Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Apr 05 2009

The past couple of times

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.

posted by Poagao at 10:07 pm  

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