Quiet week at work, so, if I’m remembering correctly, I not only did my Wu Ji practice on Thursday, I also did it on Friday? Normally I play board games at lunch on M/W/F and do Wu Ji on T/Th, but there wasn’t anybody around to play games with on Friday.

On Saturday, one thing I noticed during Silk Reeling practice was that it felt right to extend my top hand during Hand Maneuvers to get a similar feeling to how my arms are extended during, say, Dantian Change. I’m not 100% convinced that it is right, though, maybe I’ll ask about it next week, and also ask about how much my hand should extend during the version of Hand Maneuvers in the Laojia form? Also, Horizontal Circles are starting to feel more interesting; in general, I’m starting to notice elasticity in my arms more? I wonder if that’s the “silk-reeling energy” that gives the exercises their name; who knows… (I’ve got a book on the subject in the queue, so maybe I’ll find out.)

I’d also been feeling weird about my left foot in Push the Mountain and the subsequent Six Sealing and Four Closing: I turn it in past 90 degrees for the former, but that makes it too far in on the latter. So I asked about that; it turns out that I should only turn it in about 90 degrees, which is still a little tight on Six Sealing but I can absorb that by sinking into my kua. But when practicing at home later I realized I’m still confused about Push the Mountain, because I also don’t know where my right foot is pointed, and whether I should push straight to the right.

I’ve been reading Damo Mitchell’s introductory Nei Gong book; I was wondering whether it made sense to read that one given that I’d read his Comprehensive Guide, but I’m glad I decided to do so. I’ve gotten to the section on breathing exercises and on an introductory Qi Gong routine, and both of those seem actionable; I’m thinking of maybe attending a workshop of his in May, and trying to learn one of his routines seems like a good way to prepare for that?

So, on Sunday, I tried a basic breathing attention drill that Mitchell recommends while Liesl was walking Widget; I’m glad I did that, something about the way he phrased things got me paying attention to the flow of my breath in a more concrete way. And it was interesting watching my chest undulate slightly in response; also, I feel like I’m probably not breathing nearly deeply enough, I need to learn more about my diaphragm. So continuing that exercise seems like a good idea; just doing it once a week doesn’t seem like enough, but I don’t really know how I could work it in daily… Also, it was a lot easier to stick with it for 15 minutes than it is sticking with Wu Ji for 15 minutes, I was surprised about that. Not sure if it was the fact that I was lying down or that I had something a little more concrete to focus on?

On Sunday afternoon, I did my regular practice, including doing the middle part of the Silk-Reeling Exercises; those are getting better, so I’ll probably stop doing that soon, though I might throw in other parts of the set? And I went through the form six times; I still didn’t have the same switch flipping of “suddenly I want to do the form really quickly” that happened a couple of Tuesdays ago, but I’m definitely start to notice the inside of my body respond over the course of my practice and the course of the day as I do more: more exercises, more repetitions of the form, etc. (E.g. I was also noticing that my third set of 25 Dantian Rotations at the end of the day felt very different from the way the first one feels in the morning.)

I’d been feeling better about sinking into my kua while resting recently, and I noticed myself doing that more when walking downtown on Monday morning: it’s still not an unconscious habit, but it’s getting much easier to remember and trigger. And I’m noticing some of the same physical sensations in my legs when walking too, if I try to be a little relaxed and open; it’s honestly a little odd, there’s a kind of tingling that isn’t completely different from the way my body sometimes feels when I’m coming down with a cold, but I’m pretty sure it’s a good tingling rather than a bad tingling?

I’d been worried that I’d do less Tai Chi this week because I wouldn’t have my regular Tuesday lunch Wu Ji practice and then Tuesday evening class, so I decided to take advantage of the holiday break to practice on Monday as well. So I went through the form; I ended up going through it six more times, and, like I said above, I’m really starting to notice the difference if I put in a bunch of practice. Also, one of my neighbors came by with her sister; her sister does Tai Chi (though a different style, Yang style instead of Chen style), so we had a nice conversation.

And I decided to keep on doing some of the Damo Mitchell book stuff: I did the same breathing exercise as on Sunday, and I tried out a short Qi Gong set that he gives. And I’m definitely glad that I started the Qi Gong set: my teacher teaches lots of individual Qi Gong exercises but I’ve had a hard time putting them into a set, so I end up mostly just doing 20 minutes of Wu Ji, so the prescriptiveness of Mitchell’s set is useful. And, actually, based on Mitchell’s description of how to finish it off, it would flow well into Wu Ji; and I think it’s short enough that I can do Mitchell’s plus Wu Ji over lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays?

