I’ve had a similar experience with Qigong in the past. I didn’t even recognize what was happening at the time. I actually felt that my practice was not doing very much. I’d felt all of these wild sensations when I was learning with the teacher (e.g., feet cold like ice, palpable static/magnetic feeling between hands, etc.). Then when I went off to practice for 3 months by myself, everything ramped way way down.
But years later, looking back, I noticed that it had been underneath a series of significant perceptual shifts and openings during that time. I simply had not associated them with qigong practice.