I’ve been going to class three times a week lately, and practicing during my daily hikes up the hill behind my house as well. All of the practices seem to flow together, though; it’s hard to describe any one thing.

Basically, I’ve been working on connecting. I am able to disconnect during tuishou, but connecting everything together takes more work. Little Mountain Pig said that ones arms should not move of their own accord, rather every movement should derive from the torso’s movement. I find this quite helpful, actually. Teacher Xu said that, most of the time, ones elbows stay around the 90-degree angle, whereas more goes on with the shoulders than most people realize. He also told me to get more in the habit of spreading my hands flat instead of cupped, as is natural. Apparently this helps with the whole connecting thing.

The construction fumes at the opera hall at CKS Memorial were overpowering last Saturday, so we adjourned to the park under some trees, which was nice. I twisted my leg practicing with the UPS guy, though. I really need to protect myself better with some of the more violent students, and not get into it with them so much. On the other hand, I think I deal with them better than used to.

I’ve been going to more classes recently, so it’s hard to document each one. I may just stop doing a post for each class and just write when I feel like it.

In any case, the more I study tai-chi and tuishou and the like, the more I realize how deep the rabbit hole goes, and how little I actually know. There are a million things about each little thing; you could spend a lifetime on just one move, let alone an entire form. While this is pretty cool when you think about it, it’s also not a little disconcerting.

Little Mountain Pig has kind of taken me under his wing, so to speak, lately, and is putting me through his kind of training, which sometimes gets pretty intense, for me, anyway. It’s good practice, though. He does a lot of moving-feet tuishou, as well as scimitar work. Though I have a scimitar at home, I’m not going to study that for a while yet.

“Push like you’re trying to hold a fish in the water,” Teacher X told us the other day. I think he meant gently, not with a sudden jerk, though. There’s a woman who practices with us at Sun Yat-sen Memorial during the week. She’s very violent and even left No-Lose Guy with a bruise on his chest (though that may be his fault; I imagine that he is the Really No Lose Guy when practicing with a woman). I practiced with her once and came away with a sore arm that she nearly yanked out of its socket. I don’t know what she feels she has to prove, but I wish she’d get it out of her system.

This last Saturday Teacher X told me about keeping my hands straight and positioned so that my energy is coming from my spine and stance rather than from my arms. I think this may be quite important and one reason I have such a hard time attacking effectively and efficiently. By twisting and holding your hands and fingers just so, you are connecting the energy in your body. I’m not bad at disconnecting, but I need to work on connecting and utilizing this energy.

I went to Sun Yat-sen Memorial on Thursday night, as I’m thinking of changing my class schedule to Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday instead of just Wednesday-Saturday. Yonghe is also a bit out of my way and runs too late. Also, I am looking into maybe adding another night of badminton, which I enjoy, on Wednesdays.

The space at SYS is smaller and more crowded, however, and it’s hard to find space to do the forms. I suppose it’s more about tuishou anyway; CKS Hall is better for the form stuff.

In addition to Teacher X and the one woman in our group, as well as Little Mountain Pig, NL Guy and some of the newer students, there were several students there I didn’t recognize. One of them was NL Guy’s 17-year-old son. He was surprisingly easy to push, the opposite of his father. He asked me if I was going practice there regularly. I said probably.

“That’s good,” he said. “I need to practice my English.”

“What does you’re English have to do with me?” I asked. We were conversing in Chinese, by the way. He hemmed and hawed a bit, then changed the subject.

“How long have you been in Taiwan?”

“Longer than you,” I said.

The other unfamiliar student turned out to be all attack and no retreat, I found after practicing with him for an exhausting 15 minutes or so. It’s good to practice with other people and extend one’s experience.

I borrowed the woman’s sword to practice that, but the balance was really strange, and I had a hard time of it. Pig lent me his scimitar, which, though shorter than most, was also really heavy. With a scimitar, however, you pretty much let it do all the work. I’m not sure I want to start on the scimitar form just yet, though. There’s also tai-chi staff, which I think would be more accessible, but again, I’ll leave that for later.

On Saturday I went to CKS Hall’s opera hall to find it practically taken over by people affiliated with a basketball contest. Our group was smushed into a corner. Little Mountain Pig wasn’t there, so Teacher X and I talked about how much he likes to teach other students. An older guy, not in uniform (I don’t think he’s really part of our group) was pushing with Mr. V and another student while NL Guy chatted with Teacher X and another student, the new guy from the kung-fu school.

