day 129: world tai chi & qi-gong day

forms:

• yang long form
• chen long form
  

well, i'm back on-line. i had to buy a new computer and new software, and i'm looking into retrieving the data off the hard drive on my old computer. all of which, of course, costs $$$. so if anybody knows of any short-term part-time jobs, i'm certainly open to listening. i'm cheap.

this Saturday was World Tai Chi & Qi-Gong Day. unlike last year, which was held at the Rose Bowl, this year was in Bronson Park in Hollywood. in addition, this time it was held in 2 locations--Bronson Park was one and Malibu was the other.

Sifu had announced that he was simply going to move the usual Saturday morning class to Bronson Park, since the event was scheduled to run from 9-12 in the morning. it turned out a few people did not get the announcement, since they apparently had not joined the Wutang Yahoo! group. for those of you who have yet to join, please do so--go to Wu_Tang_Martial_Arts group in Yahoo! groups (http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/Wu_Tang_Martial_Arts/) and send a request to join. all announcements are posted there.

World Tai Chi & Qi-Gong Day itself was a bit smaller this year, but i suspect this was because it was divided into 2 locations. this probably also explained why there were fewer presentations this time. which was just as well, since the temperatures rose in the high 90s and i think people started to fade pretty quickly in the heat.

Sifu is pretty popular at this event. he has a lot of friends in the Los Angeles tai chi community, and i think a good many of them use this celebration as a way to meet and catch-up on news and stories about each others' lives. as a result, it's not so much about presentations or demonstrations, or i suspect even education, but really more about reconnecting with long-lost acquaintances and sharing a spirit of fellowship.

as a class, we ended up having 2 major tasks today: 1) the yang long form, and 2) the chen long form. the 1st was expected, and pretty much a given since it is the standard form known by most tai chi practitioners. everyone did this as a group--and i mean everyone as in the entire audience present, not just those of us in Sifu's class.

the 2nd task, however, was a bit of a surprise. i had predicted to Phunsak some time ago that Sifu was going to ask us to perform the chen long form at World Tai Chi & Qi-Gong Day. Phunsak had voiced his skepticism about my abilities at prophecy. i had doubted it last week when i had asked Sifu about any possible demonstrations, and he'd responded with an emphatic "no."

well, guess what? in the middle of our reverie at World Tai Chi & Qi-Gong Day, the announcer, Doria, said that our class was going to perform the chen long form as a "special treat." Sifu looked at us and said he wasn't going to do the demonstration, since he was expected to describe it as we did it. at this moment, John Eagles suddenly decided to retrieve something from my car (i had driven everyone) and disappeared (inexplicably, for the exact time required to do the form). this left Phunsak, Kieun, and me, with Kieun expressing some concerns about not being able to remember the entire form and Phunsak asking why both of us were looking at him. i told him that he should lead, and Kieun and i would follow, so that way if someone made a mistake we would at least follow 1 person and make the same mistake together (this, incidentally, is a common rule in performance arts--if anyone makes a mistake, for heavens' sake, everyone needs to make the same mistake, so that it at least looks to the audience like it was intended that way).

the 3 of us made it through the form, with Sifu giving commentary. i have to say that it was not clean, and there is a lot of room for improvement. Richard, who excused himself from the performance, took video using my camera...but god help anybody ever seeing it, because upon review, i don't think it should ever be allowed to see the light of day (let alone appear on Youtube). let's just say we need to get better.

after awhile, everything began to wind down and the event was wrapped up around 12 noon. since Jonathan Shen was being eaten alive by bugs, we made a quick exit and made our pre-planned trip for lunch in Thai Town. Sifu reminded us that next weekend was the Tui Na Seminar, and that it would follow the same schedule as the Chin Na Seminar, with saturday class ending at 12 noon and the seminar continuing to 5pm and sunday going from 9am to 5pm. the Tui Na Seminar will be in the same location as before, at Cal State LA.