Sunday was a beautiful late summer day, a little cooler than usual. The number of cicadas is decreasing these days; the end of Ghost Month was being celebrated at a paper temple set up by the restrooms nearby as I exited the subway station at the park. I’ve always felt like the station should be named the 2/28 Park Station rather than NTUH Station, as the most significant exits are in the park, but people seem to think that hospitals are a trump card as far as station naming goes.

NL Guy was wrestling with one of the students who seldom comes to practice, while Teacher X instructed Little Mountain Pig on some of the finer points of sword form. Being rather rusty in the sword department myself, I joined in. I can still do the form, but, after going through the whole thing with Teacher X, the point was driven home for me that there are many areas in which I need work. Teacher X is going to the US for his calligraphy course soon, possibly next week, and we’ll have a month or so without him before he returns in November.

After Teacher X left I did some tuishou with Little Qin, who told me that the body can be divided into Yin and Yang portions, which change depending on how you use them. For some reason this struck a chord with me, one of those “Oh!” moments that has an immediate and apparent effect on one’s performance. It got me thinking of pandas for some reason, possibly the visualization of one’s body being covered in shifting patterns of black and white.

The more you use this, he said, the less you need your hands. Little Qin discourages the use of palms in tuishou, as “Anyone can use their palms to grab and push and pull; what we need to learn to do is use everywhere else.” As Master Zheng said, “Your whole body is a hand.” We transferred the idea to swordwork as well, with the edge of the sword being generally a yang part and the flat part the yin, but not always: Little Qin demonstrated how each can be used as the other, and told me the story of Master Zheng disarming a Japanese samurai by simply controlling him instead of fighting him directly. It was all quite neat.

I was the first one of our group at the park last Sunday when I arrived at 10 a.m. The others didn’t begin to arrive until half an hour later, so I spent the time warming up and running through empty-handed and sword forms. It was promising to be a hot day, but at least the leaves are still on the trees, providing some shade. Mr. V and NLguy are quite chummy these days; they spent the entire time wrestling each other; I guess it makes sense as their approaches have always been similar.

Teacher X was telling me how he would have to leave for his calligraphy class a week early due to the October holiday rush when Little Mountain Pig called on me to practice with a guy from outside our group. He was surnamed Liu, in his late 50′s and small. I started slow, taking Little Qin’s advice to see if I could push my opponent up to the point of defeat and then stopping. At first I though that Mr. Liu was taking the same tactic, but it appeared that he was getting bored with all the pussyfooting around, and his moves became a lot less smooth, exerting a constant, rigid force.

This became quite tiring, but I was still curious, so we kept at it. Then the quick, hard shoves began, and it was NLGuy all over again. Mr. Liu seemed frustrated as well, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like practicing with me very much. Oh, well. It’s like LM Pig says, with tuishou it seems that you’re either interesting in learning or winning.

I practiced tuishou with Little Qin, who always has some interesting move or observation to impart. Usually it turns out to be something I never would have thought of or guessed, some move that completely doesn’t make sense and yet works flawlessly. “Yi jin dang chang,” he said, which roughly means putting everything into the action. Afterwards we did some swordplay, with me switching hands when I got tired. The practical work is good for me, the equivalent of tuishou with swords.

Little Qin tried to dispel me of my notion of studying taichi staff before scimitar. “Sword takes 10 years of practice,” he told me, “and scimitar three after that. Staff should only be a year.” In any case, it’s still a bit early to be thinking that far ahead, but I still have my doubts about the scimitar. A military man, Little Qin compared sword to a light tank while “the scimitar is a heavily armed helicopter.” To be honest I’m not sure what to make of that. Little Qin often says things that go way over my head; I just file them away in the hope that I might realize what he was talking about some day.

Hard to believe it’s almost September again. Due to the fact that I didn’t have to take the red-eye bus from the south this weekend, I had no trouble getting up in time for practice at the park this morning. I got there just before Yang Qing-feng, and we practiced a bit. He seemed tired, and I seemed to be doing relatively well against him, as I usually have the most trouble with him for some reason. We were talking about it, and I’m thinking that he just picks up on signals more easily than some of the other students, and he is also very quick to yield and turn around an attack. He seemed to be resorting more and more to the quick push strategy, which he said was necessary as I see the slow moves coming. Teacher X said I should try more three-dimensional strategies, basically turning him like a wheel, and that seemed to work ok. I do need to be more subtle, though. A lot of it is in my attitude.

NL Guy and Little Qin were practicing contact swordwork nearby, and I took some video with my camera of some of it:

There was also a new student, already in the purple uniform of our group. He shares two characters in his name with me and is a rescue worker. As we practiced together I just let him try to push me and didn’t try to counter attack, but Teacher X said I should, so I started pulling him around a bit on each attempt until he got tired.

