I stay within the suburbs of Bristol. Whereas Bristol itself is without doubt one of the most culturally numerous cities within the UK the suburbs have a tendency in the direction of leafy suburbia the place you’ll be able to really feel the crushing weight of normality in your shoulders. So, whereas seeing anyone in a central Bristol park doing Tai Chi on their very own wouldn’t be uncommon, it’s virtually extraordinary in my native parks. I’ve completed Tai Chi in my native park in fact – normally when coaching with anyone else and it’s not one thing I do solo, since I can simply think about the quantity of humorous seems it will generate round right here.
Think about my shock then once I noticed anyone else doing Tai Chi in my native park this morning. I regarded to my proper as I entered the park on the way in which again from the grocery store and dealing with in the direction of me within the Push posture, simply a few meters away was a person doing Tai Chi. One look was all I have to establish that he was doing Yang fashion, or presumably the Beijing 24-step, which is predicated on Yang fashion. He had that giant body posture and tremendous gradual motion pace.
He was an older man with putting white hair, brushed again and John Lennon-style glasses, however tinted, so that you couldn’t see his eyes. It was that second the place you see one thing that you simply recognise but it surely’s within the incorrect place on the incorrect time, so your mind takes a second to course of it and also you freeze like a rabbit within the headlights. The Germans in all probability have a phrase for it.
After over 20 years of dwelling in an space the place it will be thought-about odd, even bizarre, to do Tai Chi in an area park, it had lastly occurred. I’d seen anyone doing Tai Chi within the park! And have you learnt what my first thought was on seeing him?
‘Gee, what a weirdo!’
I simply walked off with out saying a phrase and he simply carried on, his consideration rapt up in his actions.