Tuesday lesson was a Taiji one, on Continual Jin. Interesting; I haven’t yet had much time to play with it, but I definitely will.

Wednesday: I attended Rick’s Zoom class, we basically went through the relaxing / internal stretch exercise that we did in the Foundations class. (Not as long, but still a while.) It was good to feel; my body is continuing to feel stretchier inside.

Thursday: I went through the Chen sword weapons, but otherwise I didn’t have time for Tai Chi. In the afternoon I did 25m Dragon 1, I rewatched Wood Wu Xing video, and an extra 10 minutes or so of the exercise after that, and I did 40m of Dantian Gong. And I wached the Taiji Pushing Hands – Opening the Joints / Yao Stretching lesson. (The recent IAA rejigger caused almost all the push hands lesson to be marked as incomplete; all the other ones up through here contained videos that I’d seen, but this one was new.) And I did a bit of Hunyuan 48 review in the evening

Friday: Went through video of Rick’s February 7 Zoom class. This time it was super intense – same stuff as Wednesday, I guess doing it twice in close succession was additive? I felt more pressure in my feet leading to connectivity up my legs and through my body than normal, and I felt more of a stretch in my Huiyin than I basically ever have. So I will certainly want to spend more time doing this; I took some notes on how Rick was guiding us through the process, so hopefully I’ll be able to do a decent job of trying it on my own? (And it would surprise me if he came back to that on future Zoom classes this month; if not, I can always rewatch the first two February videos.)

Saturday: My regular Chen class.

Sunday: An hour and a half of push hands; my main takeaway there was that I should spend more time (both when doing push hands and when going through the form) with my attention in my legs, and then extending up my body). And 25m of Calm Abiding in the afternoon.

Monday: I’m visiting my parents this week, so this was a travel day; I did 30m of attention to breath, but that’s it.

Tuesday: Mostly spending time with my parents (and my brother), though I did do 30m of Anchoring the Breath. It had actually been a while since I’d done that; I noticed that my breathing slowed down and deepened basically as soon as I started this, so I guess the other breath work that I’d been doing has had an effect, even if it’s not retraining my habitual breathing as much as I’d like. And the exercise got decently intense at the end.

No lesson today, since I’m visiting my parents.

No lesson Tuesday, because of my dog’s health problems; fortunately, he’s recovering fine, so it’s been a more normal week this week. (My practice sessions have been a little short, but not awful.)

Wednesday: 45m Wu Ji, 40m Spleen Hui Chun.

Thursday: I switched away from the wedge pillow that I’d been using for a couple of weeks, I think it was causing problems. (I think maybe it was outgassing in a way I’m sensitive to, even after that time? I wonder if I was this sensitive before I started doing Nei Gong.) For Tai Chi, I did 20m of theThree Ring exercise from Practical Tai Chi Training, 20m Rolling Power, and the Chen sword forms. And then in the afternoon I did 20m Wu Ji, 25m Dragon 2, 30m Kidney Hui Chun. And Hunyuan 48 review in the evening.

Friday: 30m Wu Ji, 15m Balancing Upper and Lower, 35m Dantian Gong.

Saturday: My regular Chen class; I got some good pointers on a couple of forms.

Sunday: Monthly Chen class, plus a little bit (10-15 min) of just sitting.

Monday: 55m Spinal Dao Yin; 10m Balancing Upper and Lower; 25m Spleen Hui Chun.

Tuesday: Reviewed Fair Maidens Weave the Shuttle. Chen pole weapons. I did the 37 form twice, once pulsing the Jin and once regular. Xinjia first form, plus the beginning of the Hunyuan 48. In the afternoon I went through the Du Stretch; and for a channge I tried out a video of a non-Nei-Gong class by Corey Hess on Non-Directed Body Movement, but I didn’t get too much out of it.

Though the reason why I didn’t get much out of it might have been that my mind was a little too restless, kind of like a week or two ago, it would be good to get that under control… I’d hoped that changing pillows would fix it, but it didn’t completely solve the issue.