I went through the sword form a couple of times, and then practiced contact sword with Little Qin. This was very instructional. Hitherto, I hadn’t really given much thought to exactly where my concentration should lie when using swords; I’d always simply focused on the tip when going through the form; As we practiced, Little Qin told me what should be obvious: I should be focusing on the point of contact with the other sword. I’d only really been using a tiny fraction of the sword’s potential all this time. I also figure I should concentrate more on using my left hand as well as my right for combat, as I use my right hand for forms, and I’m left-handed.

Little Mountain Pig is presently reviewing his sword with Teacher X, and I pay attention when I can to that as well. Teacher X will be gone in October and part of November, so I should spend that time reviewing I guess.

I’ve been playing with a local band all over the island on weekends for the past couple of months, invariably getting back to Taipei around 7 a.m. and sleeping through practice. But last Sunday I managed to drag my tired ass to the park; I just felt like I needed the practice, and the weather was so nice I couldn’t pass it up.

Mr. V, Little Mountain Pig, NL Guy, Yang Qing-feng and Teacher X were all there already. Qing-feng was talking with an older man, while LM Pig reviewed the sword form and Mr. V grappled with NL Guy. Teacher X told me that he was going to be in the U.S., Ohio to be exact, from October to December studying ancient English calligraphy. He showed me the invitation letter, written in perfect swirly script.

I went through the forms and then practiced a bit with Qing-feng, who had an easy time of it as I hadn’t practiced in a long time. He said the older man was a judge who had only recently begun to study tai-chi and had some questionable notions on the subject. “As a judge, too,” he added. Qing-feng is a court police officer, so I guess he sees a lot of trials.

Later, after Teacher X and most of the others had gone, I practiced tuishou with Pig, who expressed his dismay that Teacher X would be gone for so long. “It makes me think: what if he decided to stay there, or go somewhere else? What would happen to us?” We talked about such a hypothetical situation, agreeing that the students would most likely split into two groups, i.e. those who are willing to lose and those who are not. That’s my description, though. Pig thought it would be more like “Those who use their forward leg and those who use their rear leg.” As to who would lead us in such an eventuality, it would be up to each student. I would probably go with Little Qin, who is technically not really a fellow student but our “Master Uncle” as he also studied together with Teacher X under Master Yu. A few other students would probably end up teaching. “You’ll end up teaching as well,” Pig told me, and though I disagree, I will admit that teaching is probably a good way to pressure oneself to excel, due to the responsibility. But even if I felt I was qualified, which I don’t, I’ve never been particularly interested in it.

After Pig left, I went through the sword form a couple of times, feeling very tired and looking forward to lunch. I had been planning to fully master the empty-handed form and then go back to the sword form, but now I’m realizing that I will never really master the empty-handed form, and should concentrate on doing both at the same time. The only other weapon I’m interested in is the staff, as it’s just handy. Scimitar I’m not particularly fond of, though a lot of the other students are keen on it. I’d be happy with just sword and staff.

Sunday was a fine day, at first, beautiful weather, cicadas and squirrels and birds under the canopy of green leaves at the park. NL Guy was throwing a skinny foreign guy around on the ground, while The Dentist arrived apologizing for his purple polka-dotted shorts.

Teacher X reiterated the fact that being able to “collapse” in compartments of one’s body is useful in tuishou. I also found while practicing with him that I often expose a weakness by turning my back more or less towards my opponent. So far, only Teacher X has really taken advantage of this; none of the other students have, and thus it’s become somewhat of a bad habit.

I practiced with NL Guy for a bit. He was surprisingly mild this time, though any attempt to push him resulted as always with a flurry of activity that he didn’t seem to want to cease until I was on the ground (not that I gave him that satisfaction). He managed to pull me in such a way to give him a head-butting as well as a couple of blows dangerously close to his genitals; not the safest practice, but we don’t call him No Lose Guy for nothing (well, I don’t, anyway).

It was HOT, and I sweating buckets. But Teacher X wanted me to practice with the skinny foreigner, who turned out to be French. He’d arrived in Taiwan a mere two days before, didn’t really speak much Chinese or even English. He said he’d studied tai-chi and tuishou for three years back in Paris. He wore a white T-shirt with a small red Yinyang symbol on it that he’d bought at a martial arts supply store nearby.

We started out slowly; often I’d have to make a move to provoke a response. He seemed quite wary and tense, understandable after being thrown around by NL Guy, who left scratches on the Frenchman’s arms. It wasn’t too bad, though; he eventually regained a little confidence and put some effort into it. I then practiced with Little X, who is getting a bit chunky to be honest. He remains very easy to push for some reason. I can’t quite figure out how relative tuishou prowess works; there must be a logic to it somehow, but I don’t know what it is.

