I’m getting into standing practice more and more: I feel like the Lotus course taught me some interesting new possibilities, about my structure and about sinking back into my kua instead of just sideways? At work, I’ve started attending the standup of a team adjacent to the one I spend most of my time with, and honestly their standups are kind of long, so I’ve started doing standing practice during that; I feel like the extra practice is helping, and one day last week I felt super heavy, like gravity was unusually strong, which was an interesting change.

I’ve been feeling for a while that the heels on my shoes are thicker than would be ideal for doing Tai Chi (or standing meditation, for that matter), so I ordered some custom shoes, and they finally showed up last week. Seems like a good choice, though I don’t have anything concrete to report about them yet.

On Saturday, my teacher was out, and one of the senior students was leaded. She mentioned that, in the two kicks with your heel, you should have your arms open up as fists with the palm side ending out upward; it does seem to give some extra force to the move, I’ll have to try that.

While going through the form, I was thinking that, in Pat the High Horse, I should probably extend my right arm a little more; I should ask about that to confirm. And the last step in White Crane Spreads Its Wings still doesn’t feel right; I’m thinking maybe the problem is in the middle step, when you go to the left foot: I’m rounding my back there, maybe my back should be straighter? Not sure, I need to experiment with that more.

I asked on Saturday about when I should tuck my tailbone. Basically, my teacher’s answer was that I should keep a straight back and not have my butt stick out, so I think pretty much whenever I’m focusing on having my back upright. He also said that I should relax my muscles after tucking my tailbone, and that I should feel a connection in my thighs when doing this.

On Sunday, we had the Pao Chui class; when doing the Chopping Hand, have an opposing energy in your left elbow when you’re going down with your right fist. And we went over Great Red Fist / Little Red Fist (I think that’s the one, the one that’s kind of like hand maneuvers): I was really confused on the timing of that my first time through the form, but it seemed to make more sense this time. The first time, when turning into it, you step with your right foot and then open your left foot, ending with your right hand up and out. Then you do two iterations, turning on the second iteration; and you do two iterations on the other side, again turning on the second iteration. So the two sides don’t feel symmetric: it feels more like you’re moving you hands 3 times on the first side and 2 times on the second side, or maybe 2.5 / 1.5.

I want to do a better job of learning stuff this year, so I practiced Pao Chui, Staff, and Spear some Sunday afternoon even though there was a morning class. Unfortunately, the bit I wrote about in the paragraph above felt a little off, even though I’d just been practicing it a few hours earlier! And there was one place where I wasn’t sure what to do in the staff form, though I had an idea, which I think I confirmed watching other people in the Tuesday class. I definitely have gaps in the spear form, missing a Saturday class a few weeks back didn’t help, I need to work on that too.

I also did some Lotus Wu Ji on Sunday, and of course today. And my body is starting to feel like it’s falling into a good structure when doing that, and actually also when doing Chen Wu Ji and when doing Zhan Zhuang. So I feel like my subconscious is learning something about positioning and relaxing? I’m also noticing that I have a much better sense about when the energy in my legs is going straight down, it’s making me feel significantly more solid.

In the Tuesday class, my teacher was talking about Jin Gang Pounds the Pestle, and emphasizing that your knee should strike; when he was doing it, it seemed like he was having his lower leg go back a bit (to make the angle of the knee more pointed), instead of just having it hang down, I tried that out and it seemed like it did give me more of a feel of a knee strike. And I asked about the Spine Stretch in the Silk Reeling Exercises, specifically whether sometimes your spine should curve back a bit when going up; the answer was yes.

Looks like I will be able to go to the Lotus Nei Gong course in May, though I won’t feel 100% confident until I’ve actually sent in my money and gotten confirmation that it’s been received, the person handling that registration does not seem very organized…

I asked about the upward hand thrust in Flash the Back on Saturday: I feel like I’m either uprooting myself if I let myself go up or else I’m sinking down into my front foot just as I want to be thrusting up, so I feel like I’m not going high enough. My teacher’s answer was that I wasn’t thinking about where I was supposed to be thrusting: I’m supposed to be thrusting into my opponent’s throat, which isn’t all that high, so it’s fine to stay rooted in my feet.

