in other news, i’ve been doing t’ai ch’i (“taiji”) for a while.
since ‘89, actually.
so why would anyone ever want to move real slow & look stupid?
2 words: “fast taiji”. Any good taijiist can do the movements fast, & there are some taijiists who are serious bad-asses.
i didn’t always do taiji– i started my martial-arts journey with Tae Kwon Do, that rough’n'ready Korean fighting art. i practiced doing splits (well, almost), breaking 3/4″ green pine boards, & punching 4×4″ ‘pain boards’ until my knuckles bled & the surface nerves died. the theory being, you could punch concrete (or someone’s jaw) & feel no pain. it’s true, too!
but i’ll never forget the image of Master Na, all of 33yrs or so, pitifully trying to play the trumpet with his gnarled, arthritic-like hands. Deadly, powerful fists they were, but none too flexible anymore. i figured i’d quit, & find something a bit less ruinous to my ‘guitar-playing’ hands…
for guys of a certain age, the image of the little wide-eyed kid trying to “grab the marble from my hand” of the not-much-taller big-shit-eating-grin weird-yellow-eyed blind guy is the totemic meme… it’s only the lamers who need the word “Grasshopper” added.
but that was then so i furiously sought some “kung fu” teacher, who could teach me to walk on rice paper w/o footprints & bat arrows from the air, too.
instead i found the top student of the top student of Wong Jack-Man (the guy who fought Bruce Lee to a standstill).
{more later}