Mr. You, whom we haven’t seen at practice in years, showed up, surprising everyone. He was visiting his mother at NTU hospital and came over to say hi. By now the sky was dark, and the wind was picking up. It had been a long, hot practice, and people began to leave, so I did as well.

There have been activities around the park for the last couple of weeks. Last week is was Buddha’s birthday party or something, which involved lots of chanting. I practiced with Yang Qingfeng, who hasn’t been to class in a while and says he’s out of shape. He’s still far better than I am, however, out of shape or no. The guy in the yellow shirt from the picture told me his secret was practicing by tossing water high in the air.

This week a DPP protest was organized nearby, so again, a lot of people walking by. My leg’s been sore lately for some reason, so I was taking it easy when I practiced with Little Qin, who was echoing Obi-wan Kenobi’s line of “Your eyes can deceive you; don’t trust them.” He also told me that there was always room for a little more retreat, and I had a vision of myself as a storage room that could always be rearranged with a little more space at the back if needed. It was surprisingly effective. He also practiced “sticking swords” with me; it’s been a while since I did that, and it was refreshing. The wooden swords are lighter than I’m used to, but it was educational.

Small, occasional drops of rain fell on us as we practiced. Little Mountain Pig taught me a fulcrum-like arm turn that is useful, if tiring. I’m realizing that alot of the time, angles of attack are really important.

The usual crowd at the park this morning. Little Qin was chatting with Teacher X, while Mr. V and Little Mountain Pig practiced with some guys from other groups. I warmed up with the empty-handed form before practicing with Little Qin. I told him about the photos I took a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about just what was going on there. He told me that there are many things going on that are no immediately apparent to the outside eye. “When he exerted force, I internalized it and jumped back,” he said, adding that Master Song and Master Yu, our “fore-teachers” as it were, did similar things when practicing with students. He related a story about when a well-known martial artist was going around challenging people. Eventually he challenged Little Qin, and they had an exchange where the guy pushed Little Qin away in an apparent “victory”. But such were the subtleties of the exchange that both the martial artist knew what had really happened, and the guy told Little Qin “You’ve got class.” After that he stopped going around challenging people.

We worked on the concept of “attraction”, i.e. pulling your opponent off balance with a combination of subtle moves and will/intent. “Most practitioners can use their palms like suction cups,” Little Qin said. “If you’re really good, you can do it with any part of your body, creating a well into which your opponent’s energy falls.”

“Or like air into a vacuum,” I said.

“Yeah. Use the contours of your opponent’s body,” he said. “Now grab my shoulder blade and pull me around.” But, try as I might, I couldn’t find Little Qin’s shoulder blade. I did manage to pull him around a few times, despite the roundness of his back.

Teacher X suggested that I practice with someone outside our group, and introduced me to an older fellow wearing dark blue. Practicing tuishou with him was like pushing wet noodles. Very animated wet noodles. He was pretty good, and polite enough to keep it mellow.

Later, after I went through the sword form a few times, Little Qin told me that I had the moves down but not the spirit. I told him I was looking for some video of the forms done in our style, and he said he’d look into making some later, when he could “get back into it.” He said that, like me, he has trouble keeping various forms in mind at the same time, no doubt a bigger problem for him as he has studied stick, baton, sword, scimitar, fan and empty-handed forms. “But it’s like pointing at the moon,” he said, alluding to the title of a book on Taoist philosophy. The phrase basically means, that, once you’ve pointed out the moon to someone, the fingers you’ve used to point are no longer important.

As I was preparing to leave, I was drawn into a conversation with a small man sitting and talking with Little Mountain Pig. He said his name was Lin Hong-yu, and that he was a former national champion. He said he wanted to teach me “real” martial arts, which he said was Southern Style Kung-fu. “All of this,” he said, waving his hand at the people practicing in the area, “this is all useless. A kid in an alley could whoop your ass.”

Little Mountain Pig was smiling. Lin went on about how he could make me a master and I could teach in Taiwan and abroad, etc. I waited until he was talking to Pig before making a quiet exit.

A Malaysian guy joined our practice at the park last Sunday, and we ended up practicing tuishou together. His movements puzzled me, his hands making little jabs at me instead of being used to push. It seemed to me that he wanted to hit me instead of push me, but when I asked if he had a boxing background, he told me that he’d studied ba-gua before. I got used to his style eventually, though; it was just a matter of taking these predilections into account. I told him he should practice with Little Mountain Pig, who was more into that kind of thing, but when we got together, Pig told Malaysia to practice with Teacher X’s son first. He drew a ring in the dirt around them with his foot.