I was also thinking about the moves before that. In the blocks that lead off Flash the Back, I feel like I should extend my upper arm out more; and in Oblique Posture, I want to think about folding my kua, and maybe fold further back than I’m doing?

One of the other students was asking about Zhan Zhuang, so I decided to practice along with that; my teacher told me to leave more room between my hands (about three fists, I’d thought that it was more like one fist), to have my middle fingers straight horizontal, to have my thumbs curving in (embracing the imaginary ball between my arms) instead of out, and to tuck my tailbone. So lots of little adjustments for me to do.

On Sunday morning, my breathing meditation was getting kind of intense. In a good way, energy flowing a surprising amount, it’s definitely making me feel like I should do that more… And it was raining so I did Silk Reeling and Lotus Neigong stuff inside; just as well, I could probably use the Lotus Wuji practice, and looking at that in a mirror was sort of interesting.

One thing from class today was that, when you’ve raised up in Embrace the Knee, your hands should be turned out slightly: your palms shouldn’t be completely parallel to each other.

I’m trying to move more with my legs these days, and Chest Opening and Closing in the Silk Reeling Exercises was feeling pretty different on Saturday: much less of the action coming from my arms. Also on a Silk Reeling note, I forgot to mention that, last Tuesday, Elbow Rotations felt a lot more spirally; not sure if that’s just my imagination or what.

On Saturday, when going over Protecting the Heart Fist, I learned that you’re supposed to move your weight back to the right for a bit after the part where you thrust with both elbows. (Before rearranging your arms and foot in preparation for Whirlwind Kick.) And I was noticing that I’m having a hard time avoiding getting uprooted in Flash the Back, when you thrust up with your hand. Or, alternatively, if I try to avoid getting uprooted, then I sink down just when I should be thrusting up. So I need to think about that, I’ll probably ask about it next Saturday.

Also, on Saturday, I practiced the staff form a bit, and realized that I’m already getting lost in it: I’m having a hard time remembering the sequence right at the beginning. So I should keep on trying it with other people (who hopefully remember better than me) on Saturdays, given that I’m only learning it in class once a month; I can’t count on remembering it myself when practicing on Sundays.

In class today, I asked about Grab and Tuck the Robe: I’m tilting to the left when moving to the right. My teacher said I was probably going too low at once, so I should either try not to go so low or I should take an extra step in the middle. I tried that out, and either did seem to help, but I need to experiment more; and I realized that I also am not sure how far forward I should be and whether I should tuck my tailbone. (I also asked about tucking my tailbone when doing the squatting exercise, he confirmed I should do that.)

I was getting more feeling all along my arm when doing The White Goose Spreads Its Wings, that’s fun. And it might be my imagination, but I feel like I’m getting sensations in my feet now, like I’ve been getting in my hands for years; maybe the Lotus Neigong work helped with that? Also, my shoulder blades are feeling heavier: I’d been doing a decent job of relaxing them before, I think, but I suspect the Lotus class gave me a push there, too.

I missed the Saturday Tai Chi class, because I spent Friday and Saturday at a Lotus Nei Gong class instead. And wow: it was a lot more painful (and a lot more sweaty) than I expected. I think I’ll write about that more on my main blog, so I won’t go into details here; I was going there as preparation for probably going to a class by Damo Mitchell in May, and if his class is anything like that one (and if I still decide to go and manage to make it off of the wait list), then I will definitely be glad to have had some preparation.

The one concrete thing that came out of that is that the class spent a lot of time in something that is called Wu Ji that is significantly different from the stance named Wu Ji that my Tai Chi teacher presents: your butt sticks out more, you lean over some (with the result that your Huiyin is not at all in the line between your Baihui and your Yongquan), and you stick your arms forward and down with your hands spread. This was extremely painful (and I was sweating buckets) at the duration we were doing it in the class; less painful the second day than the first day, though, and my body was starting to feel like it was clicking into place a little bit when I did the posture. So I’m going to work on that: if I do end up going to the May class and if we spend anything like the same amount of time in that posture in that class, then I will definitely be glad to have been working on improving my tolerance.

