I then suggested we try moving-feet tuishou, a suggestion that he met with a knowing smile. I knew that that meant; Mr. V and NL Guy have been practicing extremely long hours of moving-feet tuishou every single time I’ve seen them for what seems like years now. And when we started, he certainly had his pattern down. Stance, push, stance, push. Quite effective, and I found myself retreating as he went about in circles.

That code wasn’t too hard to break, however, and soon enough I was standing my ground and then advancing. Mr. V seemed intent on spinning me around, but he wasn’t able to engage enough torque. I tried spinning him around, which he seemed to think was a great advantage as he could use the momentum for an attack, but I just kept him going around again, and the energy was spent.

It was tiring work. Teacher X had arrived, and he introduced a guy from another group, a smallish middle-aged man wearing a blue Shell Oil T-shirt. We began tuishou, and he was fast and furious, trying to get the upper hand but unable. He was concentrating on handwork only, and noted that I wasn’t attacking. “I can barely keep up with you,” I replied. Though we were supposedly going set-foot tuishou, he kept advancing, and I began to step back, and before we knew it, we were doing moving-foot practice, and he became even more active, nervous in an almost desperate way. We rested for a moment, and then went back at it, full tilt moving-foot style, and I have to admit that I met his aggressiveness with even more energy than was necessary, releasing various pent-up energies and frustrations that I haven’t been able to deal with, and we were just about in a knock-down, drag-out brawl before we stopped.

I felt terrible about the whole thing. Teacher X stepped in and showed me how easy it was to deal with such a situation, calmly inviting attacks and gently moving them aside. I gave it another go, but by that point I was so tired I basically leaned on him the whole time, pushing at the space behind him instead of pushing him, and while this worked, it was about as inelegant a solution as you could ask for.

So, in a word, FAIL. More of a mental fail than a technique or physical fail, but that’s the biggest kind of fail in my opinion. Well, there’s always next time. In the meantime, at least I got some exercise as well as the largest collection of pushhands-related bruises I’ve ever sustained.

As I’m working two jobs now and have much less free time these days, I don’t get to exercise in the mornings as I used to be able to; no more hill climbing or even just walking about, and I think this is bad for me. Not much I can do about that for now other than taking lots of breaks and walking around at work. Tai-chi feels especially good, though, after so much time sitting on my ass.

Yang Qing-feng showed up today; I haven’t seen him in years, I think. I always had the hardest time practicing with him, as he is lightning quick, nimble and flexible; it’s like pushing cotton. We began with fixed-feet tuishou, and though I’ve improved and am able to gain the advantage once in a while, he’s still nearly as difficult to deal with; he spends most of his time bent back, out of my reach.

That all changed when we switched to moving tuishou. When I was able to advance and retreat, I found him surprisingly easy prey, at least until he fixed on the technique of grabbing my left hand and just not letting GO. Things got fairly intense, and I have the bruises on my arm to prove it. Still, it was amicable, and he didn’t, as so many people do, resort to simple quick shoves.

So today was a good workout, and I learned a few things. I also got empty-handed and sword practice in, though thunder was threatening as the afternoon wore on.

I have been practicing, regardless of any progress or lack thereof. Other students have come and gone. I rarely see Little Mountain Pig or Yang Qing-feng these days. Perhaps they go on other days. I do see Little Qin often, and of course NL Guy and Mr. V grapple for hours each time.

Last week an unfamiliar student showed up at the park. He was tallish, with an average build. People said he was from another group. I was practicing moving-step tuishou with Teacher X, but he hauled me over to practice with the new guy. Teacher X does this often. I suppose he thinks it’s good for me, and he’s probably right.

As usual, it started out well enough; smooth interaction, give and take, etc. He wasn’t very used to tuishou, though, and seemed frustrated. We switched to moving step. Then we switched again, or at least he did, to Wing-chun sparring. At first I tried to just keep going, but he was just waving his hands around and making little taps here and there. “I’m not even using any force!” He said proudly.

“Yeah, ok,” I said, stopping. “Perhaps you’ve misunderstood what we’re trying to do here. The group for guys who have seen Yip Man too many times is over there.” I pointed as Little Qin came over and began teaching the fellow actual tai-chi. Little Qin is far more suited to this particular task, as he is 1) very good and 2) he has a very high tolerance level.

