Chinese Chi

MJ and I had our first tai chi chuan class last night. After a brief set of warmup exercises (some seeming more soothing than muscle-warming), we attempted to follow along as our instructor, Zhou, went through the 24 Forms. I'm not sure how much I absorbed, especially with my left-right confusion surfacing several times, but I did all right with push and press, thanks to the exhibition I watched at Sakura-Con.

After, Zhou took some time to talk to MJ and me, the newbies. He described the origins of tai chi and explained that what we're learning is a short form of Yang tai chi chuan. But it was when he began speaking of his personal history that he really lit up and had us captivated.

He first came to America during World War II to learn to be a pilot. He trained on the "beautiful" P-51 Mustang, but, to his continuing disappointment, the war had ended by the time he was ready to fight. He returned to China and began flying commercially and instructing other pilots for the airline. When the communists came to power, he immediately came under suspicion due to the time he had spent in the U.S. and because he spoke English. Fearing that he would simply fly away one day, the government eventually grounded him.

At this point, he began studying architecture ("Self taught!" he emphasized) and ended up a well known architect there. But by 1972, his health was poor—liver problems and high blood pressure—and he didn't much care, because he disliked living under that government so much. Then President Nixon came. Suddenly, Zhou had hope that he would one day get to leave China.

To improve his health, he began studying tai chi chuan. As his skills and health improved, the political climate in China continued to shift. After decades of hiding his ability to speak English, he discovered that the government was beginning to value and seek out English speakers. He volunteered to teach others. "How can you remember so much English?" they asked him, and he admitted that he'd been reading and rereading an English translation of what he calls Mao Zedung's Thoughts (aka The Little Red Book).

He finally returned to America in 1990, the last of his family to do so. At his first medical exam here, the doctors found his blood pressure normal and his liver healthy. When he went home and told his family his results, they all asked him to teach them tai chi chuan. He's been instructing ever since.