Obey My Blog

On New Year’s Eve I ran into one of my previous Tai Chi classmates. We chatted briefly about what we’d been up to and he mentioned he was no longer doing Tai Chi, but had switched to Yoga. He expressed his frustration over never being able to remember the Tai Chi forms. I empathized and laughed, but then had the startling realization that since returning to Tai Chi again back in the fall, I could remember everything.

Funny – I had actually forgotten how much trouble I had remembering the movements when I first started. It was extremely frustrating! And yet, somehow over the past year, without my even realizing it, this ceased to be an issue. Craziness!

My Tai Chi class starts up again next week. Yay! But… my legs… They aren’t nearly strong enough. Even though I practice almost every morning, I still take it way too easy. When I’m in class, my legs are usually shaking by the end. At home, I can still walk. Which is not a good sign.

I’ve been getting a few questions lately about who my teacher is and what forms I know. Weird. But okay, that’s cool.

In the Tai Chi scheme of things, I am still pretty much a beginner (but still not exactly a noob). I’ve only ever studied Chen Style Tai Chi and have only made it through the Old Frame (Lao jia) 1st routine (of which there are 2 – and which I am now relearning). I don’t know all of the Chinese names for the forms – I just do them. I know. I should probably educate myself. But at this point, I’m just happy to be getting the movements down.

And my teacher, for the curious, is Yuxia Qiu. Qiu is pronounced like “chew.” When I first met her I tried very hard to use her first name, but after several attempts at trying to pronounce it correctly she smiled and told me I could just call her Qiu.

She learned Chen Style Tai Chi from Grandmaster Chen, Xiao Wang 陈小旺, and Grandmaster Chen, Zheng Lei 陈正雷 and has also practiced Yang Style Tai Chi Quan, Yang Style Tai Chi Sword, Shao Lin Long Fist, Baguazhang, and various forms of Qigong.

Whew!

Anyhoo…I’m excited!