Hi! I've been studying and practicing what Johnson teaches; it's incredibly comprehensive and invaluable. He literally teaches everything. Regarding your question, I think I would recommend reading his autobiography (it's very entertaining) and his book, Nei Gong Wei Gong Training, which is extremely instructive. Cheers!
I agree! I started with the medicine ones, mind you (I was a mess and just found out about qigong at the time). Now that I really know what I want, studying Daoism fr, and Nei Gong Wei Gong training really is an amazing one to start!
I consistently began building and following a routine in March of this year. Claude AI - Notebook LM was incredibly helpful in understanding and structuring everything, as it's tremendously effective in helping you progress and clarify doubts. There's a key 100-day period of daily practice where his system "prepares," and the changes are progressive and tangible at an energetic level. Similarly, all of Johnson's material is like a sandbox; it gives you warnings, but it's not moralistic. You can experiment; the key is consistency. For three months, I dedicated two hours and 45 minutes daily to it. Then I restructured my routine so it wouldn't be so exhausting, but in my opinion, Johnson's material is very comprehensive. It's also complemented by Pang Ming's Zhineng Qigong, which is also a high-caliber energy technology. Furthermore, Johnson wasn't just a compiler; he was the only Westerner accepted into a closed circle and officially recognized by the Chinese government. He's still alive and in his seventies. A great Sifu.
I have a pro account on Claude, which gives me access to more tools. Notebook LM is also an excellent alternative; it's more economical too. Chat GPT isn't useful because it can't review that many documents and makes far more mistakes. In Claude Pro, I created a project with Johnson's books; it's not enough to include them all, but in Notebook LM, you can add all his PDFs at once. The key concepts to consider for the exercises are posture (most are standing in Wuji), tongue position (key to the energy circuit), perineum contraction (or not), directed breathing, and key points like the three dantians, hyuyin, yintang, niwan, etc. There's a whole ecosystem of terms (a glossary) that you need to learn or be familiar with. It requires some time and discipline, but AI support is quite helpful; however, you should always double-check. I hope these tips are helpful!