Olympic leftovers (3)

August 10-15, 2008 and Sept. 2008

Two nights without a Liu Laoshi class, 13-plus hour days, a little taiji snuck inside 2f of the cabin – at least I have nice chunks of on-call time upstairs when everyone else is hunched over monitors and wires downstairs. It is way too hot and humid to practice outdoors while still at work, so the cabin is the perfect haven.

A day with practice, just Liu Laoshi and I in the park…he fans himself with a folding fan in the humid night. He has brought an extra fan for me and chastises me for not being able to open and close it with snappy flair. My gongfu is not yet developed, he says, and I must practice more.

Two more without a class, getting by with solo practice in the parking lot. It turns out to be much better than I had expected. A bright and full moon shining down from an uncommonly clear Beijing sky. The crowd filtering out from the last day of judo matches. The Chinese jubilant since Tong Wen won the gold in the womens’ division. But I remain hidden away in the shadows on the side, unseen.

There are people practicing taiji outside the hotel in the mornings, but their level does not seem especially high to me and I would rather review what I have learned most recently from Liu Laoshi. So I move a bed and other furniture in my room to clear a path and start down and back, working through the 12 animals of xing yi. There is a knock at the door – room service – and a suspicious eye is cast over my sweaty body and the room in disarray, but nothing is said. Sticks, staves, drying laundry and empty beer bottles strewn about the room do little to raise her estimation of me, but the cleaners should be used to it by now.

Her work is soon finished and her demeanor improves considerably when I venture some Chinese, commenting on the hotel’s measures for environmental protection and such. She is gone before long and I return to practice, unseen (though perhaps heard by those below).