Yesterday another two outsiders came over. I’d seen them around, though, and Teacher X said that their style was similar to ours. I practiced with the younger one while Teacher X practiced with the older to the two. Again, we started out normally, but, as I’ve witnessed many times when practicing tuishou with other people, the other man became tense and frustrated, using more and more force. He telegraphed every move, every push, and tightened into complete inflexibility. Whenever he did this, I just relaxed. When he grabbed my wrist, elbow or shoulder, I just gave it to him. I made some exploratory attacks, but even these resulted in overblown reactions. His mouth was set in a concentrated frown, and eventually he ended the session with a curt “thanks”.

It’s always educational to practice with people outside the group. I’ve found it’s best to just interact, even lose a few times first, just to see what they’re about, before doing anything else, although sometimes they just seem to fall over on their own.

In other news, I’ve updated the WP install, so I might do some tweaking here and elsewhere on the site. Or I might not. You never know.

Since you last heard from me on this subject, not much has happened. I’m still going to the park on Sundays. A couple of foreigners have begun to show up as well. I practiced pushhands with one of them once; didn’t learn much. He would tense up like a rock and make three attempts to push and then shove. Every time. It got a little tedious. Probably good practice though if I were more patient about things.

I’ve been practicing moving pushhands with Teacher X a lot lately. This is interesting and probably good for me in an aerobic sort of way. Last Sunday I did some moving swordfighting with Little Qin, which is always fun, if tiring. I kept having to switch hands.

At the end of practices, around 1 p.m. or so, a DPP-sponsored Anti-ECFA group sets up in the area and plays hymns against Chinese trade pacts like “Jesus Hates Chinese trade pacts, and so should you.” This is usually my signal to leave, as it’s hard to concentrate.

The newest development in the park are oddly shaped patches of grass being planted here and there. It’s some kind of art project, but I can’t imagine all of the wrestling, practicing, fighting, etc. being good for the grass. There’s a reason that area is just dirt: A century or so of scuffling. But who knows, maybe it will take root. Stranger things have happened.

We practiced some tuishou, and while he said I’d improved, I suspect he was trying to make me feel better as I’ve been stuck on the form for quite a long time. I need to practice lower stances to make retreating more effective. It’s not a really technical problem, just a matter of doing it more.

Then I did some swordwork, which always makes me feel better. While I enjoy the empty-handed form, the sword form feels better.

Mr. V and NL Guy finished their epic grapple, and announced that they’d been at it for an hour and a half. It turns out that they’re trying to break a record or something; their longest time is three hours and 25 minutes without stopping for rest. I’m not sure what the point of all this is.

The weather this morning was wonderful, however, and the dust wasn’t too bad either. I went through the forms, trying to keep my knees in the right position even though some felt awkward. Stretching will help with that; knee territory is always a bit iffy for me due to the old injury. As I went through the empty-handed form, Teacher X gave me tips and advice. While I welcome this, of course, it’s a little depressing to find that I’m only scraping the surface of all the movements within movements in even the smallest part of the form. Like learning a language, it’s a bottomless pit. A foreigner came up to me at one point wanting to know what style we were practicing, but I referred him to Teacher X, who can explain it better and was looking for places to practice his English as we always speak in Chinese.

The old guy who I filmed swordfighting with Little Qin came up to me and asked if I was done studying in the south, obviously mixing me up with some other non-ethnically Chinese person. Teacher X suggested that I practice tuishou with him, and I took pains to not be too combative, as I guessed from his remarks that he might be one of those people who wants to make sure everyone knows he’s Really Good. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes of pushing, slowly testing each others’ strategies, etc., he gave a quick shove, proving that he was Really Good. “See how heavy my hands seem?” he said as we practiced. I said yes. “Not like your hands, which seem very light, with hardly any substance at all!” I smiled at that, inwardly wondering if he knew that his hands were telegraphing his intentions as clearly as if he were saying it out loud. Before a quick shove, he would tense up and change his stance. He put a lot of stock into the quickness as well, part of his Japanese martial arts training. Later, when he was swordfighting with Little Qin, there was not a little Japanese swordwork in his style.

I really have to get some more suitable pants for practice; the traditional kind have too few pockets, and jeans are too restrictive. I should go to the supply store and have a look around, I suppose.

Teacher X called and said he couldn’t make practice as he was attending a wedding. By noon, nobody else had arrived. I went through the empty-handed form, feeling more cooperation, connection, hints of an assembly line of movement sculptured into a direction of force. It felt good.

Mr. V and NL Guy continued to grapple, not resting in over two hours. They weren’t going at it with the usual fervor, making me think it was some kind of endurance contest between them. Nearby a kid played with his father’s sword in the dirt, earning him a scolding.

