Yin and Yang(shuo)

View from my second story porch swing

After a brief lay-over in Hong Kong (with the purpose of procuring a tourist visa for the summer), I took a sleeper bus to Yángshuò(阳朔). Known for it's karst mountains, 阳朔 is as beautiful and invigorating as stories make-it-out to be. The tropical spring weather of South China is on the brink of bursting into unbearable summer heat, but I still get afternoon rains that cool the air and make for peaceful sunsets over either of the two rivers that come through the county. While 阳朔 town has become quite the tourists' mecca over the past few years (and thus has plenty of bars, cafes, and restaurants to cater to Westerners), I am stationed in a valley about four kilometers from the town. I am studying tai ji at Long Tou Shan ("Dragon's Head Mountain") School in a small village. It is generally very quiet with minimal traffic, the occassional tourist cyclist, and a lot of frogs croaking at dusk. After a delicious breakfast at the hole-in-the-wall noodle shop across the dirt road (where the gracious woman who cooks for the school always struggles to load her three-year-old daughter into the back of her husband's construction cart en route to daycare), I study for five hours a day: two-and-a-half in the morning and the same in the evening. I am astonished at how much sweat I produce making so few movements. Maybe there is something about the focus demanded by tai ji, but I cannot figure out how I am drenched after shifting my weight back and forth between squared feet and moving my arms around in a motion that produces an imaginary ball of air between them.

Breakfast: Rice noodles, cucumbers, pickled turnip, pickled string beans, duck, scallions, chili

Watching my morning master (师傅, shīfu) feels almost ethereal in how fluidly and beautifully he moves between climactic punches and kicks. He makes the whole 18-move base look simple but poetic. When I attempt to reproduce (I am only on the eighth movement after 25 hours of study), my footing is always poorly angled, my weight too heavily upon my knees instead of in my hips and feet, my hands too high, my elbows too taut, and so on.  Yet, my morning master (Yang song) is always encouraging. He is a kind man who ballroom dances in the park every evening. He speaks to me exclusively in Mandarin, which is a great test and humbling tribute to how I have progressed linguistically but have so much more to learn. He smiles most of the time, and enjoys shopping at the farmer's market--which is exploding with mangosteens and rambutans. He used to write poetry and paint, but he has not done either since his wife died ten-years-ago. That was when he began studying tai ji.    Yang song is a stark contrast to the young and somewhat cocky evening master (Luo "da zhu"). He is the son of the master of the valley (and one of the two best tai ji masters in 阳朔) and he is two-years-my-junior. Having trained him since he was sixteen, his mother is coincidentally in Denver, CO. Luo's movements are much more aggressive but equally as stunning to watch. He assigns homework and always laughs when I try to show him what I have been attempting to improve. He is generally discouraging in his criticism and insistent that every movement is exactly like his instead of fluid to different body types and personalities--which, it is my understanding, is a crucial philosophy behind harnessing one's qi. To add to the difficulty of studying with Luo, the chickens are often mating or a water buffalo moo-ing while I am supposed to be focused.

Village roofs

Luo did offer this nice quote: “阿里，你有太多的火" (Ali (my Chinese name), you have too much fire).   Essentially, now that I am in 阳朔 I spend my days tempering my fire and searching for my water.