April 30th. Beatiful day, and despite the lack of sleep from the night before, I am as energized and excited as a fat lady looking at pancakes. International Taiji day, and for Taiji practitioners all over Israel, Tel Aviv University is the place to be. Demonstrations, seminars and other attractions such as Thai massage, “Ethnic†food and other commodities were plentiful and a good day was imminent.
Amongst other things, I was excited to see how the Taiji scene and generally the TCMA scene was thriving in Israel. I was not disappointed. The place was packed. Considering the scale of things (small, this country is the size of a matchbox), it was a very successful event. To my delight, there were chen Taiji teachers there (which was the main thing I had wanted to check out) and most of tem had seminars all of which dealt with silk reeling. It was fun, and the teachers really liked me. There seemed to not be an ounce of the typical Israeli machoism that surrounded similar events. But then, this was not to be a competition.
Either way, I noticed during an intermission this girl was going through an odd-looking form. Despite the fact that the sequence was not one of the most aesthetically pleasing things I had ever seen in MA, I was drawn to it. I soon realized why- I recognized her style. She was doing Southern Mantis (yes, Stylee, that Southern Mantis), and a kind which I had only seen deon by one particular Houston school. I came and talked to her, and my guess was right. In fact, she studied under someone in Israel that learned in the Houston school for a number of years. She was really friendly, and was anxious to demonstrate for me some of what they did. It is actually a pretty cool system, with a very interesting way of using and positioning the body to derive power and structure. After that, I went through some of the stuff I did. Wasn’t much. I went through tong Bei Quan and a bit of Xiao Hong Quan. It was the best thing I did all week.
From that moment on, you could count it on the clock. Every 5 minutes someone came to compliment me for my forms (which was really weird, because I generally don’t like to get too much praise for formwork). People seriously wanted to meet me and talk to me. I wonder what I could have gotten if I knew Gou Quan or something, heh. It quickly became apparent that their fascination with what I did came from a complete ignorance of Shaolin MA, and often even Shaolin as an entity entirely. Anyway, I was also doing my usual going from teacher to teacher thing. I got to do Chi Sao with an overlyexcited-to-show-me-up Wing Chun teacher. I got to meet some interesting teachers and work a bit more with them in Silk Reeling (something I really want to get a more solid basis in before I pursue any serious training in Chen Taiji). I also got to run through Yang 24 with a group of Yang guys. Basically, I met a shitload of people, all of whom have invited me to come practice with them. I also got to do a bit more stuff in front of people who were anious as I was to compare styles. It was really cool, and we drew a huge crowd.
The coolest thing that happened tho was when I passed by a Yang School that was practicing push-hands. Since my skill in this is mediocre at best, I wanted to get in on it. Before I had the chance to ask if I could join them this really cute girl comes out of nowhere and asks me (mind you this is all in Hebrew) “Would you mind doing us a favor?†Imagining the “us†had been replaced with a “meâ€, and hoping for the best, I asked what I could do for her. She asked If I minded “Le-hitz-ta-lemâ€. Now,the word has a couple of meanings, both of which include a camera. I thought she wanted a picture with me which weirded me the hell out, but I said “umm…ok, sureâ€. Well, it turned out they wanted me to do a form for them so they could get It on video. Well, it was still kind of weird, but not as weird to me as getting my picture taken. I went through TBQ again, since it is my favorite form. After I was done, I asked them if they could actually do me a favor in return. They gladly invited me to do push-hands with them, and some of the other people from around joined us. My opinion of my push-hands skill was confirmed, of course. But that was no problem. Besides, Cheng Man Jing used to say “invest in lossâ€- good thing to go by when you’re trying to get better at something and are afraid of getting discouraged. The interesting thing was that this girl that had asked me if I minded being filmed, she really seemed to know what she was doing in the whole push-hands thing. Anyway, at some point the masters demonstration started, and everyone went out to the grass in front of the area that was the stage. A bit later I saw her sitting with one of her friends from earlier. I went to sit next to her. She had picked my curiosity, and its not every day you meet a irl who is both really cute and good in Taiji. Well, to say the least she dwarfed my expectations.