Also, the feel of the set was interesting. For example, when describing how you open your hands in the first exercise, he says “The feeling is like lightly stretching the tendons across the palm so that the bones can open up, a little like stretching elastic until it is only just held taut rather than stretched out to its limit”; when I experiment, I feel like I understand the feeling that he’s talking about, it’s just not something I’d been actively doing in my hands that way, and it fits into the stretching I’d been noticing in my arms above. And another thing was how some of the exercises made the center of my palms feel: I’m use to having tingling in my hands when I do Tai Chi (or Silk Reeling or Qi Gong), but not that particular localized feeling on the center of my palm. (I guess that’s the Lao Gong point? If so, that concept is getting a lot more concrete to me.)

And today I did pretty similar practice to yesterday (including doing the Mitchell stuff), though I only had time to make it through the form four times: I even ran into a neighbor and talked about Tai Chi again! (Different neighbor this time.)

Besides having my body feel different from practicing the form 16 times over three days (and doing lots of other exercises), I’m getting an increasingly long list of questions that I’m wondering about. Current questions and things I’d noticed while doing individual moves:

• As mentioned above, I’m a little confused about Push the Mountain right now.
• As mentioned above, I’m wondering about the top hand in Hand Maneuvers, both in the Silk Reeling version and the Laojia version.
• In general I feel like it’s pretty natural to dissipate energy after doing Fa Jin (more energetic moves, punches and stuff), but in Jin Gang Pounds the Pestle I wasn’t so sure what to do. At first I was wondering about what to do when your hand is coming down at the end, but now I’m thinking that if I focus more on the foot then it’s fine. But now I’m wondering about the elbow when stepping forward in the middle; that doesn’t feel super natural to me right now.
• There are a bunch of bits in a row in Golden Rooster that I think of as Fa Jin, but I can’t really do them all successfully with energy; should I work on trying to pull that off, or are fewer of them Fa Jin than I think of?
• The way I do Kick with Two Feet Up is pretty anemic.
• When doing Dantian Change, it’s starting to feel natural to shift my weight significantly more to my left foot at the end. (Which, I think, matches something my teacher mentioned a couple of months ago?)
• When doing Step Back with Spiraling Forearms, I should pay attention to the weight shift: if I do that, it feels good, otherwise I’m constantly uprooting myself.
• At the end of Six Sealing and Four Closing, it usually feels wrong in one of two different ways: either I feel like I’m uprooting myself or I feel like I’m hunching too much of my spine instead of just curling my shoulders. So I have to work on coming up fully (instead of having my legs come up but not my torso, which is what leads to the extra hunching) without uprooting myself.
• My teacher said a few weeks ago that I should push with the heel of my hand in Six Sealing, instead of pushing with my fingers; now that I’m starting to feel more sensitive around my Lao Gong, though, I’m wondering if I should push through there? (I.e. lower than my fingers but not necessarily all the way down to the heel of my hand.)
• I’m noticing myself uproot myself slightly at lots of different points in the form. So I should pay more attention to that; but I also feel like I’m getting more sensitive to uprooting, and in fact I’m noticing this while just walking around in general.

Sorry for the long entry, if anybody actually reads these; it’s been a quite eventful week for me in Tai Chi!

Not so much to write about this week: because of Christmas, there wasn’t class yesterday, and I didn’t end up practicing yesterday at home either.

On Saturday, when doing the Wrist Rotation and Arm Circles during Silk Reeling, I noticed a connected feeling in my whole arm; I should try to pay attention to that feeling and see if I think it’s something good that I want to bring out. And during Giant Monkey Searches for Fruit, you’re supposed to shift your weight to the right and open your left foot early on, I think I’m keeping my weight on my left foot more than I should?

On Sunday, I went through the form five times; it wasn’t as dramatic as it was the previous Tuesday. Maybe that’s just chance, or maybe the previous Tuesday I’d been helped by warming up some first. At any rate, it did feel better than going through it three times, so I’ll try to stick with five.

Somewhat to my surprise, I’m managing to stick with doing three sets of Dantian Rotations a day instead of two.

An eventful week. It was the week after I led the Silk-Reeling Exercises on the Saturday class, which meant that I got to have my teacher review my form this Saturday. And it turns out that I wasn’t deluding myself when I thought I’d made a lot of progress since the last time I’d had a one-on-one review!

