I hated Taiji when I first started studying it. I had a teacher before my current one, and he was terrible. Flat-out terrible. I only went to him because a friend of mine was enamored with him (he has a very cultlike personality, and my friend needed a father-figure desperately as his own had been very abusive). All my narcissist/predator vibes were pinging, but I tamped them down because I trusted my friend. And because I have my own extreme biases against narcissists that made me wonder if I was blowing things out of proportion.
I wasn’t. He was sleeping with a student. They were in a relationship but as he was the teacher in his fifties and she was 27 and the student, could it truly be equal? In short, no. Not only was he scummy enough to sleep with a student, but he was very sleazy in his interactions with other women. He made a big deal about respecting personal space and not touching anyone without their consent, but that was a big, fat lie.
I gritted my teeth the entire time I studied with him which was probably a year or so, but I did not trust him one whit. That’s not a good relationship in Taiji, but I was young and stupid at the time. This was around the time The Matrix came out, and he raved about what a revolutionary movie it was. He said it was the essence of Taiji and removing yourself from the system. The message I got from him was that he was justified in being intensely selfish because nothing he did could help anyone else, anyway. Or rather, what was going to happen would happen regardless of what he did. It was such self-serving twaddle, I internally sneered even though I hadn’t seen the movie. Just by watching the trailer, I was sure that he was spouting bullshit, and when I watched the movie years later, I had my confirmation.
The Matrix is a good action movie, but unconventional and going against the norm? Not hardly. I watched it in a theater with my then-boyfriend who liked the movie and wanted me to see it. That was problematic in and of itself because I had a boyfriend dump me when I told him my views on Pulp Fiction, so after that, I kept my opinions to myself. While watching The Matrix, I kept thinking how hot Keanu was and how hot Carrie-Anne was. I did think back to what my ex-Taiji teacher had said about the movie and rolled my eyes because the movie had very predictable and conventional story beats. Then, Neo died and Trinity kissed him to bring him back to life.
I lost my shit. I stood up and loudly announced, “That is such bullshit!” Fortunately, there were only three or four people in the theater and I allowed my boyfriend to yank me back down, but I was fuming for the rest of the movie. How dare it preach about breaking out of the matrix and living your authentic life? How could people think it was such an anarchist movie? That was the tritest of tropes–kissing someone to give them life–I was honestly shocked that it was the cumulation of the movie.
Side Note: My weird reactions to movies is one reason I don’t like them. I can’t talk about them with people because my viewpoint is so odd. Take the Potter movies. I used to see them with a certain friend of mine, and when the Dementors were first introduced, I laughed. Out loud. Very loudly. My friend slapped me on the shoulder and admonished me.
I can’t help it if I think Dementors are cute! At least the way they are portrayed in the movies. So are the Nazgul, Ultralisks, and a bunch of other things that people find terrifying. Graevolrd Nito! He’s ultra-cute! And would make a great plushie.
Wow. How did I go that far astray? Back to my first Taiji teacher. He had a house in which he rented out the room s to his students and didn’t pay taxes on it. He claimed to be a church. Right. My friend did his taxes for him and other financial shit (my fiend was a finance guy) and he abused his students in a variety of ways. He started dating someone from out of the country and smuggled drugs into the US illegally whenever he went to visit her. I found out all this from a mutual friend of my now ex-friend. He started teaching Taiji and dating his students. I tried to talk to him about it and about his teacher, but he refused to listen. It felt very cultlike to me, which made me exceedingly uncomfortable.
The reason I left? I was talking to the teacher about something and he reached over and flicked my hair from my shoulder. It was such an intimate moment and so unexpected, my body viscerally contracted. I felt violated in a deep and personal way. I left and never went back. Moral of that story–I should have listened to my instincts and felt after the first class.
I started my second bout of Taiji with a lot of baggage, needless to say. When I looked for another teacher, I had a very clear list of things I wanted and did not want. I wanted a female teacher. That was nonnegotiable. Yes, there are predatory women, but the chances were much lower than another sleazoid, guru-man. To be perfectly honest. Most cult leaders are male for a reason. I did not want a studio that made you wear a uniform and what’s worse, made you buy the uniform from them. No belts, either. I wanted to pay a monthly tuition and be done with it.
In the first year of Taiji with my current teacher, I hated it. The Solo Form, I mean. Oh, another thing about my last teacher? I was in the class for newcomers and since there were always new people, we never got more than halfway into the form. I don’t know if it was on purpose or not, but I was not learning much of anything there. Contrast that with my current teacher. She wasted to teach me as much as possible and I learned the whole Solo (Long) Form in a year or two. Then, she wanted me to learn weapons, but I pushed it off for a while. Ill get to that in a bit.
I hated, hated, HATED the Solo Form. It hurt my knees and my back, and it made me cranky. But, there was enough there that I didn’t want to stop trying. I figured it was me and just pushed on with it. I did mention to my teacher that I was having knee problems and back problems, and she helped me with both.
One thing I really appreciated about my teacher is that she didn’t get upset when I questioned her about Taiji. Sometimes, rudely so. Not rude in terms of words used, but rude because I kept pushing it. If she didn’t know an answer, she’s tell me so and ask her teacher about it.
I struggled with the Solo Form for years. I hated it. I really did. Which was a shame because it’s the basis for everything we do. Even when we corrected my form to ease up on my knees, I still resented having to do the Solo Form.
Then, my teacher started pushing me to learn the weapons. I have told this story many times because it’s transformative. I pushed back on doing weapons for the longest time. I did not like the idea of them because I was not a violent person (yes, i bought into that stereotype when I first started Taiji). My teacher finally placed a sword into my hand and said, “Just hold it.” I didn’t want to, but she was my teacher. At that point, I trusted her enough to at least hold the damn sword.
That’s when my life changed. As I closed my hand over the hilt, a jolt hit me out of the blue. The sword felt like an extension of my hand, and this was what I was meant to do for the rest of my life. I wanted more. I bought a fancy stainless steel sword at the next demo for her school and lapped up the instructions as to how to do the Sword Form.
I could talk about this forever, as is evident by this point. I will end this here and pick it up again tomorrow.