My Tuesday evening lesson was a Nei Gong one, on Balancing Upper and Lower. And I also watched the Attention and Acceptance talk from Bali 2025.

Wednesday: 1h (kind of iffy) Wu Ji; 1h Dantian Gong + thickening.

Thursday: I had a sleep morning, so I didn’t do as much Tai Chi as I would have liked, but I did go through forms: the Chen sword forms, the Lao Jia first and second form, the start of Hunyuan 48, and the 37 form. In the afternoon I did Du Stretch; 25m Dragon 1; and 30m Calm Abiding. In the evening, I did a Hunyuan 48 review.

Friday: 30m Wu Ji, and 50m super iffy Microcosmic Orbit attempt. My back was actually feeling unusually good then, but when it came to moving Qi through my back, I just didn’t have enough Qi to do anything significant. (Even though I’d been at a Foundations workshop the previous weekend!) So that’s three days in a row when my practice was bad; and I was in a sleepy and/or scattered mental state all three days. Maybe it’s just being tired, maybe there was liver rising, maybe I’d just been letting other stuff distract me more?

Saturday: Regular Chen class. 10m Wood Wu Xing, to see if that helped with the problems I’d been having. Though I was tired again, because one of my dogs (Ulli) had been throwing up a lot that night.

Then, unfortunately, Ulli started throwing up again, so I took him to the vet; after doing x-rays, it turned out that he’d swallowed a stone, and it had made it into his small intestine. So I was shuttling him from one vet to another vet. He had surgery, it was fine, but I wasn’t going to be doing any Nei Gong or Tai Chi that day! And on Monday I was also distracted and I actually had a couple of (routine) medical appointments myself that day too, so I wouldn’t have had time to do much anyways.

Today I picked up Ulli from the vet, so that was nice. (And he seems like he’s doing fine: lethargic, but no more than you’d expect.) And I did get back to a bit of practice: Chen long weapons, the Xinjia first form, the 37 form, and 20m of the Rolling Power exercise for Tai Chi, and Du Stretch and 10m Balancing Upper and Lower for Nei Gong.

So we’ll see how things go this coming week! Hopefully I won’t have any crises to deal with, hopefully my sleep will be better, and hopefully I’ll get my mind less scattered. I’m not doing a lesson tonight, I could definitely use a redo on this past week’s practice.

Tuesday lesson was a Tai Chi one, on Pulsing the Jin and Pushing Hands – Rolling Power. Both parts seemed pretty interesting, I’ll definitely give both of them a try. And nice to see another exercise where I really can feel the Jin moving through my body: I still don’t think I’m good at building up Qi in my feet and releasing it, but it does show up and move somehow.

Wednesday: Du Stretch; I’m doing a better job with the bit where you’re simultaneously raising your torso up while rocking your pelvis, I’m paying more attention to feeling the stretch from rocking at the correct height in my spine. 40m Kidney Hui Chun. 25m Wu Ji / Ji Ben 3 combo.

Thursday: Chen sword forms. Lao Jia first form twice, once slow and focusing on my right Kua and once at normal speed. Lao Jia second form. Pulsing version of 37 form. 45m Wu Ji. I wanted to rewatch the Subtle Body video but I was too sleepy. 🙁

Friday: a travel day; I did 20m of Wu Ji, but too sleepy during the flight to do any seated stuff then. Though in the early evening I was noticing that my torso felt surprisingly energized, and my head went surprisingly far back when I relax my neck, so those are good signs.

Saturday, Sunday: Foundations workshop, year 2 number 3. A good session on Songing throughout the body, and some useful Dragon 2 reviews

Monday: 30m Dragon 2; felt abnormally stretchy inside, I think because of the aforementioned session from the workshop. 40m Spleen Hui Chun, that felt strong.

