I want to talk more about the Double Fan Form because I’m reaching the end of the form. Well, I mean, I have seven postures left to learn, but they are hard. I watched to the end one of the three videos I’m using to teach myself, and damn. Here is the post from yesterday, in which I talk a lot about my triple shots day and not as much about my Double Fan Form.
There is a truism in Taiji that the last part of any form is the expert part of it. Meaning, this is the part that is going to test your mettle and kick your ass. You’re going to have to put all the knowledge you have gained through the rest of the form together and take your game to the next level.
That’s it for my pep talk. Let me drop that and emphasize yet again that this is by far the hardest weapon form I’ve learned. There was a time early on when I considered giving up. We’re talking in the first quarter of the form. I remember struggling so much and wondering if I would ever get it. I tend to look at how long the journey is, which makes me discouraged when it’s not going well. I also have a very low frustration tolerance level, which doesn’t help.
I’m glad to be back at it again. I’m still not quite a hundred percent, but I’m close enough to get back to teaching myself the Double Fan Form. I am proud of myself for sticking with it, to be frank. It’s a weird trait of mine that if I’m into something, I will be obsessed with it. Until I hit my limit, and then I’m done with it. It’s not a good thing, but it’s how my brain works.
Both in microcosm and macrocosm, really. I do that with things like friendships, websites, and hobbies. Not the hobbies as a whole, but projects in my hobby. Well, let me put it this way. I give up easily. Usually. The reason is because when I was a kid, my parents were very exacting. There is the stereotype of the Tiger Mom, and it’s pretty apt.
I had to be busy all the time. In addition to school, I had to play an instrument (I chose cello), take dancing lessons from the age of two (which I mostly enjoyd until en pointe ballet entered the conversation), and I played ping-pong, tennis, and softball. I liked them all to some extent. Oh, and I had to go to summer school every summer as well. And it had to be an enrichment kind of summer school, too. I went to T-CITY (Twin Cities Institute for Talented Youth) for five years, taking writing twice, acting twice, and Latin once. We had class all morning, then had sports (against the other classes) after lunch. It was also fun for the most part, and I met my first boyfriend there.
Each individual activity was meaningful and fun for the most part, but it was tiring to have to do them all. And ‘have to’ is the operative phrase here. My mother gave me no choice. My father didn’t care except that he liked beating me in ping-pong. He took a lot of satisfaction in that, even when I was six or seven. Of course, the day I beat him in one game when I was in my twenties, he quit playing with me. That’s just the way he was.
The problem was that my mother made me feel like a loser if I just wanted to read a book (which I wanted to do much of the time). On the other hand, even though she encouraged me to play sports, I was supposed to be ladylike in all other times. I have written before how she was in tension her whole life because she was so brainwashed with what it meant to be feminine, but she, herself, was not very feminine at all.
This is not a diss, by the way. It’s just me being factual. She did not like cooking or sewing, though she did both. She kept her hair short after she had my brother because he kept grabbing it. She liked to play tennis, softball, and ping-pong. I can’t help but think how much better her life would have been if she had been able to shake free from the shackles of societal expectation. And not even American society–but Taiwanese society. It’s doubly sad to me that she lived for fifteen to twenty years in America while steadfastly holding to antiquated Taiwanese ideals.
Back to why I quit things I’m not instantly good at. My mother also demanded that I get straight As and would would be openly disappointed when I didn’t. Yet, when I did, she didn’t say anything positive about it. In my junior year, I let my grades go to shit just because why the hell should I care? If I got shit for doing anything less than great, but got no praise for getting straight As, well, hell, I knew what I was going to do.
In addition, I was depressed as all fuck at that age so it seemed like the easier thing to do. Or rather, the path of least resistance.
To this day, I hate doing things I’m not immediately good at. It makes me feel terrible about myself, and all the insecurities from my childhood come flooding back. Taiji has helped me with that, but I’m still a bit prickly about it. I’m pretty proud of myself, though, that I’ve hung in there with the Double Fan Form. No one is making me do it, and it’s not as if anyone is checking my homework.
I could quit at any time. I could have walked away when it got hard (and, oh my god, it got so fucking hard), but I did not. Why? There are several reasons. One, I really love the double fans. They are just so fucking cool. Two, I wanted to see it through. I did not want to quit just because it was pushing me to my limits. Three, I was able to move forward bit by bit, which meant that I could keep moving forward. Four, I’m stubborn AF. Even more than I hate doing something that I’m not good at.
I tried to keep in mind that I just needed to do it posture by posture. I did not need to learn it in a week, a month, or even a year. I had no time limit, and I was not pushing myself to learn it faster than my brain was able to comprehend.
I have more to say about it, but I’m done for today. I will pick it up again tomorrow.