There have been a number of times over the last few years when I’ve thought to myself “How dumb can you be? How can you have reached the age you’ve got to without having learned to walk properly?”. I’ve actually been even embarrassed to mention it here! These moments came, of course, after yiquan training sessions, when I’d had some insight during the zhan zhuang, or the stepping exercises, and then I’ve spotted a specific postural problem that, when thought about, I’ve realized has been leading to me walking incorrectly for goodness know how long. I found it hard to believe that other people besides me also didn’t know how to walk properly…

I was rather glad, then, when I cam across this passage in Constantin Stanislavski’s Building a Character:

As I was walking home today I daresay the passersby in the street took me for a drunken or abnormal person.

I was learning how to walk.

But it was very difficult.

The instant when my weight was shifted from one leg to the other seemed especially complicated.

By the time I neared the end of my walk it seemed me that I had succeeded in getting rid of the jolt when I shifted my body from one foot to the other – let us say from the toes of my right foot to the heel of the left, and then (after the shifting movement had run along the whole plant of my left foot) from the toes of my left to the heel of my right foot. Besides, I came to realize from my own experience that smoothness and an unbroken line of forward motion depend on the correlated action of all the springs of the legs, from the harmonious co-operation of hips, knees, ankles, heels and toes.

I was in the habit of making a stop when I reached the Gogol Monument. As I sat there on a bench I observed the passers-by and their way of walking. And what did I discover? Not one of them took a full step right to the end of his toes nor remained poised even for the fraction of a second on the tip of the last one. It was only in one little girl that I saw a floating gait and not the creeping type of all the others.

Tortsov is indeed right, people do not know how to make use of the marvelous apparatus which is their legs.

So we have to learn. We have to begin from the beginning and learn – to walk, to speak, to see, to act.

I’m going to have a bit more to say about Stanislavski, his techniques, and his students….

A few weekends ago, before I went travelling, I went to Ditan Park to catch up with people from Small Steps Neijia. While I was trying to find them, I discovered that there was a big shuaijiao competition taking place. It was very cool – lots of old guys sitting in chairs and commenting knowledgeably on events, lots of keen youths waiting to compete, and a large crowd of fascinated observers! Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to stay and watch for long, but here’s a short clip of what I saw. One of the nice things about Beijing is randomly stumbling across this kind of thing!

Meh. I’m sick, with a chest cold and bunged up ears, swilling down bitter TCM medicine that had better work, given how horrible it is!

Well, it could be worse, eh? Here’s an interview with Mike Tyson, who’s really been through the fire. (Via Communicatrix).

On Thursday, I flew out of Beijing Capital Airport, still full with a meal of egg-and-leek dumplings and gan bian dou jiao (spicy fried green beans), with a couple of bottles of Yanjing Beer. By 0730 I was sitting in a coffee shop on Henderson Road in Singapore, happily devouring a breakfast of kaya toast and runny eggs, washed down with strong coffee sweetened with condensed milk. At 1330 I was chowing a lunch of dosai and dhal, with iced buttermilk, on Upper Dickson Road in Little India. At 2200, I was in Soi Ram Bhuttri Road in Bangkok, being served green curry and steamed rice, plus a streaming cold Chang beer, by a deep-voiced ladyboy.

The night I arrived in Bangkok, a heavily tattooed stranger on the next table told me that he worked for Microsoft in anti-virus development, but had just got back from Africa where he’d been involved in a personal sideline involving gold….

Last night, I just sat and could only nod my head as another stranger, this time a beautiful and charming Walloon nurse, poured out her stress and tension – she’d just come in from Haiti, where she’d been involved in post-earthquake aid with Medecins Sans Frontieres….

I wonder who I’ll meet today?

Ah, Asia. It’ll be a wrench to leave.

Well, I’ve already told Yao Lao Shi and all the other people who needed to know…. I think it’s certain enough to announce… I’m outta here.

While I was back in Wales, I interviewed for a job, was offered it, and accepted. The background to all this, I’m afraid, falls into that category of “off-topic for this blog”; obviously, I have a life beyond what I blog about here, and sometimes that has to take precedence.

The details are all uncertain just now but I expect to leave Beijing in September. I’ll have to visit Singapore before I go, and hope to catch up with some of you then. With any luck, time and funds allowing, I’ll go back on the Trans-Sib, though I doubt I will have time to visit the Ryabko school.

I’ll be based in Swansea…. which I suspect means that I’ll try to sign up for bagua and taiji with the Montaigue clan…. Plus there’s a systema school there…. It’ll be fairly easy to get to London, as well.

Don’t know what this means for the blog. I will certainly keep posting until I leave Asia; once I get to Wales, well, I’ll have to see. It’s a funny old life….

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