Taiqi Chuan

Last month, I picked up a new hobby. Ever since I visited a taiqi class with my roommate Sarah last year, I have been wanting to join a class myself. Moving to Taiwan for a year, I figured this would be the perfect time to pick up such a hobby. Every morning, there are hundreds of people out in the Cultural Center in front of our apartment doing taiqi or other morning exercise routines. I really wanted to go join a group, but it took me a long time to work up the courage necessary. In the end, Fonda went with me to find a group and to meet the teacher.

The group we settled on meets Monday, Wednesday and Friday for an hour starting at 7am. Most of the people in the group all work together at the nearby city government office building. I am the youngest person in the group by about 30 years... That coupled with my obvious non-Asian features, makes me quite the object of interest for your average passerbyer (remember, we do this in the middle of the Cultural Center, a ginormous park). Some are discreet, whereas others will just stop a few feet away and stare at me for about 15 minutes before losing interest and moving on down the path. I guess I do look rather odd to them, with my Chinese-style white shirt, long billowy black pants, and special taiqi shoes (Fonda took me shopping so I would look official!).

I really enjoy my taiqi group. There are probably over 20 people who have been doing this for a while and are pretty good now. Our group does the 37 postures of traditional taiqi martial arts each morning, which takes about half an hour. Then they spend the second half of the class doing movements with swords or fans. Luckily, I am not the only new person. There are 4 of us who all started roughly around the same time. Frank and I are the regulars. We both started on the same day, and he was the one who told Fonda where we could find the taiqi store (in this little out-of-the-way alley - full of all sorts of cool traditional martial arts excessories). Frank is my hero. He tranlates for me, making the whole experience possible for me. There are two other ladies who also come occassionally. The four of us work separately from the main group with our own teacher every day. He is the cutest older gentleman, and considering his age, it is incredibly unfair how much more flexible and strong he is. To look at him (very slender), you would never guess how muscular his legs are. He tells me multiple times a week that I need stronger muscles... Yes, the 70-year-old guy is putting me to shame...

Our beginners class starts at 6:30am, so that we can do warm-ups. For the first few weeks, all we worked on was learning how to move forward and backward, and left and right. A lot harder than it looks in all of those martial arts movies, I would like to say. Two weeks ago, we finally started learning the first posture! I now know the first three postures, which is quite exciting. My biggest failing in taiqi is that I do not "luo4 kua4" enough. This means to feel your weight to go down, bending your knees and going into a semi-sitting position. Oftentimes, when I turn, I tend to stand up a little, but one is supposed to keep their weight down the entire time. This takes impressive quad muscles, it should be known. Taiqi is not a whimpy sport (even though it always seems to be done by old people here in Taiwan?). I have always thought highly of my leg muscles, but now it seems that I need to "retrain my muscles" as Frank says, and become stronger.

And the reward at the end of all of this? I get to learn taiqi with swords. Maybe in April, if I am so lucky. I am stoked. :)