Monk Drinks Wine

Sorry I haven't been posting lately. Things have been pretty busy, but I've been keeping up with my practice. I've gotten the two advanced flying phoenix standing meditations, wind through the trees and moonbeam splashes on water, down pretty well and been working on those. I've also added a stretching for flexibility routine to the end of my practice, which has been a huge help. My legs have been falling asleep very quickly in half-lotus doing the FPQG sitting medtiations, and getting some of my old flexibility back has helped me be more comfortable sitting for long stretches of time. Maybe eventually I'll even more to full lotus. I've also managed to dramatically reduce my caffeine consumption. Just sitting at a desk all day, I didn't realize how much coffee I was going through. Now I'm down to one small cup and after that, I'm only drinking tea and some b-12 for energy. Hopefully I'll be able to cut it out all together soon, but I think the drastic drop in caffeine is what triggered my migraine a couple weeks ago, so I'm trying to be careful.

When I do Flying Phoenix, I definitely feel more warm from having increased circulation. Doing taiji or zhanzhaung though, sometimes my hands or another body part will become so warm that it's actually uncomfortable for me, and I definitely don't feel that during FPQG.

Well, I missed another practice day since my last post due to a severe migraine, but otherwise, I've kept up my practice. I started working on "Moonbeam Splashes on the Water" which has been fun to learn and a nice change of pace since I've been concentrating on the standing post meditations.

I've gotten my 30 minutes in the past couple days since my last post. I realized that in the past two months or so, I've been coming to think of qigong more as a chore or something I'm doing to reach a goal so I'm trying to shift my thinking to view it more as something I do for me, as a treat, rather than as another thing I *have* to do. I'll let you guys know how that goes.

Got another 30 minutes in this morning.

Well after work and seven hours on the road yesterday, qi gong was not happening. But I took advantage of the day off and got an hour in this morning.

Two mornings in a row I've slept through my alarm. I've never been a morning person, and trying to get a morning practice going is a challenge. I managed to get 30 minutes of Flying Phoenix in last night, and I'll see if I can't squeeze some in tonight, even though I'm going to be traveling for the holiday. I'd hate to break my streak.

I managed to drag myself out of bed an extra half-hour before work and get the seated Flying Phoenix done for the day. Tonight I'll do some standing. I really hope I get my meditation cushion soon. Sitting for 1/2 hour in half-lotus is really making my legs fall asleep, which is getting really distracting.

Yup. We're in a marathon, not a sprint.

Knocked out another 30 minutes of flying phoenix this morning. :-)

Walker, your posts are a treasure. People world never dream of walking into a pharmacy and picking their own antibiotics. How much more difficult is it to choose medicine from such a foreign system?

Can I get in on this? I woke up this morning and started my day with 30 minutes of Flying Phoenix Qigong.

My first taiji teacher participated in a comparison study of sports at the Indiana University School of Public Medicine in Indianapolis. He said that of all the sports they studied, ballroom dancing was the only one that beat out taiji for increasing blood circulation.

Hello. Not much to say about me really. I was here a few years ago but wanted a clean start. I've been practicing Taiji for six years, first Yang style and now Chen style, which sparked my interest in Daoism. I've also been practicing Flying Phoenix Qi Gong daily for over a month now. I've been working my way through the huge FP thread.