Specifically, last time he’d told me to connect the moves in my form more; I’d been focusing on that, and I felt like I’d gotten significantly better in that regard. And, indeed, he said that I’d made a big improvement, and specifically called out my moves being more connected; that was really good to hear.

But, of course, I continue to have stuff to work on. He told me that I was making overly large arm circles in a few moves, that I should push with the heel of my hand instead of the fingers in Six Sealing Four Closing and related moves, and that there were some moves where my knee was off.

After that, I asked for some advice when doing Qigong. He said I should tuck in my tailbone significantly more when doing Wuji; and, when I asked him for advice about my Qigong routine, he said I should start it off by doing some a little bit of silk reeling to stretch, specifically loosening up my neck, waist, and knees.

One of the other students asked him about Chest and Abdomen Folding, which I’d also been wondering about, so I got to watch him do that a few times; I’d specifically been wondering about how the hands work in that, especially in the first part of the forward version. And the answer seems to be that the hand position follows from the shoulder position, and the shoulders don’t go that far back, so the hands only go a little farther out than parallel. (Whereas in the reverse version, the shoulders go farther back, so the hands turn palm up more.)

I also have notes mentioning the left hand in White Goose Spreads its Wings and the right thigh in Embrace the Knee, but I can’t remember what I was thinking about there… Though certainly Embrace the Knee is one move where I don’t feel stable when I move back to the right, I just can’t remember what specifically I was thinking about.

On Sunday, one thing that I noticed was that I felt like I was starting to actually store energy when I let things settle a bit at the end of certain moves. So hopefully that will start translating into better Fa Jin? We’ll see.

And tonight’s class was also super interesting. It wasn’t a formal class, we’re between quarters, but one of the senior students was leading. And one of the things she mentioned was sinking into your kua when closing to the right near the end of Dantian Change. And that’s a section that I’d never felt confident about; it had been getting better, but now it’s starting to actually feel right.

And sinking into my kua turned out to be a theme tonight; in particular, in the sort of reverse Oblique Posture in Diagonal Body-Stroke Fist, sinking into my right kua helped me turn a little more, so I came significantly closer to turning ninety degrees to the right than I normally do.

So that’s something to work on, and to think about conceptually: there are a few places where I should turn my hips more than I have been, I think, but sinking into my kua, not twisting my knee.

And then I decided to break off and go through the form a few times; I ended up doing it six times in a row, while I don’t think I’ve ever done it more than three times in a row before? The first three times, I was going quite slowly, trying to follow up on Sunday, feeling energy gather.

Honestly, it didn’t feel like it was gathering in quite the same way it was on Saturday, though going slow felt like the right place. But, towards the end of the third time, it started to feel like the wrong speed; so I sped up, and by the time I was on my sixth round through the form, I was going a lot faster.

And that sixth round felt natural, too, and actually a lot of the fa jin felt like it had more force. Not that it was the right speed while the slow first two rounds were the wrong speed, more like my body had gotten warmed up after the first three, and it was ready to let loose? So that’s definitely something I’ll want to dig into: I’ve been in the habit of going through the form three times on Sundays, but now I’m thinking I should regularly go longer.

I led the Silk Reeling Exercises this Saturday; it honestly didn’t go as well as I’d like, I didn’t feel like I did a great job during the middle third of the exercises in particular. So I should probably start practicing them more on Sundays.

And, speaking of Sundays, this week was the monthly Pao Chui class. I missed that last month, and apparently they finished the form that month; this time was a review session, and it actually concentrated on the end, so at least I’ve seen that a few times now. But I was already feeling like I didn’t have a great grasp of the form; I’ll be glad to see it start over again next month. And also the weapons form on the Sunday classes is going to switch from the Guan Dao (which I haven’t been doing) to the staff (which I plan to do, I’ve even already bought mine). I’m looking forward to that: I think my choice to not do the Guan Dao last year was the right one, but I’m feeling more confident in things now, so adding in the staff now should be okay.

Streaks asked me again if I should add a third Dantian Rotation section. (I tell Streaks that I’m doing it twice a day, but each time is 25 rotations.) And I’m going to give that a try: I don’t know exactly how I’ll fit in the third section, whereas the first two are next to my two train commutes (ideally while waiting for the train, but if I get to the station too late, then right after I get off), but hopefully I’ll be able to fit it in? I did manage that on Sunday, Monday, and today, at least. I actually don’t feel like I’ve gotten as much benefit as I hoped to when switching from 20 rotations a day to 50; so part of me feels like I should actually go back to doing less, but maybe I need to lean in more.