She is about to go to China for half a year to complete a degree in Chinese medicine (Dao, I thought about you). While she is in China, she plans on travelling to places like Chen Village and Shaolin for training. Though I don’t remember what the lineage of her Taiji is, specifically (it is Yang), Her teacher’s Bagua and XingYi come from Honh Yi Xiang’s lineage; like mine. We talked about a lot. About where we see ourselves going in life, what we are into, we talked about Daoism and other things Chinese. I was basically stupified by this girl. I couldn’t believe I was talking to her. At some point I asked her if she was learning Chinese terminology for her Chinese medicine studies, and she said yes. Eventually, the subject of speaking Chinese came up. Bingo! I offered to teach her Chinese, which she accepted gladly. I have stayed in contact with this girl thus far and plan on seeing her posibly this weekend. Anyway, here is the problem. Shortly after she puts her number in my pone, she lets me in on something that had not been said until then. She has a boyfriend. DAAH!!! Thing is, though, she’s not quite sure “where they standâ€. I really don’t know how to take that. I’m excited about this girl, and to be honest if she hints at the slightest that she is interested I am definitely going after her. But the problem is that if she is not, I will make a total ass out of myself and seeing as to how I also want to meet her Taiji cohorts, I don’t want that to happen. In fact, I was so surprized that when she said she dosent know where her and her b/f stand, I literally asked her “So, should I take this as a…warning?†She said nonono, not at all! Ok, fine but
Anyway, a few days after I meet her, I call her and we talk. I start telling her about a book that I am thinking of bringing her that we can use, and that she can even keep for a while, and it completely goes over her head that I am talking about teaching her Chinese. She seemd to have totally forgotten even though we had talked about it when I met her and earlier that day in a brief conversatio we had had. That’s good, right?
Anyway, I’ll keep you guys updated on this. Its weird, and fun. In fact, theres a couple of other girls I have recently met but none of them interest me the way this girl does. Baah…I guess we’ll see where this week goes.
Cheers,
DC
PS: Advice is welcome, as the art of girl-chasing is at least as tedious and draining a pursuit as the Martial arts, if not so much more...
Amongst other things, I was excited to see how the Taiji scene and generally the TCMA scene was thriving in Israel. I was not disappointed. The place was packed. Considering the scale of things (small, this country is the size of a matchbox), it was a very successful event. To my delight, there were chen Taiji teachers there (which was the main thing I had wanted to check out) and most of tem had seminars all of which dealt with silk reeling. It was fun, and the teachers really liked me. There seemed to not be an ounce of the typical Israeli machoism that surrounded similar events. But then, this was not to be a competition.
Either way, I noticed during an intermission this girl was going through an odd-looking form. Despite the fact that the sequence was not one of the most aesthetically pleasing things I had ever seen in MA, I was drawn to it. I soon realized why- I recognized her style. She was doing Southern Mantis (yes, Stylee, that Southern Mantis), and a kind which I had only seen deon by one particular Houston school. I came and talked to her, and my guess was right. In fact, she studied under someone in Israel that learned in the Houston school for a number of years. She was really friendly, and was anxious to demonstrate for me some of what they did. It is actually a pretty cool system, with a very interesting way of using and positioning the body to derive power and structure. After that, I went through some of the stuff I did. Wasn’t much. I went through tong Bei Quan and a bit of Xiao Hong Quan. It was the best thing I did all week.
From that moment on, you could count it on the clock. Every 5 minutes someone came to compliment me for my forms (which was really weird, because I generally don’t like to get too much praise for formwork). People seriously wanted to meet me and talk to me. I wonder what I could have gotten if I knew Gou Quan or something, heh. It quickly became apparent that their fascination with what I did came from a complete ignorance of Shaolin MA, and often even Shaolin as an entity entirely. Anyway, I was also doing my usual going from teacher to teacher thing. I got to do Chi Sao with an overlyexcited-to-show-me-up Wing Chun teacher. I got to meet some interesting teachers and work a bit more with them in Silk Reeling (something I really want to get a more solid basis in before I pursue any serious training in Chen Taiji). I also got to run through Yang 24 with a group of Yang guys. Basically, I met a shitload of people, all of whom have invited me to come practice with them. I also got to do a bit more stuff in front of people who were anious as I was to compare styles. It was really cool, and we drew a huge crowd.