Tuesday: 20m Pushing Hands Rolling Power exercise. I tried out the Figure Eight Energy Circulation exercise from the book Practical Tai Chi Training that I’m reading (one of the people from the Sunday push hands group recommended the book to me). Chen pole weapons; Xin Jia first form; 37 form. And I went through the Sinew Work Principles video; I might take that out of the rotation soon, maybe I’ll replace it with going through a random new Zoom class, I’ve liked every one I’ve watched so far.

This week’s lesson was a Nei Gong one on Extending the Qi. Not one that I’m planning to spend much time on; I suppose I should go through it it one or two more times, but the other ones in the Subtle Body series are much more important for me now, I think.

Wednesday: 1h Wu Ji, for the first time in a while, yay. I was thinking I might do a bit longer, but I started to feel bad in a way that made me think I might be overstressing my body, so I stopped then. Good that I did, too – I was also planning to do 1h of seated work, but I decided it was wise to cut that off after half an hour of DTG, given how I was feeling. (And I wasn’t 100% the next couple of days, but good enough that I didn’t really mess anything up.) Still, it’s good to be building up my Wu Ji again; also, around 40 minutes into that, something interesting happened, with (faint) pulses coming out of my abdomen. And, observing them, it seemed like the pulse was actually going in for a bit before bouncing out – I think this might be an early form of the swallowing feeling that people say happens in your Dantian?

Thursday: 20m Pillar Pushing; 20m of the guard variant of Hook Punch. And I went through the Chen sword forms, the 37 form, and the Lao Jia first and second forms. In the afternoon, I did 1h Spinal Dao Yin and 25m Kidney Hui Chun. In the evening, I did my Hunyuan 48 review, and I watched the Dao De Jing verses 1/3 video from the 2025 talks, interesting pointers as to how to do an esoteric reading, though I don’t think I’ll be able to generalize that to other versus.

Friday: 20m Wu Ji and 25m Dragon 2; I’d been wanting to get back to the Dragons to open up my back more, so I’ll try to fit them in regularly now that I’m not as drained as I was for a while. (And of course the upcoming Foundations weekend is more motivation, too.) And 60m of Dantian Gong / thickening.

Saturday: My regular Chen class, with a particularly good Hunyuan 48 section. (We started going through the Hunyuan 48 a week or two ago, I’m looking forward to going through it now that I know the basic shape of the form pretty well.) And I spent 20m going through all four Dragons.

Sunday: A couple of hours of push hands; the main thing I got out of that was that, to try to control my partner, I first need to understand when I’m at my the edges of my comfort zone (my “box”), so I can learn what that edge feels like. And I did 35m of Subtle Mindset and Posture.

Monday: 20m Wu Ji; 30m Dragon 1; and a 1h MCO attempt. It didn’t succeed, but it made it most of the way up my back, not bad given that it was my first try in a while. At first I was worried that it was going to be too far forward, but it eventually shifted to the middle of my spine instead of the front (and it felt like it was going up a cylinder, I’m not used to that), so that was good.

Tuesday: I reviewed the Straight Line Section lesson of the 37 form. I did 20m each of Pillar Pushing and Wu Song Shen Fa 1, and went through the Chen pole weapons. And then I did the 37 form, the Xin Jia first form, and the start of the Hunyuan 48, going very slowly through all of them and paying attention to when I’m within my box of comfort; really rarely, it turns out! But if I stopped and adjusted I could get back under control, so that’s good. And then I did a short walk, also paying attention to how it felt; I’m using my right Kua much less than my left Kua. (Which surprised me, if I’d been asked I would have guessed the other way!) And I sat in a church for a bit. And in the afternoon, I went through the new Kua Work Basics videos; that turned out to be surprisingly relevant to all of this, it was certainly relevant to my feeling when I was walking but also to my comfort level more broadly.

Last Tuesday’s lesson was a Taiji one on Pillar Pushing. That was an interesting one, another look at moving / strengthening jin.

Wednesday: My monthly trip through the Sinew Work Principles video.

