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.

最近

最近為了增

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.

The Muddy Basin Ramblers are doing a gig at Cosmopolitan (formerly Amaroni’s) on Saturday night, part of a double billing with Two Acres Plowed. It’s been a while since we played, and I’m sure everyone’s looking forward to it. We’re planning a riverside rehearsal tonight to get back in the swing.

I saw Wall-e the other night. I was in the last row, much further away from the screen than I would have liked, so I didn’t get the full impact. I did enjoy it, though. What struck me was how loudly the Taiwanese audience laughed every time they saw all the fat people, especially when they (the fat people in the movie) fell off their little sled things.

I haven’t had time for dedicated photography lately, but ever since I got a Sigma DP1 I’ve been taking snaps here and there on my way back and forth to work. I’ve been experimenting with street photography lately in an attempt to add another dimension to my usually human-free photography. The DP1 is black, simple and easy to use. People don’t tend to notice it. It has no beeps or clicks or focus lights. The lens doesn’t zoom. Those who do notice it may ask me how many megapixels it has. I say 4 or so, and they shrug, unimpressed. “Mine’s much better; it has 10 megapixels,” the scooter shop fellow told me. If they read most of the reviews they’d be even less impressed, as most of them are negative. The camera requires more patience and knowledge than most people in the point-and-shoot market are willing to put up with. Which is fine with me.

It’s hard to believe it’s August already. The summer light is beginning to show a bit of Autumn at the edges. Lots to do.