Tai Chi insights of a Southern Belle.

Most mornings in the playground I try to do my little workout at the playground, and there are often regulars there doing their little workout. One regular is an elderly white woman who walks around the track and then does Tai Chi. Today I stopped her on her way out to talk, and I am so glad I did. She had so much to say about her art that she practices. She has been doing Tai Chi for a while but I could tell she didn;t learn it as a girl or anything. But she drew from other experiences, Tennis, Sumi-e, Aikido in Japan, but what was most amazing about her to me was when she talked about watching a hummingbird in her garden sink and flow before it entered the flower with it's tongue, and the trees deflecting the wind with it's own sort of techniques of it's branches.

"You really put a lot of thought into this. And you really put a lot of intent into your Tai Chi. More than a lot of people I see who have done Tai Chi for a long time."

She was happy about my comment. But the more I talked to her, the more I realized that I was talking to an extraordinary person. At one point she was talking about taking a seminar at YMAA where she takes classes, and how the teacher said that the sword form is not for old people. She mentioned how she actually conflicted with the teacher verbally about this.

"I was southern raised so I'm usually not one to conflict with" and I thought she was going to say teacher but she said, "a man about something. But I raised my hands and said, 'Hello (such and such) is teachimg ME the sword form" and she went on to describe how she talked about various energy to that teacher and how he mentioned that was a higher level.

This statement really shocked my world view. First of all, I am so used to dealing with the stereotype of strong minded western American and subservient Asian  women that her statement about conflicting with a man woke me up to something. Although I have known a few Southern women, young and old, I guess I never had an opportunity to talk about this dynamic. Whereas, I see this dynamic between man and woman everyday in both where it is true and where it really really isn't true, in Chinese women. But I could write a whole other blog post about that.

The other part of the statement led to more conversation about energy, and I had to comment that usually I had to explain these type of things to Americans in a Scientific fashion, and I suppose I got good at these explanations because I also needed this reconciliation. And it sort of amazed me that she just went with it and was actually using Mandarin terminology and not really asking for an explanation, but instead relying on her own insight into nature, connecting directly with the meaning behind her movements with things she herself observed, instead of say, depending solely on stories of others who observed nature.

She mentioned her time brush painting and living in Japan. And also how in tennis you sink and hit and such things.

I was going to just ask her if she wanted to do light push hands or something like that, and then maybe have show do it with her. My idea behind this was that, Noah should not only learn from me. So he could do a little push hands with her and maybe he would not feel as pressured by me etc.

But I ended up learning more from her than I have talking to a lot of martial artists who might be better fighters or more athletic or whatever. In fact, I suppose I had prejudged her as a certain type of person, and found her to be completely different than that prejudgment.


Anyway, I was glad I talked to her and hopefully  we can learn from each other.