Yes, as some of you guys know I've taken up tai-chi. And no, I'm not out in the park at sunrise with the old ladies practicing. It's quite interesting so far, which is the part that is supposed to be less fun, where we learn to relax (loosen up baby!) and learn the movements for later when we actually are supposed to learn to feel the chi. It's basically learning the movements and such for an especially long kata if you did karate.
Though, I wasn't very smart about it when I started. Knowing I had a 4 hour tai chi lesson later that day, I went to the gym downstairs and did the free trial day. Probably not the brightest idea, but I really wanted to see the facilities and how busy it would be in the approximate time that I'd be using it. For the record, the answer was decent, nothing to write home about but pretty clean and REALLY quiet, like only 10-20 people in there. So if you're ever thinking about starting tai chi, my advice to you is not to have a 40 minute run earlier in the day. Bad. Bad. Idea. Or at least be in a lot better shape than I am right now.
I actually don't know what the chi is supposed to feel like, since well, I can't understand Teacher. Which isn't that big a deal, because it sounds like more than me can't understand because he speaks mandarin in the class. Of course, I also can't understand the assistant teachers when they speak cantonese, but I have two or three people who are helping to translate for me, which is super awesome of them, and I really appreciate it if you're one of those people looking at this. I was telling Darmita the other day that I thought I could feel tingling in my hands and my fingers were getting all swollen, which she says is kind of the beginning of maybe feeling chi, but it could also be that i was swinging my hands around, or maybe I'm just getting fat fingers. At any rate, I'm not sure it was chi I was starting to feel, but I'm going to say it was because then I feel like I've accomplished something!
I'm slowly picking up cantonese words, mostly the ones that I think are fun to say, like si-to-be-le, and chu-go-lik. Actually, I think all of the words that I've learned have to do with food, because that's the easiest thing to learn when you sit down and go, what's this? And going with my above theme of getting fat, there's a lot of food being eaten, even muck pay. I should start titleing every post with a word and it's translation so I can learn at least a word a day.
I was also attempting to fill out some forms I found on the Canadian embassy website. The one where they say to register with the embassy in case something bad happens so they can alert everyone you know, like a piano falling out of a 37th floor window, landing on the street in front of you causing you to jump backwards, bop your head on a lamp post and forget who you are.
It took me a while to figure out why the heck Australian is a status in Canada. It's obvious that we have to keep a careful eye out on those subversive Aussies. Either that or they don't have an embassy in HK, which is a close second guess. That website was actually a pretty good source of information. I was surprised to learn that there are apparently 250,000 Canadians in Hong Kong. It was on the internet, and the internet is never wrong, so that's the number I'm going with. I'm dissapointed though, because I've only met about 30 or so. 249,970 to go!
Though, I wasn't very smart about it when I started. Knowing I had a 4 hour tai chi lesson later that day, I went to the gym downstairs and did the free trial day. Probably not the brightest idea, but I really wanted to see the facilities and how busy it would be in the approximate time that I'd be using it. For the record, the answer was decent, nothing to write home about but pretty clean and REALLY quiet, like only 10-20 people in there. So if you're ever thinking about starting tai chi, my advice to you is not to have a 40 minute run earlier in the day. Bad. Bad. Idea. Or at least be in a lot better shape than I am right now.
I actually don't know what the chi is supposed to feel like, since well, I can't understand Teacher. Which isn't that big a deal, because it sounds like more than me can't understand because he speaks mandarin in the class. Of course, I also can't understand the assistant teachers when they speak cantonese, but I have two or three people who are helping to translate for me, which is super awesome of them, and I really appreciate it if you're one of those people looking at this. I was telling Darmita the other day that I thought I could feel tingling in my hands and my fingers were getting all swollen, which she says is kind of the beginning of maybe feeling chi, but it could also be that i was swinging my hands around, or maybe I'm just getting fat fingers. At any rate, I'm not sure it was chi I was starting to feel, but I'm going to say it was because then I feel like I've accomplished something!
I'm slowly picking up cantonese words, mostly the ones that I think are fun to say, like si-to-be-le, and chu-go-lik. Actually, I think all of the words that I've learned have to do with food, because that's the easiest thing to learn when you sit down and go, what's this? And going with my above theme of getting fat, there's a lot of food being eaten, even muck pay. I should start titleing every post with a word and it's translation so I can learn at least a word a day.
I was also attempting to fill out some forms I found on the Canadian embassy website. The one where they say to register with the embassy in case something bad happens so they can alert everyone you know, like a piano falling out of a 37th floor window, landing on the street in front of you causing you to jump backwards, bop your head on a lamp post and forget who you are.
It took me a while to figure out why the heck Australian is a status in Canada. It's obvious that we have to keep a careful eye out on those subversive Aussies. Either that or they don't have an embassy in HK, which is a close second guess. That website was actually a pretty good source of information. I was surprised to learn that there are apparently 250,000 Canadians in Hong Kong. It was on the internet, and the internet is never wrong, so that's the number I'm going with. I'm dissapointed though, because I've only met about 30 or so. 249,970 to go!
1 comment:
I think you are mistaking fingers that are itching and twitching to play more WoW for your supposed Chi.
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