Hi J,
My advice is to keep doing your SFQ qigong. I doubt that your neck rotations, the day before, showed up as an injury the following morning. That said, and whatever, don't have a concern about leaving out the neck rotations. That doesn't throw everything off. The broader template of a warmup/beginning, middle, and closing to your session can still be in place, and provides a balance to your sessions.
Beginning: bouncing, physical alignments(chin tuck/vertical alignment, tongue, master's energy connection
middle: active exercise or meditation, one active or all, or whatever
closing: Harvesting qi, master's energy disconnect.
Manipulations of the spine can come into harvesting qi. The neck is part of that, as well as the twisting, and dolphining. Although these are very beneficial, the other parts to harvesting qi are very beneficial too, alone or in a set. Any of the movements in Havesting qi can be isolated, or incomplete as a set, and be of benefit. Tapping the tail bone, cupping the kidneys, rubbing the hands, the whole face,combing, ear massage. Taking any of these and doing them singularly, at any given time, is beneficial.
The vertical spine alignment you make in qigong, is very 'regenerative'. Give your neck some regeneration! Keep the energy moving through your neck. Align and heaL. Do your qigong!
Necks and backs are very sensitive. They can just go twang here and there, especially , relative to getting older. The injuries can seem to come out of nowhere. You wake up injured, 'sleep wrong', so to speak, or bend over once and something goes awry.
Energy can stagnate in an injury, and get worse. As I say, just making the vertical spine alignment, putting the tongue up,reverse breathing if you are inclined, all simple 'very' transformational things that keep energy moving.
Neck rotations:
As you recover, you can reapproach neck rotation. No hurry.
It is the circle in the rotation that is key. Not the size of the circle, or the speed. In the beginning, establish a slow continuous smooth circle. Every point on that circle the same as every other. No emphasis, smooth all around. It may take on a self defining self propulsion. focus on drawing the circle. You can start small, as if in the core of an area. I would say that in general, often circles in related practices go from big to small. That is a very general statement,but I want to just emphasize that you can do the circle quite small, in reapproaching it, to not challenge your structure. You may even be able to feel a circle now, dime size, and do that within the confines of the injury. If that doesn't seem doable, just stick with the general vertical alignment you express through the whole of active exerices, save a few head movements. Just do the exercises that don't move the head in any way if you like for now. You are either healthy, doing qigong to help prevent illness and injury, or starting where you can, perhaps limited from injury or illness, and moving towards doing more. It is a transformational practice. It is important to do the 'physical' movements correctly. Most of the movement is very passive.
You can use sword finger clearing of the neck/spine to augment your exercise, or anytime. Do it before you begin, or during, when you are in a more focused and open state. Clear the whole of your spine, as well as the neck.
The eyes are closely related to the neck, in terms of tension.
Relaxing the face and eyes, relaxes the neck and sort of separates components in your head. You can say, look to the left or right, leading with the eyes, and letting the head follow, and feel how the eyes can separate from the head movement, for instance. So when you rotate your neck, you can sort of sense a level of relaxation or held tension in the components of the head/face/eyes. The more you relax all the parts, the smoother and more fluid the rotation is. When I relax my face, I feel quite a shift in unconsciously held tension. That face relaxation, can still be within the light of a smile. Moving slowly in the rotation, as opposed to cranking it around. Feeling, within the movement.
love,
gallen
