It’s been four days. Four exhaustive days. Here is my post from yesterday on the situation. I am still reeling, and I am not the only one. I am phasing in and out of the outraged/sickened state on the regular. In my private lesson yesterday, we did Push Hands (which I mentioned in yesterday’s post). I mentioned wanting to learn it to my teacher months ago, but it seems more urgent now. She has been teaching it in her classes (the ones I don’t attend), and I’m down to do more.
It’s interesting because when we talked about doing it, I was not sure I would be down with it. I remember how much I hated it the first time around. Though, I will say, there was one time when…ok. There is long power and short power. To drastically simplify it, long power is using your back leg to push off on and short power is using your front leg. There is more to it than that, but that’s the ten-second primer on it. Short power is really hard to do properly. Most people (including me) will ‘pop’ the leg rather than do it smoothly. Just because it short, it does not mean it needs to pop. Popping up diffuses the power rather than just keeping it smooth.
Short power is way harder to do correctly–at least for me. As I said, it was too easy to ‘pop’ rather than do it smoothly, which defeated the purpose. I did my best, but I was so tense the entire time. It’s really weird to bet that close to someone. You’re both in a bow stance with your front toes overlapping (not actually touching, but just all up in each other’s grills), and you have to put your hand all over the other person’s body. Most of us are not doing that on the regular basis with people who are not dear loved ones. At least in Ameriac. That is not a comfortable distance nor something we do to strangers (touch them).
When you are in the proper position, the giver places their hand on the other person’s body. Usually, it starts with the shoulder for Willow One. If I remember correctly, it’s called willow because we’re supposed to move like willow trees. With the most basic Willow, you simply push nine areas of the other person’s body. Shoulders (front and back), chest bone (between the breasts), stomach, back, hips (front and back). You want to push the other person to the point of giving them a gentle stretch. You are not trying to push them out of their stance or hurt them. This is for stretching and flexibility.
It sounds easy, but it’s incredibly intimidating the first time you try it. At least it was for me. Not on the giving side as much, though that can be weird, too. How hard should I push? Where exactly should I push? In what order should I push? It’s also funny to me as the possessor of huge boobs because guys are so gunshy about accidentally brushing against my boobs (when I’ve done Push Hands with men). I’m glad that they are considerate (much better than guys trying to cop a feel), but it’s ok just to be chill about it. I and most possessors of boobs know the difference between an accidental boob brush by and (not-really) slyly copping a feel.
To my relief, it felt much more natural yesterday when my teacher and I started doing a drill I had never done before. It’s more advanced. The first few are about stretching and relaxing, and just getting people used to the whole idea of Push Hands. The one we did yesterday is more about combat–which is what I’m about. As I described in yesterday’s post, it’s returning the energy that is given to you.
One thing I really like about Taiji is that it’s a reactive martial art. It’s not about attacking or being stronger than your opponent. My teacher likes to emphasize this point by telling a story about how she easily lifted a 400-pound man (she’s roughly 5’7″ and over 200 pounds less than that) off his feet. She says over and over that it’s not about size or strength. And, because it’s the lazy person’s martial art, it’s for everyone.
I laughed when she said it was for lazy people, but when she explained it–it made total sense. The point of Taiji is to do the most with the least. It’s not about a show of muscles or flexing your strength. It’s about taking what your opponent gives to you and using it against them. If someone throws a punch at you (general you), the common instinct is to tense up and block the punch. Or maybe push back against it. In Taiji, the thing to do would be to go with the punch and guide the opponent to follow their fist past you. Basically, you’re magnifying their energy and making it work against them.
When my teacher and I were practicing Push Hands, I could really tell the difference. When I first pushed her shoulder and she pushed me back, I tensed up and used my might so she could not push me out of my stance. It transpired that I was not supposed to resist, and things went much more swimmingly after that. Once I got into the flow of it, it was so much better. Also, I could see how the application would work.
That’s the thing. I’m into the applications. That’s the reason I took a martial art in the first place, even though I knew it would take years to get to that point. In the first five years, it felt like a dream that I would ever get to the point where I could use Taiji for self-defense. After ten years, I felt that I might be able to handle myself in a pinch, but I wasn’t sure. I did appreciate that Taiji helped me navigate my relationships and set boundaries in them as well.
Now, I feel like I’m finally getting into fighting form. In part because of Bagua, which is much more about cutting a fool and much less about doing the most with the least. It’s added an aggression to my aura that I embrace. What? Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. I have never been a chill, let-it-ride kind of person. I am intense and dark, and my emotions bubble and boil all over the place. I have learned to smooth it out and to keep it to myself (for the most part), but it’s always smoldering under my veneer of calm.
Taiji is good to sooth myself. It helps keep me grounded and not too far up my own ass. It chills me out and relaxes me. It’s not all peace and love because there are weapons, yo. But even the weapons are done with smoothness and as little energy as possible, which is befitting of Taiji. Even with the more brute strength weapons like the saber, it’s meant to be swung gracefully–not herky-jerky.
Bagua, on the other hand, is whatever it takes to make the problem go away. And I love it.