Wenatchee Library
A strange sight, of all places, at the reading room in the Wenatchee library —— a homeless man, coming straight from the street, with all his belongings plus his pet dog on top of a shopping cart. The guy is definitely well educated. Time has changed; with upgraded homelessness, we may soon see these folks with higher and higher education. More and more homeless Ph. Ds in the crowd?
Tai Chi (太極) for dummies
太極拳是中華民族特有的武學文化，更是道家性命雙修的運動之學。它的理論依據可以追溯到《道德經》「道生一，一生二，二生三，三生萬物，萬物負陰而抱陽，沖氣以為和」及《易經》「太極生兩儀，兩儀生四象，四象生八卦」的太極之道，因此，太極拳的理論是完美無缺的，是任何一種拳術理論都無法與其相比擬的，老幼皆宜！太極拳講求和諧與平衡，重內外兼修，以柔克剛。打太極的過程中有很多獨立的動作，它對調解人的平衡能力，可起到很好的作用。同時，打太極也有利於平衡內分泌，對飲食和休息也都會有很大的幫助。
Tai Chi is an exercise practiced by the Chinese for centuries. Supposedly, it enhances our chi 氣, whatever it is, for body and soul (chi 氣 is not the same as the chi 極 in Tai Chi). I think Tai Chi is simply a form of motion meditation. A variety of Tai Chi forms have been developed through the years. Most of them are complicated and tedious. I have been in Tai Chi classes before but, so far, hardly learned anything.
In my recent cruise to China, a short version of the Tai Chi was taught onboard. The teacher is Master PW Kam, DDS. He is American-Chinese and a dental surgeon for 30 yrs in the USA. Now retired and a guest lecturer onboard teaching Tai Chi and Asian histories. Both courses are taught in English targeting us retirees onboard who are mostly old, dumb, totally unfit and very much uninterested. Nevertheless, the Tai Chi class was extremely effective and my wife and I learned the basics in only 6 x 45 min lectures. We continued practicing it at home and were able to somehow “master” the whole 14 Tai Chi moves. Proud of ourselves!!
I took a video on Kam’s demonstration in class. This Tai Chi for dummies has 14 simple moves and takes only 3.59 min:
1. Open stand 起勢
2. Hold the ball
3. Spread the wing 白鶴亮翅
4. Block and twist
5. Post monkey 倒卷肱
6. Back fist
7. High block and push
8. Cloudy hands 雲手
9. Single wip 單鞭
10. Rooster on one leg
11. Pick up the tiger
12. Grasp the bird’s tail 攔雀尾
13. Close stand
14. well done