On Sunday we had the monthly class: we’re continuing going through the second form, it’s the start of the second time for me. So we’re in parts of that form that I did learn the basics of, and it’s good to see some refinements. And we started the staff form, the parts we did are more different from the spear form than I expected.

I was reading another of Damo Mitchell’s books on my commute in this morning, this one about meridian theory; that’s something that I have a hard time believing in, but he gave a sensing exercise that he claims will help you perceive them more or less directly. So I figure I’ll also add that to my Tuesday/Thursday lunchtime practice. So I did both the Wu Ji and the meridian sensing drill; I started with 5 minutes of Wu Ji (with the plan of going up one minute a time until I hit 20 minutes), that was fine. And, in doing the sensing drill, I actually was kind of surprised at the feelings that I felt between the Taiyuan point (LU9, at the base of my wrist) and the end of my thumb (which is where LU11 is); could totally have been an artifact of how I was holding my hand, so it’s absolutely not any kind of strong evidence as to the reality of the lung meridian, but it’s not a complete lack of evidence, either. So I’ll probably keep that up for a little while, seeing if I can feel more of the lung meridian and eventually parts of other meridians.

No regular class today, but a bunch of us were there anyways; I ended up mostly practicing on my own (going through the silk-reeling exercises and 6 repetitions of the first form), though I did also do a bit of push hands with another student. I continue to think that I should spend a little more time doing push hands in Tuesday classes, I feel like I’m at a place where I can start to get something out of it.

I’m spending some of my focus when walking around trying to keep my head pulled up without pulling my whole body up; one concept there (I think saw this in one of the Damo Mitchell books) is to think of my spine as a chain with both the top of my head and my pelvis pulling on it to keep it taught. Also, I want to get out of the habit of tensing my stomach muscles by default. Not sure exactly how much progress I’m making on keeping my head raised, but it is reminding me of how it feels to sink a little into my kua: it can actually feel really good, and that feeling was sometimes spreading to my torso. So I guess I should keep on trying that…

One thing I noticed in class on Saturday was that I was managing to relax my torso while doing the form. This actually started with Silk Reeling: e.g. on Waist Rotation it’s mostly my legs / kua (or maybe those plus my dantian?) moving things with my torso coming along for the ride; and I felt like I was sometimes getting that feeling while doing the form. I’m not 100% sure if that’s a good thing or not, but I think it is? And maybe it’s in part what people are talking about when they say that movements should originate from the dantian, though I’m not 100% sure about that either. At any rate, something to experiment with.

On Sunday morning I was doing a breathing meditation exercise lying down on my back while Liesl was walking Widget. One thing I’ve noticed in the past is that it feels like my breath goes in an arc: down from my nose to my throat, then along my lungs (horizontally, since I’m lying down, and then it feels like things are going up a little at the end (maybe that’s my abdomen expanding). And, this time, maybe 5 or 10 minutes in, that last little bit started to spontaneously set off a feeling of dantian rotations, in the forward circle direction, with the up from breathing at the bottom of my lungs matching the up part of the dantian rotation at the top. Kind of a trippy feeling; I didn’t want to pay too much attention to it, because the instructions for that exercise say to observe but not really focus on what’s going on, but I hope it happens again? (I looked up the description of the exercise after doing that and I didn’t notice anything matching that experience…)

Some notes from the Tuesday class: my teacher mentioned turning to the right / sinking into your right kua at the start of Six Sealing Four Closing, I don’t think I do that so much, and it clearly helps. And he mentioned relaxing at the end of the movement to the left right after that: I do that some, but maybe I should do it more? Also, I’m still feeling a little stuck (and with my torso out of place) right after pounding my fist in Jing Gang, and also I’m leaning a little when I move my foot to the right partway through Grab and Tuck Robe, I should work on those.

I took a sick day on Thursday (more trip fallout), so I mostly skipped my Qigong that day; I did at least do a bit of breathing meditation, though. I did get back to doing Qigong today, at least.

