stretching during the day, maybe that’s relevant, I should get back to doing that. (Update: I did, and I slept much better the rest of the week.) And then two unexpected outside interruptions happened this afternoon, so I didn’t have as much Nei Gong time as normal; I did 15m of Wu Ji, an hour of seated stuff (Dantian Gong, thickening, and a less successful than normal MCO attempt).

Thursday: I went through the Chen sword weapon forms; I did 20 minutes each of Taiji Standing 1, Sinking the Qi, and Wu Song Shen Fa 1; I went through the 37 form 4 times; I went through the Xin Jia form; and I took a walk. In the afternoon, I went through the recording of Rick’s August 16 zoom class and did 30m Calm Abiding.

Friday: A travel day; I did 20m Leg Rotations and a sleepy 25m just breathing.

Saturday / Sunday: A Foundations workshop, focused on the first Dragon. Maybe the most interesting Foundations weekend that I went into? That Dragon was feeling really interesting this time, and I think Rick’s emphasizing the importance of absorbing into the process is finally starting to sink in for me.

Monday: A good Wu Ji session 90m, which is the longest I’ve done in a while; I had a very stable base; my lower back had a pleasant stretch that never really got painful; there was something active going on in my tailbone; and, quite close to the end, my upper torso and shoulders decided they wanted to spend a few minutes expanding rather strongly. And then I did an hour of DTG/thickening.

Tuesday: I reviewed Tiger Returns to the Mountain; I did 20 minutes each of Sinking the Qi, Wu Song Shen Fa 3, and Taiji Standing 1; I went through the 37 form 3 times, the Lao Jia 1st and 2nd forms, and the Hunyuan 48 form, and I took a walk. And in the afternoon I did 25 minutes of Leg Rotations, 30 minutes each of just breathing and of Song Breathing, and 30 minutes of the first Dragon (some focusing on isolated parts and some of the whole sequence). And my CPAP arrived, so I guess I’ll start using that tonight, we’ll see how it affects my sleep and energy levels.

Last week’s lesson was a Nei Gong one, on Leg Rotations. (Another Hunyuan exercise, seems pleasant enough.) And I started the Wuji and Body Sweden 2025 video.

Wednesday: 30m each of just breathing, then Song breathing, then Dantian Gong. Just breathing was interesting – I wasn’t second guessing my body like I was a few years back, I was breathing decently fully in my chest, but it wasn’t going as low as I would like; there’s certainly more work to do there. And then I attended Rick’s Zoom class, we did a seated version of the gourd exercise.

Thursday: I reviewed the Double Dao; did 20m each of the Sinking the Qi Taiji exercise, Taiji Standing 1, and 4 energies; I went through the 37 form 5 times; and took a walk. That was my first time doing Taiji Standing 1 since rewatching that video, so I was a little worried it would be too strenuous, but doing it 20 minutes was fine; certainly harder than most of the isolated Taiji exercises but manageable. And during the form itself, I felt like I was doing a better job than normal of avoiding sending weight to my right knee, hopefully I can build on that. As to Nei Gong practice, I was thinking about this more; I’m still feeling like I should make more time for breathing improvements and probably spend time on Song Breathing, that’s probably more important right now than trying to spend a full hour on Calm Abiding? So I’ll switch around those priorities accordingly, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays. What I ended up doing that afternoon was an hour of standing practice that was a mixture of Wu Ji, Ji Ben 3, Ji Ben 4, and the Lotus Dao Yin, followed by 30 minutes of seated just breathing; I intended to do Calm Abiding after that but I was too sleepy. My back was feeling surprisingly active during the evening, not sure why. And I reviewed the Hunyuan 48 that evening, as well as the Song Breathing video from year 1 (it’s actually called Release), and I finished the Wuji and Body Sweden 2025 video.

Friday: Dogs interrupted sleep in the previous night and I was busy in the afternoon with an acupuncture appointment so I just did 20m Wu Ji and 40m Kidney Hui Chun.

Saturday: Stiff lower back this morning, I’m not used to being that achy; the acupuncture appointment was the main thing that was different, maybe my muscles didn’t like the spine manipulation that he did? I did 30m of Advanced Dantian Gong, 20m of Leg Rotations, and had my standard Saturday Chen Tai Chi class.

