Night of 10,000 Frolics

Last night we held the first, probably the first annual, Night of 10,000 Frolics fundraising event for the T'ai Chi studio. Cabaret-style entertainment upstairs, food & drink & silent auction downstairs, socializing everywhere. Over all, I think it was a moderate financial success — we'll learn the finally tally soon — and people had fun. I still found a couple things to grump about, but more to appreciate.

Down sides

• My job was stagehand. Since no one really told me what needed to be done, I assigned myself the job of trying to keep the performers' entrance/exit area clear. And I failed miserably, because most people honestly don't believe that rules, cautions, admonishments, and my guiding hand on their shoulder are really meant for them. Just like at the Chinese New Year demonstration. Weasels. People are not going to change, so I will not beat my head against this brick wall again.
  
• The performance space was terribly hot and stuffy, and my territory just outside it wasn't much better. Plus, humidity > 65% all night. I perspired for 6 hours straight.
  
• The two services I donated to the silent auction garnered just one bid between them. I was hoping to raise more money.
  

Up sides

• Because I was working outside the performance space, I didn't have to sit still and look polite during the interminable blues numbers. I've never learned to like the blues, no matter how well they're played — and they were played very, very well last night. Just END THE DAMN SONG already.
  
• Despite the stultifying atmosphere, the performance area was nice and spacious, with a gorgeous wood floor for the dancers.
  
• Where else are you going to see English Morris dancing, clogging, ballroom cha-cha & hustle, and Middle Eastern sword-balancing/belly dancing all in the same night?
  
• Also on the program: Chinese puppetry, Shakespearean stage combat, folk singing (the good kind), Morgan Willow reading a couple of her excellent poems, and the aforementioned blues.
  
• Because I was there to work rather than to play, I was dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans — the better to hide the sweat and not gross up a nice outfit. I'm grateful I didn't opt to wear my beautiful scholar's robes, in which I would have suffocated.
  
• The free food was terrific. Nick and Jeff are wizards in the kitchen. They put together fab mayo-free sandwiches and addictive little cheese/fruit/roasted peppers-on-tiny round toast thingies. I ate at least a dozen of them, each different from the last. Plus: THREE KINDS OF BROWNIES.
  
• I was not on the organizing committee. They had a couple months of headaches over this event, and they did a bang-up job, and I'm deeply grateful I was not part of it.
  
• I got to chat with several interesting people I wouldn't normally see, including Sifu Doug Anderson, our Sifu Paul's Eclectsis teacher and the founder of the style.
  

Until next year . . .

T'ai Chi videos

The T'ai Chi studio's webmaster has been busy adding videos to the school's web site (tctaichi.com) and uploading them to YouTube. They're definitely worth a look.

To find the videos:

• On tctaichi.com: Go to "Schedule & class descriptions" in the left nav bar, then click on the name of a class. Scroll to the bottom of the class description and wait a few moments for the video to load.
  
• On YouTube: Search for "Twin Cities T'ai Chi." Several videos will come up.
  

RATS, year of

The CNY demo is over at last, and thank god for that. It was much more low-key this year than usual and also blissfully short, two more things for which to give thanks. I had the worst hair day of all time and spent the entire evening red-faced from the heat, but hey, I’m not in it for the glamour. I did my stuff right, made my wardrobe changes on time, and didn’t trip up my classmates, so I’m most thankful for that.

The puppet dance was a cool way to open the demo. It would have been interesting to hear the story behind it — I’m sure there is one — and to know who the performers were.

Just once, though, I’d like to demonstrate Eclectsis without having people “joke” afterward that they’re afraid of me. Especially longtime friends. That’s no funnier than saying you’re afraid of a T’ai Chi player. Just because Eclectsis looks more overtly martial does not mean its practitioners are more likely to pick fights, and it’s kind of hurtful that people’s knee-jerk assumption is to assume as much. Sure, they’re just joking around, but jokes have their basis in reality.