On Saturday, I asked about feeling uprooted during White Goose Spreads Its Wings; I’m not supposed to go up as much, more going over, and then sinking/relaxing at the end. So I’ll have to think about that. And I asked about the start of Flash the Back, because I wasn’t sure exactly what the bottom hand was supposed to be doing; it turns out that it’s supposed to be relaxed, with the arm basically dangling, the idea is that somebody is grabbing you and you’re trying to escape. Also, while watching that, my teacher told me to push more with my back leg while thrusting my hand up next in that move; and then, when we were going through the start of the form again, he told me to tuck my tailbone while doing the sort of reversed Oblique Posture in Diagonal Fist; that made a surprising amount of difference.

It was wet on Sunday and I had to be at work, so I skipped practice that day. (But I did again at least do some breathing meditation.)

While walking today I was thinking about the whole feeling uprooted thing. I think that I’m stretching my torso wrong in a couple of ways: one is that I’m stretching the whole thing up instead of stretching it at both ends while being rooted in the lower half of my body. And the other is that I still have a habit of tensing my stomach muscles: I developed that habit when trying to protect my lower back when I had back problems, but it’s a habit I need to unlearn now.

In class tonight, I asked about how long to wait between the end of Grab and Tuck Robe and the start of Six Sealing Four Closing: I’m used to waiting a bit while the energy goes down my right arm and torso and then over to my left arm, but my teacher seemed to not be waiting that long. I still need to think about my teacher’s answer, but I think the upshot is that I’m not relaxing as much as I think I am, or at least as quickly as I think I am, and if I relax quickly then I’ll be in neutral position quickly and feel natural moving in any direction (and in particular moving my left arm).

I was in India on a business trip last week, hence the lack of notes here. And it meant that I missed a Saturday class and a Tuesday class, though I did make the Saturday class on the day I got back, at least.

I didn’t practice Tai Chi much while I was there: the air pollution meant that I didn’t want to spend much time outside. Though there was one day where rain had cleared out the air, so I went through the form a few times that way; it was drizzling then and I was practicing on fairly smooth stone, so it was kind of an interesting test of my stability and of the concept of walking on thin ice. Also, I felt slightly uprooted that time, and with slightly hunched shoulders; I don’t think I was doing anything more wrong than normal, I’m probably just getting more sensitive…

I was hoping to do some Qigong and Silk Reeling practice in my hotel room that week, but I didn’t do either nearly as much as I’d have liked; I was feeling surprisingly off that week, alas.

This Saturday, we spent a while on Push Hands; I should probably start doing that more, maybe on Tuesdays after the form? One or two of the other students expressed a similar sentiment, so we’ll see. And fortunately I didn’t seem too far behind on either spear or Xinjia practice, despite the missed week.

The main thing I noticed in the Tuesday class was that I’m not standing quite straight in Grab and Tuck Robe after extending my right foot.

Back to normal this week. On Saturday, I asked about your hands during the push at the end of Six Sealing Four Closing, wondering whether I should push with my palm or the heel of my hand; the answer was that the push should start with my palm but I should be spiraling more (starting with my elbows more to the side than how I currently do it, with the elbows then spiraling down) and with energy spreading from my palm out to my fingers. Which is definitely not the answer I expected!

While doing the form on Saturday, I noticed myself getting uprooted during The White Goose Displays the Wings; and in the beginner’s class today I noticed myself getting uprooted right at the very start of the form. So that continues to be something that I seem to need to pay more attention to right now. (The other thing I noticed from today’s beginner’s class was my teacher saying to move my hands back while moving my left foot forward after raising my left leg in the Jin Gang Pounds Pestle; I probably do that some already, but worth thinking about, and maybe thinking about in contrast to Xinjia?)

We did a review of the parts of the Xinjia first form we’ve learned so far on Saturday, which was a useful opportunity to refine my understanding. During the opening, I’m not supposed to do a Ji at the end of raising my hand, though my fingers should extend and rise some while the heel of my hand sinks when bringing my hands back down. When doing the push in the Xinjia Six Sealing Four Closing, I should be pushing more down rather than straight ahead. When my arms are spread at the end of Oblique Posture, my weight should be somewhat to the left. And when I’m pushing out my hands and lifting my knee very shortly after that, I should be pushing my hands down somewhat.