Sunday: I did 20m Leg Rotations, reviewed my Tai Chi Pole weapons, and went through both Lao Jia empty hand forms and the Hunyuan 48. And I did 30m of just breathing and 25m of Spleen Hui Chun.

Monday: I went to see a sleep doctor the main interesting thing there was that she mentioned my palate was narrow, so maybe I should go back to the lesson related to that in year 3 of the Nei Gong course and start doing that? And I did an hour of Wu Ji, and 50m of seated work (mostly Dantian Gong).

Tuesday: I reviewed the Taiji lesson that goes to the end of the first road. A good milestone, next week I should probably video myself and ask for feedback? I had an appointment this morning so I didn’t do quite as much Tai Chi practice this morning, but what I did was interesting: I did 20 minutes of Taiji Standing 1, and my body reacting quite noticeably to that. And then I went through the 37 form three times, and that felt good, too, I think there was more stuff than normal moving around; not sure if it’s related to Taiji Standing 1 but hopefully it is and hopefully I can build on that? (Unfortunately, I forgot to follow up on the feeling from last Thursday about how I was sending weight down my leg.) And I went through the Chen Xin Jia first form; not as active inside, which makes me wonder what’s going on there. Is that just that the Chen mechanics really are fundamentally different from the Yang ones, or that my body isn’t trained to do the vertical circle when I’m doing Chen but, if I worked on it, I could bring it out there too? I know Damo says he doesn’t like mixing different schools but I think I should do an experiment there… (I experimented a bit during the second half of the form, actually, it feels to me plausible that I can bring things out.) And also I should be open to the possibility that I should move Jin through my body more during Chen style but that it should be more Dantian centered. During the afternoon, I goofed off too much so I didn’t do as much Nei Gong as I would have liked, but it was still not too bad: 50 minutes of Spinal Dao Yin, 25 minutes of just breathing, and 15 minutes (I think, maybe 20?) of Song Breathing.

I’m going to skip doing a lesson tonight: there’s a Foundations workshop this weekend so I won’t have as much practice time as normal, and I feel like an extra week of practicing the most recent Taiji and Nei Gong exercises won’t be a bad idea.

This week was a Taiji lesson on Sinking the Qi; kind of interesting, at first it felt to me like a bit of an overlap with other lessons (e.g. the earlier one about sinking into the ground, maybe it was Releasing the Feet for Taiji?) but it built on that in an interesting way, and also I was happy to have a nudge to return to that. Though I do kind of have too many isolated exercises to work on right now… And I watched about half of the Medical Qigong lecture from Sweden 2025.

Wednesday: I went through the Spine Spa class again. Nothing much to report about that this time.

Thursday: I rewatched Taiji Standing 1 (Ward Off Left); honestly I’m not sure if I should do Taiji Standing 4 more times, but I figure I’ve been doing it for something like 4 weeks (only twice a week, admittedly) so changing postures seemed plausible. I rewatched Play Pipa; good back stretch on that one. (And I’m getting close to the end of the first road in my review, so I ordered a phone tripod, I think I’ll record myself to ask for feedback on the first road soon.) I went through the Chen sword forms, through the 37 form four times; the Xin Jia form; and I took a walk. In the afternoon I went through Rick’s July 16 Zoom; I was feeling a little off so I didn’t end up doing any sitting work after that. I did my regular Hunyuan 48 review in the evening and I finished watching the Medical Qigong lecture.

Friday: It’s continuing to be a little hard to get started; not sure why, maybe I’m a little more tired than normal but I’m not convinced? Though the inside of my body feels quietly more active than normal. 1h Wu Ji (with some unusually scattered listening inside); 65m seated stuff, leading to an MCO attempt, my mind was being noticeably more stable than normal during this seated work, and my Qi was actually getting about as thick as I’ve ever felt it during the thickening, and it felt kind of like my Qi/muscles were feeling kind of rippling as they were moving around during the rotating part of MCO prep. Pretty standard MCO attempt, made it halfway up my back (or, honestly, probably a little less, above my diaphragm I think but not by much). Not sure if it’s not enough juice, if there’s a clipping pass that I need to work on, or both?