Once surrounded by the ring, the Malaysian guy just wailed on Teacher X’s son, jumping into the air and jabbing at him left and right, quick spinning hits and chops raining down on him. After a short time the kid’s face was streaming blood and his hand was sprained.

Little Mountain Pig had a talk with the Malaysian guy and then they went at it, this time much more peaceably, mostly because Pig knows a lot more about this kind of thing.

Meanwhile, a tall, skinny foreigner had approached Teacher X and was grappling with him, using all of his force and seemingly know knowing when to quit. He paired off with Mr. V, which I felt might be a mistake, but at least No Lose Guy wasn’t around. I was talking with Teacher X when the foreigner and Mr. V came crashing down nearby, Mr. V’s head nearly hitting the concrete wall.

I practiced the sword form; I feel I’m getting rusty and should probably re-learn some parts of it. I should also take my sword up the mountain in the morning so I can do that as well as the empty-handed stuff.

The next week, I went to practice at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, to find only Teacher X and his son there. I practiced with Little X, whose hand was bandaged after his bout with the Malaysian guy. “It’s strange; we learn all this stuff and then find it’s useless,” he said. I held my tongue, as, at least for me, Little X’s skillz aren’t exactly at the “all this stuff” level yet, though he has improved.

Teacher X showed me some useful tuishou approaches, and later on Little Mountain Pig showed up, but it was late by then and I had to go. Before I forget, Little Qin has a Youtube page with some videos of him doing forms and tuishou.

The park was full of tourists when I got there on Sunday morning, including several foreigners. Teacher X even walked over to talk with a couple of foreign guys sitting and watching us practice. It felt like summer. I warmed up with some formwork and then practiced tuishou with The Dentist, whom I am thinking deserves the moniker “Mr. V” more than Mr. V himself these days, as he is all about trying to overpower his opponent. It was tiring. UPS guy was in the fighting ring wrestling with a guy from the other groups, and a fighting class practiced nearby.

It was one of those rare times where Little Qin showed up, so I practiced with him for a while. He is always full of good ideas about technique, and showed me how just one touch with one hand completely changes and strengthens the dynamics of the other. I commented about how hard it was to grab and maintain a hold on his shoulders, and he said that most tai-chi practitioners end up with thick shoulders, or as he put it, “A back like a turtle and legs like a stork,” as someone described Master Zhang San-feng at one point.

Later on, an older guy in a yellow shirt came up and told Little Qin to hit him. He did, and the guy kept saying, “No effect!” He was really proud of his ability to be hit and not feel it. Then they did a kind of tuishou stance, and the guy in the yellow shirt would throw Little Qin off with such force the Little Qin’s feet would actually leave the ground. If you know how not little Little Qin is, you’d know that this is no mean feat, though I suspected he was doing it for show. I took some pictures of this and a line of us all trying to push the man in the yellow shirt. It was pretty funny.

Last Saturday I hadn’t really warmed up when someone pulled me over to practice tuishou with a little older guy sporting exactly two (2) teeth. He was skinny and very flexible, and kept advancing as he pushed, but he didn’t get much of anywhere with me, at least during that session. It was educational, though; practicing with people outsider of our group pretty much always is.

This Saturday I was warming up when another stranger walked up to me. One of his eyes was smaller than the other, and he wore a hearing aid. “Are you the foreigner I practiced with yesterday?” he asked. This gave me pause. How could he actually not know? I hadn’t gone to the park the day before in any case, so I was pretty sure I wasn’t. “I don’t think so,” I said.

“That foreigner said he had practiced tai-chi for 20 years,” he said.

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me,” I continued. “That guy is probably older than I am.” But he just looked confused at the concept of some people being older than others.

“Anyway, you foreigners don’t need tai-chi, you’re all so big and strong that you just pick us up and throw us!” he said. I glanced at Little Mountain Pig, who is just one of our students who is bigger than I am, and concluded that this fellow wasn’t quite right in the head.

The other groups were fighting in the circles, trying to push each other over the lines in the dirt. One of the guys wore a t-shirt that read “I (heart) giving blood.” I hoped his opponents didn’t take that too literally.

I practiced the forms and sword work in an empty space nearby for a while before noticing that Teacher X’s son was fighting in one of the rings. Not tui-shou, but actual boxing, it seemed. I walked over to have a look. The kid was staying well away from the boxer, who was slapping quick jabs in and jumping around. Afterwards, LM Pig gave it a shot, using tuishou and taichi to deal with the boxer, engaging him and pushing him around in between blows. It was interesting to see how the two dynamics interacted, but I think I’ll stick with tuishou, for now.