I feel like I’m getting better at sinking while standing normally (i.e. when not practicing). Relaxing my stomach, opening my kua, and sinking into it: not a ton, but even a little bit makes a difference that I can feel. So hopefully I’m retraining my body’s habits a bit.

I’ve been reading through Chen Taijiquan: Masters & Methods, and this bit from Chen Zhenglei stuck with me. I’ve been feeling the tingling in my hands for years, and I think now I’m getting to the warmth in my Dantian. So the good news is that now I know what to look forward to next, that I hopefully am doing the right thing to get to the next stage (spending more time in standing meditation and on leg strengthening exercises), and that I’m hearing consistent stories both from my teacher (who told me to do more standing meditation when I asked about developing these feelings in my feet) and from this book. But the bad news is that apparently the next stage will take a while! (And it’s not like I do that much standing meditation…)

I started a post in my main blog on silk reeling exercises, hopefully I’ll finish that this weekend or maybe even this Thursday.

My exciting discovery for this week: my shoes have always had their backs start tilting towards the inside as I wear them. And when I’ve been thinking about sinking into my kua, I’ve realized: by default, I stand a little knock-kneed. So that’s why my feet are tilted the way they are; and if I open up my kua a little bit, then that puts my knees in the correct position. And maybe that’s also part of the reason why my kua feels better when I open it up: maybe something is getting a little compressed by default? I don’t think that’s all of the explanation, but it could be part of it.

Another potential part of the explanation is that I’ve been continuing to do slow squats, with an emphasis on my kua rather than other parts of my thighs; I think that that’s slowly making my thighs stronger, with an emphasis on the upper parts. And that in turn makes them tingle, kind of by default. So if I’m thinking about how my kua feels, I notice that. But I think that that’s independent of opening up my kua. So, I still feel like there’s a third component of what’s going on, that there’s still some sort of sensation trigger specifically by opening my kua, relaxing, and letting attention or something fall from my dantian to a little lower in my body…

Anyways, a pretty normal week other than that. On Saturday, I asked about Dantian rotation, and had it confirmed that the center of the rotation should be lower than my navel. (I.e. it should be in my Dantian!) And Qigong went well today over lunch, I managed 20 minutes of Wuji without being distracted out of it without too much trouble. We’ll see how I keep that up over the winter, as it gets rainy; I’ll probably start doing meditation in conference rooms instead of outside, I did that once last week.

And I’ve been thinking I should write a piece over on my main blog about what I pay attention to during Silk Reeling Exercises. So I’ve taken some notes towards that, hopefully I’ll get it written over the next couple of weeks.

Not much to say this time, pretty normal week. I didn’t do Qigong on Thursday because of Thanksgiving, but I did the regular practices other than that. Still feeling more of a connection in my kua than I had been a month back, and getting used to that.

The only new thing that comes to mind is in the Oblique Posture: I’d been keeping my torso upright, but apparently the application is more of a shoulder strike. So I’m tilting my body more, but trying to do that in a way that has me sinking into my kua instead of into my knee.

I was expecting being out of town to reduce the amount of Tai Chi I did, but actually I picked a very good week to be away: there was an unhealthy amount of smoke in the Bay Area, so if I’d been at home I probably wouldn’t have practiced on Sunday and I’m not sure how much I would have done on Saturday. As it was, on both of those days, I went through the Lao Jia first form three times, and I also went through the full Silk Reeling once and all of the Xin Jia first form that I know once; not as much as a normal weekend, but not bad all things considered. (And I got back for the Tuesday class.

I didn’t do as much standing meditation as normal, but that’s totally an unforced error, I had the time. Also, I walked less in general but up and down hills noticeably more; it’s kind of depressing how much I noticed that, I could probably use more cardio in my life.

While practicing, the main thing that I noticed was feelings in my kua: I feel like I’ve crossed some threshold where something is switched on and I’m getting a lot more connected there. Just standing and opening my kua feels different; it makes me wonder if that’s the way I should be standing normally? One noticeable effect of the Gokhale courses was that they convinced me that I’d been holding my shoulders unnaturally forward and that I’d feel better with my arms hanging by my side when I’m in a neutral position; maybe it’s also the case that my legs are coming a little wrong out of my pelvis, and that I should be opening them up more? I’m really not sure…

In class tonight, I asked about moving my arms (and changing my shoulder orientation) right after pounding the pestle; my teacher went back a step and told me that I was finishing Pound the Pestle with my hands too high up, I should move them down in front of my Dantian. So I’ll try working on that. Also I want to think a bit about maintaining a Ground Path between the first punch and the third Pound the Pestle; and maybe also waiting a bit before letting my forward foot turn when stepping back in The White Goose Displays the Wings? I’m not at all sure about that last one, though, I really do have to think about it.