Thursday: 20m Pillar Pushing. Chen pole forms, Lao Jia first form, 37 form. 30m Wu Ji. Reviewed Hunyuan 48.

Friday: 20m Wu Ji; 40m Kidney Hui Chun.

Saturday: My regular Chen class.

Sunday: 25m Zhan Zhuang. My monthly Sunday Chen class.

Monday: Du Stretch; 20m Wu Ji; 1h Dantian Gong and thickening.

Tuesday: 15m Pillar Pushing. Rick’s December 20 Zoom class.

Certainly more days than I would like where I didn’t do much, but there were reasonable reasons for that. And there were some decently solid days, too, though I do need to work on getting back to longer Wu Ji. My acupuncturist today was working on releasing tension in my spine (after working on tension in my arms the previous two weeks), it’ll be interesting to see if that helps with Du channel stuff. (Hopefully I’ll be able to find time to do a Microcosmic Orbit attempt this Friday, and hopefully I’ll have done enough Dantian Gong to make that attempt at least plausible…)

I didn’t do a lesson on Tuesday evening, because the “tension release” that my current TCM doctor sometimes does really did a number on me, but I did do it on Wednesday evening instead. It was a Nei Gong Lesson, Subtle Mindset and Posture; rather interesting, both having the idea of actively stretching out your shoulder and elbow more to strengthen the power coming from spreading your Lao Gong and the idea of putting your mind at a more subtle level, the Yang Qi or (ideally, but I can’t really get there yet) the Yin Qi level. And while listening to the lesson, it did feel like I could sense more going on and it was building more strongly? It was harder for me to get that while doing it outside of the video, but still, definitely something to work on.

Still didn’t do much his week: partly because my kid was still here on Wednesday and Thursday, partly recovery from the tension release, and also it was raining a ton which meant less Tai Chi. But I was pretty close to being back to normal yesterday; and while I only did a little bit of Nei Gong today, that was totally on me for being distracted rather than because I wasn’t up for it. (Which was a pleasant surprise, honestly – I had tension release again today, but I held up much better.)

And the tension release is pretty interesting, and I think well aligned with what Damo says – my doctor talked about how he’s having the fascia and muscles (and, in some cases, nerves) not be so bound up with each other, which is I think related to what Damo talks about different layers of your body becoming more independent as you get better at Nei Gong. And of course my doctor also talks about the connections across the body that you see in any of the internal arts.

Anyways, on to the day by day notes:

Wednesday: New Nei Gong Lesson, as mentioned above, and 40m Spleen Hui Chun.

Thursday: 25m of a Wu Ji / Ji Ben 1 combo; 30m Subtle Mindset and Posture.

Friday: 20m Wu Ji; 25m Full Moon.

Saturday: Regular Chen class.

Sunday: 2h good push hands – I felt more connected, and I learned something about using different sizes of spheres in my body. 40m Subtle Mindset and Posture.

Monday: Du Stretch; 30m Wu Ji; 1h DTG + thickening.

Tuesday: 20m Taiji Hook Push variant with guarding; 37 form x2. 25m Spleen Hui Chun.

No lesson Tuesday, because of family visit stuff.

Wednesday: Du stretch (and I took down notes so I won’t have to follow the video going forward); 40m Dantian Gong

Thursday: nothing, spending time on Christmas instead.

Friday: 30m Subtle Body, mostly focusing on the Yang layer, I think at least somewhat successful there? In general I feel like I’m doing a better job of ambiently sensing something during the day, probably Yang Qi? Would be nice to work more on Yin Qi, but still, progress.

Saturday: My regular Chen class.

Sunday: Push hands; not as long as normal, I was a little tired.

Monday: Nothing, spending time with my offspring.

Tuesday: Du Stretch; 30m Kidney Hui Chun.

