Hi Steve
Sorry for the delay in responding. Thanks so much for your response. I've been sticking at it, slowly building up, trying different times of day, visualising physically doing what I find painful to do, really opening to the universal energy, saying "yes" to the healing, and listening to "Faith and Confidence" each night before I go to sleep(which has been really amazing). I've had all kinds of reactions (tingling, nervous tics, pains in my feet, kidneys, lung areas, drooling whily meditating, heat, etc. I know it's just "stuff" clearing, and I.m happy for the blockages to open and go. I don't fight it.
So I've gone from only doing 10 mininutes of Active Ex followed much later by 10 min of Small universe to this morning doing 25 minutes of Active ex followed immeditately by about 27 minutes of Small universe. I definitely find it more powerful to do Active and the Small universe straight after. I was doing a total of 30 minutes of both combined, so I feel quite pleased to slowly up it to about 50 minutes. I've also tried doing both 5-7 in the evening which gave me a real boost. This morning I did them at 6:15 AM!!! and that felt good, though my balance wasn't as good in 7 Steps; I was definitely more wobbly.
But if I could get my practice up to 30 min Active ex followed immediately by Small universe for 15 minutes at either 5-7 AM or PM, would that be equivalent to 1 hour's practice. ANd in the manual, when Chunyi Lin says 1 hour, does he mean for Active ex's alone or for the combined practice of both Active ex and meditation?
I also do 1 hour 45min -2 hours of stretches( I was taught in hospital) every morning for my pain levels and to keep my scar tissue flexible and muscles/joints mobile, so I am trying to make SPF Qigong fit easily into my life. I am hoping that after a time of doing qigong that I may not need to do so many morning hospital-learned stretches, and that I will know when that it is and which ones to let go of.
Peggy