I went through the sword form, which also felt very nice, with the sword feeling more of an extension of my arm than before. Little Qin hadn’t come either, which was too bad, as he always has an interesting thing or two to say about swordwork (couched in military terms, no doubt). Perhaps he was at the same wedding, if it involved a member of the martial arts circles he and Teacher X move in.

By the time I left, Mr. V and NL Guy were still locked in their stamina contest. It made me think of how our paths have diverged, even though we’re still training under the same teacher in supposedly the same style.

This last Sunday was not ideal, weather-wise, cold and windy, with an occasional sprinkle of rain making it through the sparse canopy of leaves above us. I helped Little Qin film his swordfighting with an older teacher, using a little DV camera that was so light it was hard to keep steady. They went at it over about ten minutes; the guy was good, but I got cold due to lack of movement, as I’d taken off my jacket to practice the forms and grapple with a new guy Teacher X had been instructing. The new guy was all force and no subtlety, but his incessant efforts, while ineffective, were tiring. Teacher X admonished me to take the initiative more, but he also recognized that I was pushing to a certain point, a point where the engagement had concluded in all aspects except for the actual pushing over, and then releasing my opponent. When the opponent doesn’t realize this, however, he thinks that I’m not pushing at all. Little Qin and Little Mountain Pig do this a lot, pushing up to the point of complete control and then releasing.

The sword master wanted me to film his bout with another guy, and this one was a lot more active, so I circled around the two, trying to keep them in frame. Little Qin said he’d like to put them on his website.

But I still felt useless. Nearby, NLGuy and Little Qin were locking swords again. He and Mr. V seem to be the only students who regularly show up on Sundays these days. I should go on Saturdays and weekdays as well, just to see who’s still around after all these years.

I went through the sword form, still feeling useless, before practicing sword-on-swordwork with Little Qin. This felt quite a bit better. In fact, it felt like a high-speed chess game, trying to think ahead, how he would parry and where he would strike next. Obviously, he’s a lot smoother than I am, being able to effortlessly catch the tip of my sword in the air and slide it around wherever he likes. My parries are far more crude and no doubt less effective. At one point I accidentally stabbed his hand, and it felt like I really got him, so I stopped, but he said it was ok. I noticed that his arms are covered in scratches and bruises. “I got that from NL Guy,” he said, pointing at an injury on his arm. I usually only get bruises and the occasional scratch, but I can see how one would come out like that after a bout with NL Guy, who is quite into that kind of thing. Little Qin said that he is thinking of getting together some kind of sword-practice getup together, but I don’t see how he can do it and still be maneuverable.

Little Qin was practicing swordfighting with No Lose Guy, so I practiced forms for a while, pausing to chat with my friend Steven Crook, who happened to be passing by while researching guidebook stuff. After Steve left I did some sword form practice, which was tiring at first, but it didn’t take too long to smooth things out.

At this point Little Qin and NLGuy were doing free-form tuishou, and I have to say Little Qin was, without any apparent effort, just stomping on NLGuy, whose name didn’t really hold up under the circumstances. NLGuy was bouncing back pretty well, though, I have to say. “You have to turn like a tank,” Little Qin was telling him, as usual putting things in military terms. “I’m not doing very well today,” he said later. “Only about 50-60%.”

After NLGuy had left, Little Qin and I did some swordfighting, which seemed to go better than before. I may be getting more used to it. He said that NLGuy would probably be sore for a few days afterwards, as he had used a few new techniques on him. “Usually we have to learn to lose before we learn how to win; NLGuy needs to realize that and he’ll learn much quicker.” He told me of a time when one tuishou practitioner challenged another in the park, both competition-level, but when he charged the guy, the other man simply knocked him out cold with one blow. He defended his actions, saying, “If you take that approach in attacking me, I will deal with it in an appropriate fashion.” At the time, Little Qin felt this to be a bit harsh, but upon reflection, he told me, he figures it was the right thing to do, i.e., “basically let the guy run into your fist.” Apparently, Master Yu could induce some pretty serious discomfort with a mere touch. “Teacher X knows this, but he doesn’t teach it,” Little Qin told me.

We talked about the saying “Where there is a method, there is a way of defeating that method; where there is no method, there is no way to defeat it” (my rough translation), and it occurred to me that this is useful not just in tai-chi but in many other areas, such as photography. It explains a lot, such as why some of the best photographs don’t follow any of the apparent “rules” of photography. To the lazy Taoist in my, it’s a great excuse for not having a real method, though, and I shouldn’t take it as such. Still, it was another one of those “Oh!” moments that I enjoy in studying this art.