A couple of weeks ago a lovely young German couple arrived
for what is their third visit to Chen Jia Gou.
I was chatting with the guy, Robin, and he told me that on his first
visit he practiced intensely for two weeks then realised he had ‘burnt out’ and
needed to slow down. I must be a very
suggestible person because immediately I started thinking; I’ve been here for
four months doing nothing except practice tai chi. Am I burnt out too? And as soon as I had that thought, I decided
I was!
As much as I love tai chi, I suddenly felt that it would be
nice to do something else. I started missing
my favourite EFL grammar points (yes, that is alarming!) and playing the piano. Me and Robin had conversations about how
being here actually makes your body feel stiffer, how we dislike running at
6.20am, and how nice pancakes with Nutella would be (his idea, not mine). Running in the morning makes a surprisingly
big difference to how tired I feel. By
the end of the week, my feet are tired, my legs hurt and my back has a new sore
bit. In short, by Sunday evening I’m
knackered.
Two weeks ago a group of us started learning a straight
sword form. It’s a beautiful form when it’s done well and the postures have wonderfully poetic names like 'Immortal Points the Way' and 'Ancient Tree Wraps Roots'. Sha Wei taught us,
and although he is a lovely person, I find it hard to understand what he says. We raced through the entire form of 49
postures in six days so we could finish it before two of the students
left. It was an intense experience! Imagine learning something physically very
complicated in a language where you don’t understand most of the words. You have to listen really hard to catch a
word you know while watching everything like a hawk, making your own mental
commentary so that you have something to hold onto when you practice. And Sha Wei doesn’t break things into little
pieces like Yan Fei but often gives three postures at the same time, all
demonstrated very quickly. So although
physically it was a bit of a rest because I spent a lot of time watching and
therefore less time moving, mentally it was much harder work, and by the end of
the week my brain had had enough.
And it wasn’t just tai chi that I suddenly needed a break
from, it was China in general. I am fed
up with Chinese breakfasts, especially when they come after an hour’s training. Lettuce and tofu just doesn’t do it for me. I’ve also had enough of random strangers
touching my hair and asking me if I wash or brush it, and I’m feeling
frustrated by how painfully slowly I’m managing to pick up some language. I went through a phase when it seemed to be
progressing okay, now it seems to have ground to a total stop and I still feel
I can’t communicate what I want. I also
started to feel trapped by the routine.
Every day is the same: get up, train, eat, train, eat, sleep, train,
eat, train, watch TV, sleep. I know this
is true of life in general, but here the days are long and you only have Monday
to break out of your normal existence, and even then your options are limited. I started to miss the sea or going for walks on
the Downs and being able to get away from everything for a few hours.
On Sunday night Grandmaster Chen took us four foreign
students out for dinner, though I do wonder if the dinner was an excuse for getting
pissed. His wife, son, daughter, two
baby grandsons and a brother also came.
It was a very lovely thing to do, and the food was really good, there
was even something similar to roast beef!
However, it seems that over New Year I acquired a reputation for being
able to drink a lot of alcohol, and unfortunately on Sunday I enhanced that
reputation further. The Chinese, as you
may know, are very fond of strong spirits.
There are lots of different ones in terms of taste and coloured bottles,
but the common characteristic is that they’re all lethal. It’s the kind of alcohol that catches you
unawares; you feel fine for ages and then suddenly are completely and
alarmingly pissed. You go from sober straight to intoxicated completely bypassing the merry stage. I did everything you’re
supposed to when you’re drinking – lots of water, lots of food – but it wasn’t
up to me how much I drank; my glass kept on being refilled and people kept
saying ‘gambe!’ and as you can imagine, I was in a sorry state by the time I
got back to my room.
Starting the week on a morning-after-the-night-before is
never fun. I missed the run, and after
breakfast while I was attempting to stretch my stiff and exhausted body,
Grandmaster Chen came up to me with a beaming smile and asked if I have a
headache. I didn’t, but only because I
was very sick before falling into bed.
The Chinese-language section of my brain was especially slow that
morning, but I gathered that he was extremely happy, bordering on proud, that I
can drink so much. This is a reputation
I could do without as it will undoubtedly lead to another drinking session at
some point, but I think it’s too late now to do anything about it. My reputation goes before me.
