Tai Chi

  Beijing, China
Sunday, July 13, 2008

I got up early on Sunday to go meet my old Tai Chi teacher, Song Shaowen. My study-abroad program paired us up with "Chinese families" who we didn't live with but who were supposed to be a local resource for us. By some stroke of luck, my "Chinese mother" was a Tai Chi master. She used to give me 2-3 hour lessons in Taiji Dao (Tai Chi Broadsword) once or twice a week when I lived here. I was supposed to meet her in Tuanjiehu park at 8am, but got some brownie points by showing up at 7:20. Somehow there wasn't a traffic jam.

Song Shaowen

Tuanjiehu fits every stereotype about a Chinese park. Mornings are crowded with groups doing Tai Chi or Qigong, singing, dancing, walking pets, gossiping, playing instruments, etc. Shaowen is very well known and respected among the martial artists there. She teaches a group of 20-30 that meet there every morning. I joined the group for the 24-step hand form and the 32-step sword form. I say joined the group, but I stand out. I was one of three under 40, I'm a very, very white foreigner, and my Tai Chi is not standardized. The Chinese are sticklers for detail, and I could hear them dissecting my movements as I went.

Taiji Dao

After the class, I demonstrated the Taiji Dao form. I made mistakes in a half dozen places because it's been three years of practicing it on my own without corrections, and honestly because I'm not used to practicing in front of a crowd of dozens of people itching to see what a laowai can and can't do. They applauded heavily at the end, but I could hear them muttering as I went. Shaowen worked with me on the form for an hour and a half. It was getting wicked hot and humid, and I've never sweat so much doing Tai Chi. Before long, we'd fixed most of my mistakes. There are always ALWAYS mistakes in Tai Chi, especially with a Chinese teacher.

We took a break from the Dao and I was asked to demonstrate the 24-step form. I'd just been instructed on the way they do it, but I decided to do it the way I was taught and have practiced for about a decade. There are many differences, but it can't be said that our way is wrong or even untraditional. Martial arts forms mutate through generations of transmission and as long as the essence is kept and the movements have martial meaning the form is still good. Tai Chi in modern China, especially 24-step which millions and millions of people practice daily, is highly standardized however. The government appointed Tai Chi masters to do so several decades ago, and it is very easy to go buy books and videos of that standard version. The differences between our 24-step and theirs lie mostly in whether some moves are meant as strikes or pulls and locks and also in some of the transitions.

Anyway, this 40- or 50-something guy started really busting my balls about it and trying to correct me. He even interrupted Shaowen, who is not only my teacher but much more skilled than this guy was. I tried to explain the above, but he refused to listen. He insisted my press-pull-roll back-push section was wrong, so I demonstrated the application - lightly of course so the elbow to the sternum was just a touch and the push only sent him stumbling back about 8 feet. Despite nearly falling on his ass, he persisted and Song Shaowen stepped in with some face saving explanations of how my alternate way is also good and how my Shifu is "very well known in respected in America." I can see how fights among Chinese martial artists used to break out. Everyone practices in public, and there are people like that who are anxious to challenge your style. "My kung fu is better than your kung fu" turns out to not just be an invention of the movies.

My "Chinese Family"

After the workout, Shaowen's daughter Li Qian met up with us to go to lunch. They treated me to an amazing and badly needed meal. They really know how to balance out a meal. There was a first course of dishes based around cilantro - a fungus strand cold dish, a fish stir fry, and some kind of spring-roll looking things with meat as the wrapper - and a second course of seafood - Baoyu (treasure fish?), whole fish braised in soy sauce, clam soup, and scallops with garlic and vermicelli. Apologies to Andy for not taking photos of the food; I'm not Chinese enough.

It was really great to see them and to catch up. They've always really treated me like family. They asked about my life and my family, and Shaowen and I discussed the essences of Tai Chi (she agrees with the kinds of things I said above). Shaowen also repeatedly talked about coming to America and wanting to meet my Shifu - he was the first person she asked about when we met up. I told them about all the fresh seafood in Boston as we finished up the meal.