Qigong

I've been meaning to post for a few days, but every time I sit down to do it, either Blogger is playing at some updates or I have something more pressing to use the computer for. In the meantime, I've kept training, which I prefer to posting anyway. Since it's been four or five days since I've said anything (or longer?), it's fair to guess I've put a couple of hours on the circle since my last post and have continued with the Heavy Grippers per the instructions. I can rather comfortably 'close,' meaning almost close with only a couple of millimeters to go, the two-hundred-pound one five times now in the right and three in the left, but my workout centers on sets of twelve or ten with the one-fifty -- followed by air grabs and the seizing and grasping palm postures along with some fingertip pushups.

Today, though, I turned for thirty-five or so and then did my leg workout again, twice through, and kind of marveled at how much easier it was than this time last week (which means it was still hard). I added in some forward and backward jogging to up my cardio, per the instructions of my chiropractor/nutrition therapist -- right after the jumping (grr...). It felt good, though. I also managed a fair amount of one-step and three-step striking, but I did no forms.

What I have done, and what has really cut into my ability to turn for over twenty-five or thirty minutes without really putting forth some will to continue, is start to restore my once flourishing qigong and meditation practices. Currently, I'm hitting ten or twenty minute sessions three or four times per day in zhan zhuang and sitting at least as long in quiet meditation. To add to it, I've also added in a handful of other balancing qigong exercises. This was all spurred by seeing a demonstration of a commonplace skill in intermediate or advanced Chinese martial arts, fa jin or fa jing. After studying up rather intensively on it the other day, I found that regardless of knowing techniques for it, fa jing is not really possible at all without a firm, long-term foundation in qigong. Since I had started down that road about two years ago in a fairly effective way and then bailed on it completely after about four months (due to a life-situation change and poor adaptation to it in terms of continuing many of my pursuits in favor of other, also healthy, ones), I figured I already had a theoretical foundation and should get back to the practice. Thankfully, my wife is undertaking the endeavor with me, which is exciting and helpful because I don't feel like I have to alienate myself from her for a while each day to cultivate. In any case, though, the zhan zhuang I'm doing doesn't so much tax my shoulders as leave them rather exhausted so that after twenty-five or thirty minutes in the Lion posture on the circle, my arms are unduly heavy and need a break.

I'm looking forward to the development this should bring. Just starting the practice with resolve has really changed my overall daily pattern from one that was possibly laced with destructive time-wasting on a rather large scale to one that is far more healthful and enjoyable. Once I've adapted to the combined training, I'm hoping to see gains on the circle and throughout by bagua. I'd love, in fact, to see an amping up of my shocking strikes, which I consider to be rather deficient at the time being.