Saturday: 35m of sleepy Advanced Dantian Gong; 20m of Zhan Zhuang; and long Silk Reeling was Kua Circling Out With a Kick. Which was a little annoying, and I didn’t end up feeling the Silk particularly; though I’m honestly not sure if that’s because it’s not actually a very silk-reely exercise or if it is but I need to be more stable? And of course the standard Saturday Chen Tai Chi class.

Sunday: 20m Wu Ji; I went through the Chen pole forms and all of the empty hand forms; I took a brisk walk; and I did 50m seated work aiming at Scholar Breathing. I got some hints of a contraction during that and then later hints of a vibration, so I still feel like I’m not too far off from that turning into something useful?

Monday: My Kua muscles were aching a bit, I think it’s the walk? Also, FWIW I’m starting to pay more attention to the feel (both mental and physical) of distractions like wanting to use my phone; hopefully by being attentive to that I’ll be able to find a way to reduce the tug, or at least resist it better? I did 65m Wu Ji and 30m of seated stuff.

Tuesday: I reviewed the Chen sword forms (and I did the Jian one 3 times), and I did the Xin Jia form two times. No Yang stuff or isolated work, though, I had a meeting that ate into my Tai Chi time. I did an hour of standing, a mixture of Wu Ji, Ji Ben 1, Ji Ben 2, and Wood Wu Xing, and an hour of okayish Calm Abiding, it wasn’t very strong but at least I wasn’t sleepy. And I went for a walk.

Good week. I’m spending more time stretching my back, calves, and hamstrings (mostly through isolated stretches during the day, but also Wu Ji is helping with my back) and also going on brisk walks more often, and I feel like it’s making a difference – my back in particular seems happier in ways that helps with Nei Gong. So hopefully if I keep at that it will make a difference. Still need to get my sleep in order, but I’ll see a sleep doctor soon and probably get a CPAP soon after, hopefully that will help. (And hopefully it will help with my energy levels, not just with my quantity of sleep.)

Anyways: a Nei Gong lesson this week, on Listening Inside. Pleasant enough, and I imagine that I’ll keep on doing it if for no other reason that it’s easy to spend five minutes on in the middle of a long Wu Ji session.

Wednesday: 50m Dantian Gong / Thickening; and I took Rick’s Zoom class (live, I’d been catching up on recorded ones but hadn’t done any live ones yet), mostly spent on the snowman / gourd exercise. Which was interesting, I’ve seen that before but I’d forgotten what he does to set up your body before doing the hand movements. Glad to be doing that, going forward I’ll try to participate in the Wednesday ones live, though I think I’ll watch the Saturday ones after the fact.

Thursday: I rewatched the Brush Knee and Press video; did Taiji Standing 4 (Push), some Taiyi Standing, and Wu Song Shen Fa 2; went through the 37 form 5 times (twice with video, 3 on my own); and went through the Xin Jia first form twice. And I took a walk after that. IN the afternoon, I did 25m Wu Ji / Coiling Snake, 35m of breathing practice, 5m listening inside, and 30m Calm Abiding. Not sure why I wasn’t feeling it on Calm Abiding; my back ached some but I’m not convinced that was the only reason why I didn’t last longer. In the evening, I did some Hunyuan 48 review and watched the second Texas 2025 talk.

Friday: 1h Wu Ji, my lower back got noticeably warm, which is unusual. Glad to see it, because in one of the videos I watched over the last few weeks, that was called out as being more or less necessary for something, I think maybe Microcosmic Orbit work? 1h10m of listening inside / Dantian Gong / thickening / MCO attempt; when I first tried kicking off the MCO, Qi went too far to the front of my spine, I didn’t send it into the sacrum at the right place I think. In the second time it went in the right place, went maybe halfway up my spine? Farther than the previous week, at any rate, and it had a different texture. Took a walk.

Saturday: 30m Full Moon practice (plus some listening inside) and 30m Zhan Zhuang. And I continued my long Silk Reeling with Hip Rotations; unsurprisingly, that didn’t do anything special, honestly I was just glad that it didn’t strain my back because doing it for longer than the standard (minimal) amount has had that effect in the past. And of course my regular Chen Tai Chi class.