I practiced the empty-handed form and then watched a firetruck crew release a pigeon that was trapped in the hall’s roof netting before going through the sword form. After everyone else had left, NL Guy and I had a pretty good practice. The reason it went better than usual, I’m guessing, was not only because I was avoiding attacking him, as he seems to take any hint of an attack as a personal insult against him and his entire family, but also because I figured being generous is the way to go when pushing with him; whatever he wants, he gets, basically. As little resistance as possible, just a smidgen of sideways effort to put him off course enough to disarm him. When I tried to explain this to him, he just said, “Yeah, but your attacks are terrible.”

Saturday was interesting. I got some good advice on my form stances, mainly that I shouldn’t go up and down so much. I have bridges where I should have on-ramps, in road-terms.

Little Mountain Pig and I practiced moving tuishou, which was a real chore for me. Incorporating footwork into the equation really shakes things up, at least if you’re not used to it. Pig was performing quick, forceful attacks as well.

After class we went to a nearby apartment building so that NL Guy could pick up a new sword. The woman who operates the place let us in after Teacher X called her from the stairwell where we were all congregated, earning us a few curious stares from the other residents. The apartment, about the size of mine at a bit over 20 pings, was full of swords and other weapons. We all got to try out many different swords and other things. I was tempted to get another sword, but I can’t really justify spending the money, and my swords suit me just fine already.

That was Saturday. On Wednesday night, everyone was already at the park at 8:30pm, which is early for them. I practiced with Guo for a bit before being able to go through the form, working on correcting my stance and other problems Teacher X had pointed out. Then I practiced with one of the new guys, who adopted a prizefighter stance, sans the bouncing, for his pushing. All I had to do was wait for him to unbalance himself, but it was interesting anyway. I practiced with Weeble, who apparently has gone out to Tucheng to challenge a group out there, and “won”. “You should try it,” he said to me again. “You’d do well.”

Yang Qing-feng was there, and I practiced with him a bit. Practicing with Qing-feng is different than it is with the others, as we both know when the breaking point is about to be reached, and he stops before pushing me over most of the time. It was more like a game of chess than a wrestling bout.

Teacher X told us that pushing should be without force, as force destroys the very thing you’re trying to achieve, force simply creates more opportunities for your opponent. “So it’s kind of like pushing bubbles,” I said, and he nodded. “Like pushing very expensive, million-dollar bubbles up onto a shelf,” he said. He also reiterated the fact that in general straight lines are easier to manipulate than curves, and it’s not a bad idea to keep this in mind when considering one’s stance and strategy. “Why concentrate only on the points of resistance?” he said. “There are so many other points to use!”

He also cautioned us against signaling our intentions with our hands. “Just place them,” he said. “Energy flows towards emptiness on its own.”

I’ve decided to keep writing in this account, at least what I feel appropriate, for now. If this means omitting a few things here and there, so be it. I’ll just have to decide it myself.

Little Mountain Pig, Weeble, Guo, Teacher X and his son were all at the park last night when I got there, relatively early at 8:30. Usually nobody shows up until around 9. I warmed up with the form while Weeble and Guo went at it. After that, Pig got out his wooden swords, and we practiced “tuijian” or “pushing swords”. Basically it’s just tuishou with swords. I used to do it before with another sword student friend of mine who disappeared, but that was many years ago, and I’m really rusty at it. It was interesting and instructive, though, complementing the form as tuishou does, in that it’s more real-world and interactive. “Not bad,” Pig said afterwards. “You’re not afraid of the blade, anyway.” I had to switch hands every so often as my shoulders got tired, even though the wooden sword is much lighter than either my real sword or my practice sword. I don’t get tired doing the sword form, but tuijian lasts a lot longer, and you’re actually dealing with another person’s force.

Pig tried to get Guo to practice with me, but he refused, insisting that he was just learning sword. I found this odd as Guo was practically teaching Teacher X’s son the sword form. Weeble was game, though he would only use his right hand. I was a bit wary of Weeble; if it was anything like his tuishou, he’d be doing quick surprise thrusts that could hurt someone, even with just a wooden sword. Fortunately, he never got his weapon into position to do anything of the sort. He started to run around in order to get into an attack position, but I called him on it.

After that we put down the swords, and Weeble and I practiced normal tuishou. Weeble is still very rigid and unyielding, committed to pushing with pure force. I asked him why that was, and he told me “someone” told him he was too soft. “That’s hard to believe,” I said. “No one in our group, I hope?” He said it was someone outside our group, in another group. “Why are you listening to them?” I asked.