The coolest thing that happened tho was when I passed by a Yang School that was practicing push-hands. Since my skill in this is mediocre at best, I wanted to get in on it. Before I had the chance to ask if I could join them this really cute girl comes out of nowhere and asks me (mind you this is all in Hebrew) “Would you mind doing us a favor?†Imagining the “us†had been replaced with a “meâ€, and hoping for the best, I asked what I could do for her. She asked If I minded “Le-hitz-ta-lemâ€. Now,the word has a couple of meanings, both of which include a camera. I thought she wanted a picture with me which weirded me the hell out, but I said “umm…ok, sureâ€. Well, it turned out they wanted me to do a form for them so they could get It on video. Well, it was still kind of weird, but not as weird to me as getting my picture taken. I went through TBQ again, since it is my favorite form. After I was done, I asked them if they could actually do me a favor in return. They gladly invited me to do push-hands with them, and some of the other people from around joined us. My opinion of my push-hands skill was confirmed, of course. But that was no problem. Besides, Cheng Man Jing used to say “invest in lossâ€- good thing to go by when you’re trying to get better at something and are afraid of getting discouraged. The interesting thing was that this girl that had asked me if I minded being filmed, she really seemed to know what she was doing in the whole push-hands thing. Anyway, at some point the masters demonstration started, and everyone went out to the grass in front of the area that was the stage. A bit later I saw her sitting with one of her friends from earlier. I went to sit next to her. She had picked my curiosity, and its not every day you meet a irl who is both really cute and good in Taiji. Well, to say the least she dwarfed my expectations.
She is about to go to China for half a year to complete a degree in Chinese medicine (Dao, I thought about you). While she is in China, she plans on travelling to places like Chen Village and Shaolin for training. Though I don’t remember what the lineage of her Taiji is, specifically (it is Yang), Her teacher’s Bagua and XingYi come from Honh Yi Xiang’s lineage; like mine. We talked about a lot. About where we see ourselves going in life, what we are into, we talked about Daoism and other things Chinese. I was basically stupified by this girl. I couldn’t believe I was talking to her. At some point I asked her if she was learning Chinese terminology for her Chinese medicine studies, and she said yes. Eventually, the subject of speaking Chinese came up. Bingo! I offered to teach her Chinese, which she accepted gladly. I have stayed in contact with this girl thus far and plan on seeing her posibly this weekend. Anyway, here is the problem. Shortly after she puts her number in my pone, she lets me in on something that had not been said until then. She has a boyfriend. DAAH!!! Thing is, though, she’s not quite sure “where they standâ€. I really don’t know how to take that. I’m excited about this girl, and to be honest if she hints at the slightest that she is interested I am definitely going after her. But the problem is that if she is not, I will make a total ass out of myself and seeing as to how I also want to meet her Taiji cohorts, I don’t want that to happen. In fact, I was so surprized that when she said she dosent know where her and her b/f stand, I literally asked her “So, should I take this as a…warning?†She said nonono, not at all! Ok, fine but
Anyway, a few days after I meet her, I call her and we talk. I start telling her about a book that I am thinking of bringing her that we can use, and that she can even keep for a while, and it completely goes over her head that I am talking about teaching her Chinese. She seemd to have totally forgotten even though we had talked about it when I met her and earlier that day in a brief conversatio we had had. That’s good, right?
Anyway, I’ll keep you guys updated on this. Its weird, and fun. In fact, theres a couple of other girls I have recently met but none of them interest me the way this girl does. Baah…I guess we’ll see where this week goes.
Cheers,
DC
PS: Advice is welcome, as the art of girl-chasing is at least as tedious and draining a pursuit as the Martial arts, if not so much more...
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