Tai Chi day

 

‘Thank you, bye’ I say as I hang up the phone.  ‘weeeeeeeeeeeee’ I jump up and down and clap my hands together excitedly. I am very excited, very, very excited. So excited, so, so, so overly excited. Stops to take a breath.

That was me just over two weeks ago, all jumpy and excited. I had just enrolled into a new class which I started a few days later. I was actually counting down the days until it started because I was told it would be very good for me, and I needed something that would be very good for me, and I needed that something right NOW. So I was counting... Today is Saturday and tomorrow is Sunday, that makes the next day... Tai Chi day!

Ommmmmmmmmmmm, I wondered if they ‘omm’ in that class. I felt like omming, omming would be fun. But first things first, let me start at the beginning, on day one just before the class.

Finally the big day had arrived and I got myself all ready for the class. I couldn’t wait to get there, I couldn’t wait to feel better. So I arrived 15 minutes early and practically skipped into the venue with a big grin on my face. As I approached the reception desk the lady was staring at me, I guess I looked too excited or something. But never mind I didn’t care, I was in a great mood.

‘Hi, I’m here for the Tai Chi class, the beginners class’, I said cheerfully. ‘Oh’ she replied with a strange look on her face and an overly long pause before saying. ‘You must be Daisy?’ “Yes, yes I am’ I answered warily as the huge grin disappeared from my face. ‘Sorry’, she said, ‘but that class started half an hour ago’. ‘But how could that be, why wasn’t I told. Now what will I do?’ I blurted out as I felt my happy feeling sinking to the floor with every word I spoke. ‘Sorry, but you weren’t notified as you were overlooked’, she said with a little smile on her face, and after saying that she stared at me... she held my gaze and just stared at me, it was the most bizarre thing I had ever seen.

I was kind of confused, I was trying to figure out how I could have been overlooked, I was trying to figure out how I would catch up with everyone else having missed the first class, I was trying to figure out how I was going to scoop my happy feeling up off the floor and walk out of that place with a shred of dignity intact as I was so devastated, so overwhelmed with instant sorrow that I just wanted to curl up and die. But I was mostly trying to figure out why on earth this lady was staring at me so intently without letting up and with that little ‘almost smirk’ on her face. When suddenly without warning she jumped up and said ‘it’s ok, I will sneak you into the class, it is only half way through’. Before I knew what was happening she was on my side of the counter and grabbing my arm and half leading, half dragging me down the hallway to the class.

So much for the ‘sneaking’ part as when we had arrived at the room she burst in through the double doors, which she flung open with both hands, announcing to all far and near in her outdoor voice, ‘I have another one for you!’, stopping the whole class completely, resulting in everyone turning to stare at me and leading the instructor to say ‘oh, but she has missed so much, she will never catch up’. Then with a big sigh she told me to ‘Go to that empty place in the back row and try to keep up with the rest of the class’. Which I did, but secretly wanted to melt right through the floor, I was so embarrassed and still quite shocked and devastated with what had just happened outside at the reception desk. As I took my place and the class got back underway, all I could say to myself was ‘Welcome to Tai Chi, Daisy’.   

As things turned out that first day, it wasn’t that bad at all. From what I could gather, mostly what I missed in the first half of the class was the boring ‘let’s go around the room and introduce ourselves’ and the history/background of tai chi and the other thing it appeared we were to learn as well called Qigong. So all in all, they actually did me a favour not informing me of the change of class time as I HATE the whole ‘who am I and what am I doing here’ thing. I had no trouble keeping up with the class and it appeared this tai chi thing would be ok after all.

But then, as with all new classes, I had to go back again the next week. It was not so much fun that next week, the teacher was flustered with one of the students, Patrick, and staying for the whole hour was harder on my body than I thought it would be. Basically we had to semi squat for the whole hour with our knees just off the lock position, not a good thing when you feel like you have two knives sticking out of both of your knees. Also we had to repeat each movement at least five times each, which was not so great on my damaged shoulder, and the pivoting on the feet kind of made me feel like my ankles were breaking. Bending down to pick up my handbag after the class was no easy feat and walking home was sheer agony. I thought tai chi was meant to be a gentle exercise, not pain educing torture I grumbled to myself as I hobbled all the way home.  

The third week everyone is becoming very chummy with each other, one lady even knows all our names which we applaud as she introduces us all to the instructor who has no clue as to who we are because she has left her class list at home. May I just say that even with her class list she has no clue as to who we are as we keep changing places and for some reason this confuses her.  