Sunday: 30m Zhan Zhuang, 10m Side Channel Rolling, the once a month Sunday Tai Chi class, and a sleepy 30m Kidney Hui Chun.

Monday: 90m Wu Ji (with a little bit of listening inside); 50m seated stuff, more heavily weighted towards Dantian Gong than normal.

Tuesday: 25m Wu Ji, 10m Coiling Snake, 1h Calm Abiding. Chen pole weapon forms, Hunyuan 48.

Last week’s lesson was on Kua Development, from the Taiji course. I’ll wait for a while to do the exercise because of the ankle problems I’m having, but the principle is useful. (Maybe more useful than the specific exercise, honestly, I’ve been doing other Kua exercises for a while.)

On Wednesday I did 1 hour of Spinal Dao Yin and 1 hour of Dantian Gong / Qi thickening.

On Thursday I’d had bad sleep overnight and termite inspection during the middle of the day, so the only Tai Chi I did in the morning was going through the Xin Jia form a couple of times. And I didn’t do much Nei Gong in the afternoon either, just 40 minutes of Water Hui Chun and 10 minutes of Wu Ji. And I did my regular Hunyuan 48 review in the evening, and I also watched the first Texas 2025 talk.

On Friday I did an hour of Wu Ji and an hour of Dantian Gong / Qi thickening / trying to kick off the Microcosmic Orbit. Things were more juddery than normal when thickening, so it felt like stuff was thickening noticeably. But the MCO attempt was less successful than in the previous week: it didn’t go very far up my back, I mostly needed more juice, but it also felt like some resistance in the middle of my back wasn’t helping. And I went on a brisk walk for a while.

Also sometime around then (maybe starting Thursday evening), I noted that I’d had abnormally bad sleep for a little over a week, and that coincided with an experiment I was doing with some pillows. My standard had been one thick pillow and one thin pillow; then I’d experimented with adding in a third (thick) pillow into the mix, which seemed fine from a sleep point of view and helped things drain more. But for the last week I’d been experimenting with two thick and no thin pillows, and that lined up with the bad sleep; I think what’s going on there is that puts a bend in my neck at a location where my airway can constrict a bit. So I’ve gone back to the three pillow configuration, and it’s working better (the bend is further down my throat in a place less vulnerable to constriction); I’ll probably switch back to the thick plus thin two pillow configuration soon so I can compare that again.

On Saturday I did 30 minutes of Advanced Dantian Gong, and I got back to the long versions of the Silk Reeling exercises, this time doing a Four Energies drill. (Which worked decently well in the long form – in particular, that specific drill has a reverse direction part where the extra time helps with the silk. And of course I had my regular Chen Tai Chi class.

On Sunday I did 25 minutes of Long Loops, 40 minutes of Spleen Hui Chun, and 10 minutes of Wood Wu Xing; and for Tai Chi practice I went through the Chen pole weapons and through the first and second Lao Jia forms.

On Monday I did 75 minutes of Wu Ji; it went well, I got a good Song on my lower back that turned into a good stretch, my lower spine actually started to get a hint of a taffy feeling. I remember getting a similar feeling (with a different exercise) when I was working on my shoulders, hopefully it’s a sign that my spine is starting to get unbound in a meaningful way? And I did an hour of Dantian Gong / thickening.

Today I rewatched the 37 Form – Lifting Hands into White Crane video; I went through the Yang 37 form four times (twice with video, twice without); I went through my Chen sword weapon forms and the Hunyuan 48, and I did 20 minutes each of Taji Standing 4 Push and Wu Song Shen Fa 3. And I decided to restart acupuncture, so I had my first appointment today. My doctor tried out something different and he was pleased with the difference in my Kidney before/after readings, but we’ll see if that holds up and makes a difference. And I did an hour of Calm Abiding after that; fine, nothing special, but also I wasn’t sleepy so that made it better than any attempt at that over the previous week.

An overall note around aches in my body: my right Achilles tendon has been aching ever so slightly for a few weeks. Doesn’t seem to be getting worse; I’ve started taking some ibuprofen, icing it, and stretching it a little more, it might be helping though I’m not yet convinced that it’s really on the road to recovery yet. (Though it’s itching right now, which can sometimes be associated with healing, so maybe something is changing??) Also, my knees have been aching for a while in a different way than normal, I’m feeling stress on them sometimes on the top of the knee (on the lower thigh above the kneecap). Not doing anything about that one yet other than not sinking so low in a few situations.