Doing my Qi Gong on Thursday was interesting: my kua felt warm in a way that I don’t remember it feeling before? Hopefully I can build on that… (And maybe that’ll lead to feeling things further down in my legs and feet, we’ll see.) Also, in terms of random sensations, my feet in general seem to somehow be feeling better / more stable, not just when doing Tai Chi but in general: like my pronation is going away or something. And I spent more time than usual over the last week trying to move my attention in circles around some Qi Gong orbits (right around my Dantian and also all the way up my spine, over my head, and back down); that’s getting easier to do, and I’m getting a stronger feeling of something moving around while doing that.

Which could totally all just be in my imagination! And, if there is a real physical correlation, I’m not sure to what. But I was noticing on Saturday that I’m starting to feel more active energy flow during silk reeling, so I’m going to want to nurture that more, I think. And, returning to the kua, I’m also starting to more actively notice as soon as my knee feels a twinge when doing something and using that as a reminder open my kua and shift my weight there.

Also while doing the form, all of a sudden I’m getting better while turning in some tricky situations with my foot in the air, in particular when shifting to the flash after Kick with the Right Heel. No idea when/why that happened, but I’m not complaining. And I’m trying to pay attention to maintaining a Ground Path and maintaining Peng; my hypothesis now is that those two are pretty closely linked, that you really want to maintain Peng a lot of the time and use the expanding downward part of that to maintain a Ground Path.

I’m out of town now visiting Miranda, so I didn’t do my normal practice on Sunday since I was on an airplane. I did do a bunch of those Qi Gong orbits while sitting and waiting, though… And no class today, of course, though I did make it out to a park yesterday and went through the form three times; hopefully I’ll find time to do that another few times before I leave. And hopefully I’ll find time to do my Qi Gong, too; I didn’t manage it today, though, because I was out during my normal lunch time and because I want to make sure I’m online and productive working remotely. I’ll miss next Saturday’s class because of that, but I will be back for next Tuesday’s.

Not much to say this time. I’ve been doing longer Qi Gong sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays this week; I think I’ll keep that up? I’m noticing more random sensations in my body while doing the form; e.g. I was noticing on Sunday that, when doing Embrace the Knee, there’s a funny twisting situation on the sole of my right foot, and when doing Reverse with Spiraling Forearms, I feel something on the side of my head near where my hand is moving. Also, energy seems to be extending more during the Ji part when you raise your hands at the start. So, basically, more seems to be going on internally.

And tonight I was noticing lots of little things that didn’t feel right in the first few moves of the form. E.g. when stepping back in the Pound Pestle, I think I probably leave my hands forward too much, or maybe even move them forward instead of just leaving them. Or in Grab and Tuck Robe I might be leaning to the side a little? Definitely no end of details for me to work on…

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’ve been doing 20 minutes of Wu Ji practice over lunch; this Thursday, I did a few other bits of Qi Gong after that, I think I’ll probably keep that up?

On Saturday, Tony was talking about Six Sealing Four Closing, and mentioned Peng (when going up on the left side); that surprised me, so I need to think about that. And then when we watched me doing that move, he said I was hopping, so I need to think about that as well! I actually spent a while doing that over and over again when practicing on Sunday, and I still don’t quite know how to put all of that together; for now, I’m concentrating on feeling the ground path more than I had been.

There was another push hands class on Saturday, but I didn’t like it as much as the first one. I was hoping that there would be more people repeating, but most of the class was new, so we mostly covered the same material; that would have been fine, but it also turned out that I was less well matched with the people that I was practicing with than I had been the previous week.

I finished that Nei Gong book; I’ll probably read more books by the author, and I’m still thinking I might go to a workshop of his? Even if I don’t do that, I might well reread the book in six months or a year.

And I’m continuing doing my Dantian Rotations and my very slow squats; Streaks is definitely helping with that. And my number of squats went up from 4 to 6 this week; so yay, if I keep that out, I can dig out of the really pathetic number that I started at.