Tai Chi class (#281, Topic D)

For the last 7 or so years, my wife and I have been to a Tai Chi class. At first, we went three times a week, Sundays 2-4, and Tuesdays and Thursdays 7:30 - 9 pm -- after moving to our retirement community, only on Sundays. A lot has happened during these 7 years, the most tramatic being the sudden (and untimely) death of our Tai Chi institute's founder, 40-ish Master Tang, four years ago. Since then, the institute's 7 or 8 classes around DC are being taught by a dedicated group of the master's early-day students (along with Mrs. Tang as the institute's president). These students were selected (and personally taught by the master) with a view that, in due course, they would be teachers on their own volition; they certainly have carried out the master's wishes admirably. The institute's most amazing practice is that, since its inception some 20 years ago, students attend classes free of charge -- the master (a PhD in Electrical Engineering and a world-class expert on computer security) wanted nothing better than to have more people exposed to the benefits of Tai Chi -- all a student needs to do is to pay a nominal registration fee to cover rental of high-school gyms (at present, $35 per semester, 16 or so weeks; in comparison, our retirement community offers a 6-session, 1-1/2 hour per session course for $90). When I first joined the class, I was extremely clumsy and stiff. Frequenty, I was invited to join the master at the front, standing next to him, so that the class could see the two of us making the same moves. I was happy to oblige, and we did it all in good spirits, often with laughs, since these one-on-one occasions allowed me to realize how far off I was from being considered minimally fit. The master, though only in his early 40s at the time, was fully aware of Tai Chi's benefits to senior citizens. He had thus developed a series of moves, lasting an hour or so (the first hour of each 2-hour session), on these, dubbed as 養生法 well-being exercises -- easy, gradual, flexible (one does each move to the best of one's ability), yet giving every part of a person's body some needed exercise or vibration -- from hair to toe, with emphasis on the waist and weight-shifting. Over the years, my clumsiness gradually diminishes and my stiffness becomes less noticeable. Now, I can do some moves better, but my ability to do other moves has deteriorated, perhaps due to my getting older. Today, in the class, I realized I could not do a move -- standing on one foot while first shaking the other foot and later moving that mid-air foot in an arc -- as well as before; ideally, one should be able to do this for at least a minute; I can do only 30 seconds while standing on my right foot (down from 45-50 seconds) and only 15 seconds while standing on my left foot (down from 35-40 second). On the other hand, I have maintained my ability to bend one leg at the knee as low as possible while stretching the other leg as far to the side as possible -- this is a common exercise done by American footballers before a game (I played international fooball, known as soccer in USA, while a youngster in China). While doing this last move today, I somehow caught our teacher's attention. She, Teacher Chung, said: "Dr. Li, 你好棒 you are doing well." (Technically,棒 = splendidly. Generally, teachers are very generous in their praise. I feel I am not worthy of this.) I thanked her. It was a happy occasion.