I should mention here that when I think of tai chi I think of an ancient little old Chinese man in black kung fu attire leading the class, not a middle aged Australian lady named Sue. Sue wears the black kung fu attire and says she has studied tai chi in China, but I find that a little hard to believe. Call me a sceptic but she doesn’t strike me as someone who has studied in China, but I may be totally wrong.

Lee, that is the lady who knows who everyone is, told us to stop applauding, she says she has to try hard to remember things, all things, every day, as she has MS. We all stop clapping and mumble ‘oh’ under our breaths. Actually the class is filled with eight very different people. Lee, is in her late 50’s her real name is Elizabeth but she prefers Lee.

There is also another Elizabeth but she prefers Beth. Beth is also in her 50’s and kinda overweight. I like her because she called me slim and no one has called me slim in a couple of years. Everyone was trying to figure out where to stand so we could all see the instructor and Beth said that she couldn’t stand at the front of the class as she was far too tall. I said, ‘but I am much taller than you and I am here at the front’. Beth replied ‘oh but you are tall and slim whereas I am tall and fat’. Awww what a lovely lady, she made my day, no my week, no my year.

There are two young girls in the class, both in their early 20’s I would say. One is Sky, but I don’t know the other one’s name yet. I know Sky’s name as she has a weak bladder and has to run to the bathroom about three times each class. I think she is also a tad strange as she always wears a black fitted dress to class whereas the rest of us wear sweatpants. He friend, thingy, had a baby just two months ago, yet is so slim and actually, she wears a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a  puffer jacket each week, I guess they are both a little ‘different’.

Next is a little old lady who is all of 4 feet nothing tall. Roma is at least eighty years old, but has more energy than I do, she also takes advantage of her lack of height. I am guessing that she has survived on the ‘cute factor’ her whole life, but she seems like a lovely lady.

That leaves Patrick and Pauline. Someone asked Pauline if she was Patrick’s carer and she said yes, but I am sure she is his wife too. Pauline is tired and grumpy and rolls her eyes a lot every time someone talks to Patrick. She also throws her arms up in the air a lot too in reference to Patrick. I don’t think she is very happy with Patrick.

Which brings me to Patrick, Patrick is blind and the instructor has no idea what to do with him, thus each week she gets more and more flustered. Patrick is only partially blind, he can see from one eye and only if you stand directly in front of him, so I guess he has tunnel vision. He wants to be treated ‘normally’ but the instructor is so out of her comfort zone with him that she fails terribly at trying to be cool and calm and collected around him.

Oh and of course, there is me... the tall SLIM one... giggle. As I look around the class at everyone I have to give a little smile, what a sight we are in that class. Let me see if I can paint you a picture.

Sue, our instructor arranges us all around Patrick, so that he can ‘see’ her. Only she always places him at the front right hand side of the class and he ends up seeing nothing but he won’t complain because he wants to be treated like everyone else. Sue also places a chair behind him just in case he feels faint, because he is blind! All the chair does is get in the way of both Patrick and the unlucky person standing behind him. Pauline, mutters something from across the room that he doesn’t need a chair and just let him be, but she won’t say it out loud so Sue continues to fuss. When we finally start the class after Sue has rearranged us all a few times for Patrick’s sake, we are all wanting to throw our arms up into the air in frustration with Pauline.

We start the movements with heaven and earth, followed by open heaven and earth and the breeze moving the branches. Looking around the class I see that Lee has the wrong feet, Pauline –thingy has the wrong arms, Beth has stepped far too wide and is stuck in a split like stance and Patrick is waving his fingers in front of his face in the form of ‘spirit fingers’ from the movie ‘Bring It On’. As we continue on through the movements and change direction for repulse the monkey, Patrick is facing backwards still waving those spirit fingers, Roma is completely lost and Sky runs out of the room to the bathroom after giggling with thingy over the name ‘repulse the monkey’. Sue stops and looks around the class, smiles broadly and says ‘great, great, you are all doing great’, as she walks over to Patrick and turns him around to face the front as he almost trips over that silly chair.

Yep that is my tai chi class, I wonder if we will actually end up learning all the 18 movements in this shibashi by the end of the term. I am truly amazed that everyone has come back each week as I really expected a few to drop out. But we are all there and we are doing our best. We are the tai chi beginners... hear us roar (or should that read, stumble).