“Because I want to compete!” he said, trying to get me to attack with more force. He highly recommended going around to other tai-chi and other tuishou groups and trying them out. While I’m interested in experiencing different styles, etc., I’m not remotely interested in competitive tuishou. It just seems like the antithesis of the whole idea behind tai-chi.

I was late to practice due to unexpected complications at the dentist last night. Guo, Weeble, Little Mountain Pig and Teacher X were all there. I chatted with Teacher X a bit; he corrected me on my impression that the old student from last week had gotten out of dentistry; it turns out I got that wrong.

Teacher X told me about the 8 Points and left/right-right/left, which I found pretty useful. LM Pig practiced with me for while. He said it took him a long time before he could put his palms together behind his back. I can do this already, for some reason. He reminded me that we can incorporate tai-chi in everyday life. “Little Qin used to ask Master Yu why he was never seen practicing the forms,” he told me, though this was well before Pig’s time. “Master Yu said he was practicing all the way there, just by walking.”

As I was talking with Teacher X I realized that it is inevitably going to run into some problems; mainly, I can’t be sure what I should and should not communicate on here concerning what I’m learning, for similar reasons that I was discussing with Pig on Saturday. I’ve gotten some clues that it might be the best idea to relate everything we talk about on here. In fact, I started this account almost two years ago as more of an open notebook for recording my progress and stuff I’d learned, so not writing about everything feels a little strange. The only other option, really, would be to make this a private journal. I don’t know if I would have as much of an impetus to write in it in that case, even though I realize that hardly anyone reads it now.

I’ll have to think about this.

There was a new student at the park last Wednesday, who turned out to be an old student of Teacher X’s from like ten years ago. He’s opened up a couple of dentist offices over the years, Teacher X told me. We practiced a bit, and he wore himself out trying to push me, and I wore myself out not being pushed. Not a great learning experience. A couple of weeks ago I finally managed to successfully turn aside one of Teacher X’s attacks, which made me pretty happy. Of course, all he had to do was push me in the other direction, and I went down. Oh well. Still: progress!

I went to practice on Saturday morning at CKS Hall because I needed the boost and to work out some kinks after a largely sleepless night. Due to endless construction on the concert hall, our group has moved to the opera hall across the square. I was surprised to see only one dancing student group. As I warmed up and went through form work, a group of young art students showed up with wooden boards and paper.

No-lose Guy and Mr. V were going at each other in freestyle tuishou, shoving each other around the veranda, as I talked with Teacher X about his latest interest in Gothic calligraphy. He told me that a drunken mainlander has been bothering the group at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall site where they practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Apparently he and Teacher X got into it a bit last week. “Little Mountain Pig had a talk with him,” Teacher X said.

A small group of people walked up the stairs about then. One of the group, a middle-aged Caucasian fellow, did some martial arts poses for the rest of the group, who were apparently Taiwanese. They took pictures, applauded and praised his prowess in English.

Little Mountain Pig showed up a bit later, and, surprisingly, gave me a rather in-depth lesson in the basics. The basic part isn’t a surprise, as he usually does that, but I wasn’t expecting him to get to into it. “You should be like a spring toy from the waist up,” he said, telling me not to rotate my body from the waist down so much (this is what the UPS Guy does too). “When you’re bent over in any direction,” -he bent backwards, forwards and to each side without really moving his legs- “Someone should be able to lay a table flat on top of you.” We practiced for a bit, and he provided an answer to the question of why Weeble was experimenting with not shoving people over as forcefully as he could last week. “Once you feel your opponent has nowhere to go, you can pull him back; you’ve both learned all you’re going to learn at that point,” he said. “If you’re really serious, though, you should be able to make your opponent jump back twice. This gives you an advantage in a fight, as he’s out and away from you, and you can plan your next move. One jump isn’t enough.” He also said it was more natural to keep your palms down when pushing. “The instinct is to turn your palms up, as you feel more in control, but as Master Zheng said, you should have hands everywhere, not just at the end of your arms.”

Pig has a similar yet different attitude about how one should view oneself in relation to other students. “You should see yourself as an expert,” he told me. “That way you’ll dare do things you wouldn’t otherwise try.” I told him about my view that I was the worst student in the class, so that I could be free to do anything without repercussions on any kind of reputation. “That works, too,” he said. “It basically means the same thing.”