Anyway. I bought myself a new fan from MNKS last night, one that just happens to match my new robes. It’s the first weapon I’ve bought in at least six years. I guess weapons haven’t been my top priority lately. I would like to start giving more attention to my sword form, though. Practicing for this demo with people who are really accomplished with the sword reminded me of how far I have to go.

And speaking of the demo, if someone asked me how to make it better, I’d point out that the following should, but obviously don’t, go without saying:

• Cell phones off. Post signs at the doors. Make announcements from the stage. Charge fines. Conduct pat-down searches. Do whatever you have to do to convince people to turn the damn things off.
  
• No children under 6. No, not even your adorable moppets. Children who do attend should be accompanied by an adult at all times. They should not be thundering unsupervised through the equipment room or screeching up and down the hall playing hide-and-seek or sitting in the aisles of the audience. Parents who let their children run wild are being terribly inconsiderate of everyone who came to see and hear the demonstration. Yes, you.
  
• Keep it quiet. Whether you’re sitting in the audience or waiting to go up and do your thing, be quiet. You’re at a performance. Act like it.

It would be nice if we could . . .

• Leverage the tech. Hook up a feed from the video camera to display the goings-on in the equipment room or hallway so people who didn’t get a seat or can’t take the heat can see and hear anyway. (And by the way, what ever happens to these recordings? I’ve never seen one.)
  
• Find somewhere to stash guests’ coats. Maybe we could set up garment racks in the sink area in the hallway, or in the corner by an artist’s studio — somewhere other than the changing rooms, which are crowded enough already.

In an ideal world, we could also:

• Designate a backstage area. It would be nice to have someplace out of sight and earshot to store weapons and to congregate and prepare before going onstage.
  
• Circulate the air. Better ventilation would help with temperature control, and especially with incense control. The smoke gets too heavy too fast in the space we’ve got.

Overall, I was happy about the way this year’s demo went (i.e., fast). My teachers and classmates never cease to amaze me. When Julie walks the circle, I see Sifu Ray. And when Sifu Paul does the Mother & Sons, I see Master Choi. Damn. I’ve “learned” the M&S set, but what I do looks nothing like what Sifu did last night.

Not so much the banquet, however. What was U Garden thinking? We were short of seating with nowhere to expand, and although we waited a long time to get food, some of it was chilly/soggy when it arrived. Conversation was nearly impossible thanks to the karaoke mania going on in the larger part of the restaurant, so even if there had been room to mingle and visit, no one wanted to. Clearly we did not have our hosts’ full attention this year.

Plus: Fried couch cushions in sesame sauce? Excuse me? Some people were calling it tofu, but they lied. I know fried couch cushion when I taste it. No es bueno.

OK, enough about last night. I’ll spend a couple hours today and a couple tomorrow looking over proofs of Real Gold Does Not Fear the Fire, the Master Choi book. I’m glad to have a chance to help with this. I’d be delighted to help out with future writing projects, too, but so much goes on under the radar, I don’t even know when to volunteer.

challenged

Another day, another challenge on my road to mastery. Last night, Sifu Ray assigned me and Julie to teach a portion of the San-Shou class. Our students have already learned half the two-person dance, either side A or side B. Julie is going to teach the Bs their A side, and I'm going to teach the As their B.

Yeah, I was surprised, too.

We'll do most of our classes as a group so the two sides can serve as partners for each other, and there will be one of us modeling each. This is a relief to me, as Julie has taught San-Shou before and I haven't, so I'm very willing to follow her lead.

Teaching the movements and the principles will not be too tough. The hard part will be dealing with BBS, or Brown Belt Syndrome. BBS describes the attitude of someone who knows a decent amount of martial arts stuff — has earned a brown belt — but is not nearly as close to black as he thinks. We were getting more than enough "helpful feedback" from our learned fellows last night.

Sure, it can be tough to see your classmate set in authority over you, if your ego is easily threatened. But part of learning martial arts is learning to set that ego aside. Mastery of self is a prerequisite for achieving mastery over others, and it's far and away the hardest thing to learn.

