Tai Chi

When I told my officemates today that I was going to try Tai Chi tonight, they laughed.  Apparently among Chinese youth, tai chi is considered 'an old people thing', something oldsters practice in the parks in the early mornings that has nothing to do with anyone under the age of 65.  But tonight when I arrived at The Hutong, a chinese cultural center in the middle of the ancient alleyway district of Beijing, it did not seem like an elderly pursuit at all.  In fact, my calves and hips are sore already!

The tai chi master started the lesson by explaining about the history of tai chi (it is only 300 years old, a youngster in the martial arts world) and demonstrating some moves from each of the two schools.  The Chen school is more active and involves both fast, strong, and violent moves and slow peaceful controlled movements, while the Yong school is all slow and relaxed.  We learned 3 poses and the movements between them over the next hour and a half and it is unbelievably difficult to exactly copy the teacher's movements while maintaining balance and concentration.

The master says that tai chi can be very good for relaxation and concentration of your whole body into whatever you are doing, so it can be helpful in life as well as in practice of the art.  I think both of these could be very helpful in my future.  And I had one moment during the class when I just had to laugh, as the teacher was expounding on how your center is near your waist and your kidneys, and how important the kidneys are for every other organ and function in your body.  I had a flashback to Internal Medicine with my grouchy old nephrologist attending going on about kidney function and how it is the king of organs.  It was a weird juxtaposition of my med school and China, old and new worlds, old and new science and approaches to reaching the inner energy of human beings.