GRANNY duties
are lovely but heaving a two-stone toddler in and out of a car seat has made me
think that I need to do a little bit more to stay strong and supple than
occasionally walking home from the supermarket with a bag-for-life full of groceries.
But what?
I did join a gym
once, I even had a personal trainer. Suffice it to say that I felt like a fish
out of water in the weights room and when the OH (who had been scathing about
the whole project) said he had noticed no improvement in my fitness or my
figure I hung up my trainers with a sigh of relief.
On the other
hand, I had fond memories of the QiGong classes I’d taken, back in the mists of
time, and although a trawl of the internet failed to locate any local classes
it did throw up a beginner’s Tai Chi class.
When I told the
OH I was going he insisted he wanted to join me. “It will be good to do
something together,” he said.
The class was
held in the early afternoon in a local church hall. Parking nearby was impossible and it was too
far to walk so we went by bus, a mode of transport the OH does not enjoy.
Suffice it to
say that we were not the oldest in the group by a long chalk. Most of the
attendees were female and the instructor said that when it came to the
movements we could hold on to the back of a chair if we needed to.
I sensed, at
that point, that this was not what the OH had in mind. So I was not surprised when, the following
day, he announced he had found another Tai Chi class that he thought we should
try.
My main objection
was that it was held on a Monday evening: in my experience it’s all very well
signing up to evening classes when the days are getting longer and warmer – but
enthusiasm tends to wane as the nights close in and the weather turns
inclement.
The OH was not
to be deterred. He showed me the
website. It said:
‘QiGong is a practice that has its focus on
cultivating, circulating and harmonizing Qi. The idea is to first balance the
body itself as a whole, and then balance the body within the backdrop of one’s
environment.
‘Tai Chi, although related, is fundamentally a
martial art. Some forms of QiGong do promote physical characteristics useful
for martial arts, but in comparison, QiGong lacks the attack and defense
principles contained in the Tai Chi postures.’
I could see that he was channelling his inner
Bruce Lee.
Six weeks later he is still enthusiastic. I
suspect it helps that the class is a mix of men and women, of young and not so
young – and that beginners are taught alongside the more experienced. There are
no chairs.
I made the mistake of wearing a turquoise
T-shirt the first week: everyone else wore black. I also have a tendency to
giggle at the names of some of the movements – such as parting the horse’s
mane. (To me, it’s ‘I’m a little teapot’.)
And yes, the instructor does talk about it
being a martial art.
To be honest, I hate it. It reminds me of the
holiday I once had in Corfu when I failed to master the Kalamatiano – saying
oops more often than opa!
But there’s no escape. I have no desire to live
in a House of Flying Daggers.