After practice, when everyone else had left, we got to talking. He told me that the reason Little Qin hasn’t come to practice lately was because he was pissed off at L.M. Pig for teaching students who were outside our group. Apparently Little Qin takes the whole keeping-the-tradition-inside-the-family thing, and thought Pig was betraying Master Yang’s hard work in collecting such knowledge. So he told Pig they could talk about anything as long as it wasn’t about Tai-chi. “But everything is about Tai-chi, when you come down to it!” Pig told me. I get the feeling he regrets the rift between him and Little Qin.

When I pointed out that Little Qin himself has a blog on the subject, one that anyone can read, he said “That doesn’t matter; you can’t learn the essence of our style by reading about it. You have to be taught in person.”

“Someone once asked Master Yu if he was afraid that foreigners would steal all of his techniques,” Pig related. “Master Yu just laughed and said that would be very difficult, as so much of it needs to be seen through the context of Chinese culture and thought.” I couldn’t tell if this was what Pig himself believes. “You’ve got it, though, as you’re not really a foreigner,” he told me.

I’ve been skipping practice on Saturday mornings lately, due to other obligations. I hope to return to that when I have more time. I was first to the park last Wednesday, so I had some time to go through the sword form a few times before other students arrived. The new guy, Little Mountain Pig, Guo and Weeble seem to be the usual suspects lately. I did the empty-handed form after sword, which always feels strange because I need to remember to not project my focus beyond my hands as I do with the sword.

A group of badminton players tried to take over our space, but it turned out there was plenty of room for everyone. It was a bit distracting, however, as I also like badminton. I sat on the curb for a while, crushing leaves from the mystery plant. Guo literally ran away to find someone else to practice with, or perhaps I am reading too much into it. Maybe he reads this account and doesn’t like being described here. He and LMP both consider themselves high-level students, but when they practice together, LMP puts his hand on his head, as if he’s psychically trying to influence his opponent or something. He almost always pushes with one hand, testing the somehow inferior partner’s basic skills. The only time I’ve ever seen him really do tuishou was with Little Qin.

So it was up to us “lower-level” students, me and Weeble. It was hopeless, though, as Weeble, in a total reversal from last week, has reverted to his usual tense, “quick shove” style wrestling. He told me to push the skin, not the bones. It didn’t really work. Watching us, the badminton players laughed and aped our movements.

Teacher X said, “Your opponent creates your strategy with his energy. It’s like a triangle.” He stomped his foot. “That’s energy,” he said.

It’s been ages since I practiced. Last night I finally had some time to go to class in Yonghe. Another new guy was there, along with Guo, Weeble, Little Mountain Pig and Teacher X. Surpriginly, LMP was wearing shoes.

I loosened up and went through the empty-handed form, or what I remember of it, a few times. Then Weeble and I practiced. He’s realized that the only way that he can improve is by avoiding the sudden violent acts he used to spring on his opponents, which is a hopeful sign.

I was really tired and didn’t offer much resistance anyway. I then practiced with the new guy, whose name is Lai. Mostly I stood in front of him and waited for him to loose balance and fall over, but that’s the way it usually is at first.

When I’m resting, I always pick and crush some of the plant leaves on the border of the park, as I like their scent. I asked Weeble if it was mint, but he said no. Weeble works at a baozi stand, so he should know. If I find out what plant it is, I’d like to buy some for my place.

There was an unfamiliar guy sitting on the curb with everyone, away from our usual spot, which had been taken over by a rather amorous couple. Teacher X was talking with him, and pointed at me as I walked up, and the guy shook his head. Later, as I did some form work, he pushed with Weeble and things got a bit violent. I was glad it wasn’t me, to be honest, though it’s always interesting to practice with new people.

I practiced with Teacher X’s son, who is “serving” in the alternative service instead of military service. He’s put on some weight and is more flexible, but still relatively easy to get off balance. He’s a bit taller than me. Later on, Guo and Weeble were trying to shove each other over in an almost comical fashion, as Teacher X and I looked on from the curb. Teacher X was talking a bit more about our group’s history, how it was a combination of Yang and Wu styles thanks to Teacher Song’s studying not only with Zheng Man-qing, but also with the Wu teacher.

After Teacher X had left, I went through some sword form, while Guo and Weeble watched, disapprovingly. Guo took out his sword, which he has been studying recently, and gave me a few “tips”. “I am a more serious student, so I picked it up quicker, only two months,” he told me. Yeah, whatever, I thought. He tells me the same thing about tuishou. I’m not exactly sure why he seems to want to impress me. I don’t terribly mind being known as the worst sword student in the class as well as the worst tuishou student; it doesn’t really matter to me where I stand, as long as I’m still doing it.