I hope I don't have to give that speech in class while looking certain people in the eye.

Well, we'll be fine. Julie has done this before, and Sifu will help any time I'm smart enough to ask (hard lesson #2). It'll be fun.

when the road gets rocky

Changes are afoot at the T’ai Chi studio, and I don’t like them. Specifically, the pushing-hands class is being dumbed down to a near-crippling extent by the removal of the willow exercise. Willow — the very heart of this aspect of T’ai Chi — is being cut from the curriculum because apparently some people can’t play nicely with others, and the instructors have been getting too many complaints. (Since those instructors are models of patience, I can only imagine how numerous and how strident the complaints must be.) In practical terms, what the change means is this: Anyone who wants to gain the deeper skills of pushing-hands is going to have to schedule private lessons.

While I understand that the traditional path to mastery is just such an arrangement, a one-to-one relationship between master and student, it still pisses me off that advanced teachings cannot be part of regular classes. Once, just once, I’d like to belong to an educational system where higher-level lessons can be part of the regular curriculum rather than something extra that has to be squeezed into teachers’ and students’ spare time.

OK, I’m being very unfair. Twin Cities T’ai Chi does, in fact, incorporate an unprecedentedly vast breadth and depth of high-level material into regular classes. The teaching is ridiculously generous. And it’s not as if I’ve absorbed all of it and am entitled to move on. Far from it; I’m only now reaching the level where I can truly appreciate the richness of a private lesson. I’d just hate to see this school get caught on the slippery slope of dumbing down its curriculum to the lowest common denominator, that’s all.

Of course, my next question is, why not take the misbehavers aside and tell them to knock the shit off? Why not make them take the extra lessons to get their skills up to standard? And if they don’t, why not show them the door? Afraid of hurting somebody’s feelings?

Well, too late. My feelings have already been hurt by seeing bad students accommodated over good ones.

hope it's not the year of the boor

We did our big Chinese New Year hoo-ha at the T'ai Chi studio last night. As demonstrations go, I'd say it was one of our best. No one forgot their moves, screwed them up, or pulled a muscle mid-routine. Whew! Although I had a better view of the proceedings than usual, I didn't take any pictures. Sorry.

The smoothness of the demonstrations was especially nice because it was Sifu Ray's 30th anniversary of studying T'ai Chi, the point at which one can be considered a master. There was a bunch of sentimental speechifying both by and about Sifu Ray, which caused the program to last until 9:15. It had started at 6:00 — OK, 6:15 — and the room was very hot and muggy (in contrast to the subzero temperatures outside), so we were all sweaty by the end. But it was worthwhile to see proper tribute paid. To my immense shock, the speakers didn't have to compete with much of the kids-running-screeching noise that normally plagues these events.

The altar ceremony took another 45 minutes. Tradition says that if you start a new year by receiving food and money, you'll have good fortune that year. I got drafted to hand out lucky oranges to everyone who went through the line, while another guy handed out lucky red envelopes containing a dollar. I wouldn't have minded this duty if I hadn't been bathed in incense smoke for 45 minutes. OY. My voice is still scratchy. But I did get to wish everyone happy new year. It's the Year of the Boar, or Pig. Squee!

I also helped clean up, so I didn't get to the banquet until about 10:45. I hit the bar for a Heiniken at 10:46. I ended up at a peripheral table with Dan and Betty, whom I don't get to visit with much, so that was nice. Plus, I was away from the table hobnobbing when the bill came, so sweet, generous Dan paid for my dinner. Food and money! Surely this bodes well for my coming year.

I left around midnight after saying good night to a happily tipsy Sifu Ray, who was making good use of the gifts of Scotch he'd received. It was nice to see him enjoying his evening. And then on my way out, I found Todd's cell phone and Pat's scarf, which I was able to return before they left. What IS it with me finding things, anyway?

So happy Year of the Boar, everybody. May yours be warm and fuzzy and filled with good fortune.