I was planning to do a lesson tonight, but I was pretty drained, so it didn’t seem like a good idea. My new TCM doctor does something unusual that he calls “tension release” and, as he warned me, it can be pretty draining, and that did actually happen to me this time, after one bit of the treatment today I was actually feeling a little nauseous. So I’ll try to get back to practice more often (my kid is still here the next two days but we’ve done all the specifically planned things) but I’ll try to do a little less and do more nourishing / less potentially draining stuff.

And, assuming I feel okay tomorrow, I will do a new lesson then.

Tuesday evening: No lesson, as mentioned last week. But I watched the Xingyiquan Stages video; it was good, I’ll want to watch it again.

Wednesday: 1h Spinal Dao Yin and 40m Spleen Hui Chun.

Thursday: I rewatched the end of the Taiji Hook Punch video, and did 20m of the Hook Punch variant there, as well as the Chen pole weapon forms. In the afternoon, I went through the Du Stretch, did 40m of observing the breath, and reewatched the Xingyiquan Stages video.

And then I got on a plane at the end of the afternoon on Thursday and didn’t do any Nei Gong or Tai Chi the whole week. I just got back home; so I won’t do a new lesson this week, and my offspring is in town so I won’t do as much Nei Gong or Tai Chi as normal, I expect, but probably more than last week? We’ll see.

This week’s lesson: a Nei Gong one on Absorbing to Breath. Weirdly basic (at least at a technique level) – it was basically taking the previous week’s video and saying to add in reverse breathing, with some technique advice for reverse breathing, but the technique advice was stuff we’d seen a year or so ago? I did get pretty absorbed in while following the instructions, though… And I also watched the Qi Building Deeper Aspects video; nothing super striking though.

Wednesday: 90m Wu Ji; first time in ages that it’s been that long, body was nicely connected, a little easier putting my mind in my Dantian than it used to be? (I was also noticing that when doing the lesson on Tuesday night.) Don’t get me wrong, though, it still pops out a ton. And things opened up a bit 75 minutes in, especially in my arms. And 40m Dantian Gong.

Thursday: 20m Taiji Hook Punch, and I went through the 37 form and the Chen long weapon forms. My TCM doctor said I was doing worse on Thursday than when he saw me on Wednesday, and he thought the long Wu Ji session might have been a factor. 25m Wu Ji / Ji Ben 1 combo. I started to rewatch the Subtle Body video but I was too sleepy so I decided to take a nap.

Friday: Nothing! Feeling a little off so I slept in and my wife and I were doing things together all afternoon / evening. I wonder if the Wu Ji stressed me too much and got me sick or if it purged something out in a useful way or if it was irrelevant to this and I’d just picked up the fringes of a cold from something else I did on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Saturday; 20m Zhan Zhuang, 10m Taiji Wu Ji, my regular Chen class.

Sunday: 20m Three Circles, the monthly advanced Chen class. And I rewatched the Subtle Body video.

Monday: The Sink to Open Zoom Informal Session. Really interesting; I feel like it helped my understanding of / ability to sink the flesh off the bones, and it was not only opening but also building connectivity in interesting ways. In one Wu Ji in particular I felt connectivity up my arms much more broadly than I normally do – normally it’s like connectivity across cables but that time it was more like connectivity along a sheath. Also one small thing: in the Water Hui Chun he had us angle our hands in a bit when they were above the diaphragm, and that helped with my connectivity, I should do that more.

Tuesday: 20m each WSSF 3 and Taiji Hook Punch. And I went through the Chen sword forms, the 37 form, and the Xinjia first form. And I went through the recording of Rick’s December 10 Zoom class; I liked how I got absorbed while going through that.

Not sure how much I’ll do the next couple of weeks – I’m visiting my brother’s family before Christmas, and then my kid will be here until New Year’s. So my practice will be sporadic; I’m definitely not watching a lesson this week (though that’s actually good timing because the Taiji Hook Punch video includes a different punch at the end which I haven’t been doing, so if I have time to do something like that I can do that second one), we’ll see if I watch a lesson next week but I suspect I’ll skip then too.