This week was the Sunday class, and with the new year we restarted the second form. Which I’m looking forward to: I only learned about half of it last year, and even in the parts I did learn I’m sure there are tons of details I got wrong. The main detail I noticed on Sunday was that, in Turn Around, I should sweep my feet twice, like a standing version of the move later in the form where you sweep your leg with your hand on the ground. And during the first sweep your right hand should be on top, horizontal at maybe a little below eye level; and your second hand moves on top in the second sweep, while your right hand smoothly comes up and pounds down at the end of the second sweep.

I’ll be on a business trip next week, so no class; and it’s in Delhi, where the air quality is quite bad, so I don’t think I’ll practice outside, either. I’ll try to find time to do silk reeling and Qi Gong in my hotel room, though…

I was doing Dantian Rotations in the shower on Saturday, and they felt significantly different from the way they normally feel: I first felt a fairly localized area where parts of my body were twisting together, and then I felt an honest-to-god hard ball inside there. And, to make matters weirder sometimes I felt a weird vibration in part of the rotation, and sometimes I felt a sort of click at the end of the rotation; though I’m not sure if the click part came from my Dantian or from the stomach muscles on the surface.

I think there are two reasons why I felt this in the shower. One is that I’m not feeling through layers of clothing: it makes sense that I can feel stuff inside my body better if I’m touching my skin. And the other is that my Dantian is noticeably lower than my navel; so my upper hand should be covering my navel and my lower hand significantly lower than my navel; and, if I’m wearing jeans, I can’t do that effectively while remaining decent.

So now that I’ve had that experience, I’m trying to move my hand and attention a little lower while doing Dantian Rotations normally. I don’t get the full experience, in particular the feeling of a ball is pretty elusive, but it does feel somewhat different, especially in some rotation directions.

I’m really curious what the underlying physical structure is that I’m feeling: clearly there’s something there, I just don’t understand what…

Anyways, on the Saturday class, my teacher talked about the turn back at the start of Kick with Two Feet Up: there’s a shoulder strike in there. And I asked about the Silk Reeling Exercise Hand Maneuvers; I was wondering if you should extend your hand during the top part, but his answer was a little more oblique, and he talked more about leading with your thumb and involving the shoulder. And I also asked about the different parts of The Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg, but I still don’t really understand what’s going on with the different energetic bits there; I think I’ll probably just try to figure it out for a while and then ask again in a couple of months. Also, while he was doing the form, I was looking at his footwork during Push the Mountain: your right foot should be pointing straight to the right while you’re pushing.

On Sunday I again did 15 minutes of breathing exercise while Liesl was walking Widget; I had a harder time focusing than the previous week, for whatever reason, but I did start to notice the diaphragm moving at the start of the breath. (Which makes sense, that’s how breathing works!) And actually this morning I snuck in a little bit of time to practice that while I was working from home; I’m thinking I should also work that in on evenings when Liesl ends up walking Widget, that’s probably a better use of my time than reading Twitter.

Sunday was quite wet outside, so I didn’t practice outside; but I went through the full set of Silk-Reeling Exercises inside and the new Qigong set I’m trying to learn. And I had a good Qigong practice today over lunch. The Tuesday class hasn’t started yet, but a few of us went to hang out and practice anyways; I did the full Silk-Reeling Set and went through the first form six times. Which, unfortunately, didn’t loosen up the same way it had in some prior weeks; it loosened up a little, though. And the main thing that I’m noticing now is the way sinking into my kua lets me store up energy while moving a little past where I normally will, and then pushing with my leg lets me release that. So I feel like I’m starting to get that; I still don’t understand storing energy in my Dantian, though…

I’m also trying to register for Damo Mitchell’s Neigong seminar in May; I haven’t gotten a response to my query about that, though, so I’m not signed up yet.