In yesterday’s post, I was talking about how I had so much sympathy for Mini-Minna and all she went through. I don’t know when I went from actively hating her to feeling sympathy for her to wanting to protect her. I will say that it started with Taiji, probably, because everything good that I’ve done/thought/believed started with Taiji.
Side note: I will never stop saying how Taiji has saved my life. But, more than that, it has given me self-confidence, assurance that I deserve to live, grudging acceptance of my body, and more. It has also given me a love for Taiji weapons that I did not know existed deep within me. It has made me more comfortable in my body, and I’m better able not to hurt myself when I trip/fall/runt into things, etc.
Taiji helped me with my personal relationships, especially with my parents. I was more able to deal with them and not blow up or want to throw myself into the ocean. Believe me when I say that this is a vast improvement from my first twenty years.
Here’s the thing about Taiji. Hopefully, I will never have to use it for its intended purpose–which is self-defense. Despite what Westerners want to believe about it, it is a martial art that can be used for combat.
Side note to the side note: When I used to frequent Twitter, I would wax rhapsodic about Taiji weapons. I would get a markedly different response from men and women (yes, this was specific to people of the binary). Men would tell me how hot it was and want to mention Kill Bill and similar films. Women, on the other hand, would recoil from it and scold me for doing something ‘violent’. The former response, sadly, was not unexpected, and it’s something I could ignore. The latter was from women I respected, so I would actually try to engage with them.
I tried to explain that it wasn’t that I was violent–at all. And that while they were weapons, it was still Taiji. It did not matter. One was so disappointed in me! I felt bad about that, but at the same time, that was more about her than about me.
Side note to the side note to the side note: One thing my teacher and I talk about is how different men and womn (yes, the binary again) are raised in this world. And how that affects their approach to Taiji. Men are taught to be alpha, aggressive, and dominant (in the real world). When they try Taiji, they have to be told to relax and go softer, as it were.
Women, on the other hand (at least middle-class women in America) are taught to be nice. That’s the worst thing you could say to a suburban American girl–“You’re not being nice!” No insult is worse, and it takes so long to realize it for the muzzle/leash that it is. And to realize that it’s fine to disappoint people–especially people who are shitheads and doing something asshole-ish to you.
Back to Taiji. Women (and other non-men, I presume) are taught to tamp down their anger and always be soft, amenable, and pleasing of everyone around them. It’s funny because a woman’s anger is simultanously dismissed as nothing, but also the worst thing in the world.
My teacher has said that when women start Taiji, she has to advise them to be firmer with their movements. This was especially true when it came to Pushing Hands. This is an activity in which you have to touch someone. A lot. In very basic terms, you put your hands on your partner and, at least in Willow One, you gently push them around. Literally. It’s to help them loosen up and get them to move in different directions.
My teacher told me that with most women who start Push/ing Hands do it with very little or no pressure at all. Again, they simultaneously think they have no power, but also are afraid of crushing someone. She has to encourage them to put more oomph into it, and they can be so resistant.
I was not like that. I was not pushing people around, but I was firm in my touch. Here’s the thing. I attended my teacher’s Pushing Hands for Women class, which was really great. I identified as a woman at the time, and it was the best way to do into to Push Hands.
As with many things in my Taiji career, I resisted it with all my might. I had tried it a few times prior, and I hated it. My teacher was sympathetic beacuse it was something she wanted to learn more than anything, but then she hated it for the first few months she tried it.
It’s intimidating. In America, especially in the Midwest, we like to keep our distance. So getting within a foot or two of someone else is uncomfortable. Then, touching someone repeatedly and for extended amounts of time? Someone you are not having sex with? The horrors!
I told my teacher that taking the class really helped ease me into it because I didn’t have to worry about the normal bullshit you have to deal with when there are guys around. Don’t get me wrong. I love guys. Some ofd my best friends, etc., etc., etc. But…well, let me put it this way. I have what I call the Theory of Dudes. It’s pretty simple. The more dudes you add to a room, the worse the conversation gets. One to five? That’s fine. Well, depending on the dudes. But, it gets astronomically and exponentially worse with every added guy after that. It’s one reason I stay out of game chats in general–there are few and far between ones that aren’t toxic and gross, and, of course, sexist as fuck.
Even the one I’m in (RKG) teeters on the edge of it at times before pulling it back. I have to grit my teeth and roll my eyes every now and again, but it’s about a 2.5 on a scale from 1 to 10. Believe me. That’s very low in the world of games, believe you me.
I have no idea how I got here again. I am leaving the title of this post because this belongs here, but I certainly did not mean to write about this. Oh well. Be back tomorrow!