Anyways, last week’s lesson was a Nei Gong one, another one of the Hunyuan lessons, on Large Loops. Pleasant enough.

Wednesday: I did 50 minutes of Wu Ji and an hour of Dantian Gong / Qi thickening. And I went on a walk without the dogs at the end of the afternoon; I felt like it was useful, and also as I was paying attention to my body during the walk, I feel like most of my body was decently loose and I could get my mind in there but I was having a hard time paying attention actually inside the spine? It kind of felt like there was this whole tube there that my mind doesn’t want to get into; I feel like that’s a sign that there’s probably a lot of loosening to be done there. But hey, hopefully being aware of that is a start.

Thursday: I was extra sleepy, so I did a little less Tai Chi than my recent norm: 20 minutes of Taiji Standing 4, I went through Yang 37 twice with the video and three times without it, and I did the Hunyuan 48 and the Lao Jia first/second forms twice. (Though, admittedly, that’s still more than I’d been doing before the last month or so!) And I took inspiration from the previous day and had a pleasant walk after that. In the afternoon I did an hour of Calm Abiding (but being sleepy meant it was quite a bit less effective than on Tuesday), and I went through the recording of Rick’s July 2 class, my notes are that it was quite good but I can’t remember why I noted that. And I reviewed the Hunyuan 48 in the evening.

Friday: I did an hour of Wu Ji; it went well, the lower part of my body was actually about as connected as it had ever been, my Yong Quan and inside of my thighs definitely had interesting stuff going on. And my back was tingling right at the start, not in a “tons of Qi” way but in a way that I think came from having done a couple of good walks on Wednesday and Thursday, that got things loosened up and moving through there better. And then I did a little more than an hour of Dantian Gong / Qi thickening / trying to kick off the Microcosmic Orbit. (My first attempt at the later since the summer workshop.) I didn’t succeed in kicking it off, Qi only went about halfway or two thirds of the way up my back; it felt more like I didn’t have enough juice rather than a clipping pass problem.

Saturday: when I was walking one of my dogs in the morning, I felt like I was doing a pretty good job of keeping my Ming Men open, so that was nice. Other than that, I did the Long Loops exercise and went through the Dragons, and of course I had my regular Chen Tai Chi class.

Sunday: I did a little over 30 minutes of Hunyuan stuff (Large Loops, Side Channel Rolling); I went through my Tai Chi sword weapons forms; and I did 50 minutes of Bellows Breathing / attempting Scholar Breathing / Calm Abiding. I made progress on Scholar Breathing: I could definitely feel the Ming Line and I also got a sense of how the front of it might want to pull in. So I didn’t actually kick off Scholar Breathing but I also felt like my body was moving in that direction. I was a little tired so I didn’t do as much Calm Abiding as I would have liked.

Monday: I did 75 minutes of Wu Ji; I was planning to do an hour but about 45 minutes in, my abdomen inflated in interesting ways, and then my armpits inflated a bit after that, so I kept going even after the one hour bell. And I did 50 minutes of Dantian Gong and Qi thickening.

Tuesday: I did Taiji Standing 4 and Wu Song Shen Fa 1; the part of the latter where stuff is going down was more interesting in my arms and torso than normal, it actually felt like I was getting Yi Jin Jing-style effects of Qi affecting my body’s tissues as it moved through them. And I went through the 37 form three times and the Lao Jia 1st/2nd forms once. In the afternoon, I watched Rick’s July 12 Zoom class; and then I did 35 minutes of Calm Abiding, but I was too sleepy to keep going. Which, if you’re keeping count, happened to me every time this week; I’d been happy that, for a while, it felt like my energy levels were good in the afternoon (and I was also stabilizing my mind well inside my body during Calm Abiding) but now, unfortunately, I’m back to being sleepy enough that it’s a problem with that exercise. Not sure if it’s random fluctuation or if there’s something I was accidentally doing right for a little while that I’ve stopped doing…