Illustration by Alex Deadman-Wylie
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In the 1980s, I lived in a Victorian triplex close to Ottawa’s Chinatown. My days were spent hunched over an Ikea desk, reading, taking notes and writing for a master’s degree. Mostly, I persevered through all distractions, fully absorbed in what I was learning. But on warm summer days, I would bring my notecards to Dundonald Park. It was there that I first encountered tai chi.
Men and women would gather, in loose formation, and begin to move with slow thoughtful deliberation, in unison. Their actions combined to achieve a meditative dance, and it soothed me just to watch. There was a beauty and grace to their sessions that resembled a time-lapse video of a water lily opening.
Tai chi was mesmerizing but I couldn’t see its point. I could achieve my fitness goals from exercise classes, swimming and cycling – and it didn’t seem that moving so slowly would do much to tone muscle, my Jane Fonda-inspired objective for all activity. I chose only to admire this martial art as it was practised by others, and kept my distance.
But tai chi stayed with me – a seed planted. And amazingly, decades later, the necessary conditions for flowering have emerged. More time – thanks to retirement – coupled with a recommendation from my doctor have brought me full circle, only this time I am not on the park bench watching, but inside the formation, literally stumbling toward growth.
I had some false starts at the outset. The first group I joined was led by a caring instructor, but its late afternoon timing and its setting – a windowless church basement – left me uninspired. After learning the first eight steps, I took a break and never returned. The second try, six months later, was more successful. I found a morning class in a much brighter space – and the tiny seedling began to push through the soil.
Naively, I had thought that my goal would be to master the choreography of the 108 movements that form the basis of tai chi. Technically right, but wrong on so many counts. Rather, I quickly learned, what required mastering were my own personality traits.
The class was full of lovely people who glided effortlessly, seemingly never confused about where to move next or what the names of the moves were. They assured me that they had been beginners once too, and that I would be able to remember all the moves within three or four years. Three to four years! Graduate degrees took less time.
But I could see they were right. After six months, I still found it difficult to complete even the opening 13 moves on my own. I could only watch and copy, watch and copy – waiting for the day that my own body would memorize the internal rhythms of the set.
The patience needed for such slow progress was so antithetical to the way I normally approached physical activity that I found it almost unbearable. Previously, any sport that I couldn’t do easily, I just rejected. I never did learn how to throw a softball or catch it, or how to do the front crawl. I stuck to activities that needed no honing.
I also needed to lose the excuses, my favourite strategy for avoidance. Declaring natural clumsiness or bad hips or that I still can’t tell left from right instinctively (all true, by the way) just wouldn’t fly. Commit and improve: That was the only mantra available.
Oh, and one more thing: I needed to listen – another skill where I lacked proficiency. This realization came to me powerfully in my first master class. I had travelled to a tai chi centre for a two-hour session with a well-known instructor. I was excited and nervous. There were people from all over Canada, and I was a newbie compared to almost everyone there. We began with foundation exercises, and almost immediately, the teacher singled me out for instruction.
To be singled out is an honour, but I was mortified. As is required, all the others in the class stopped and turned to watch me (so that they could learn, too) while the instructor corrected my positioning. “Don’t lean back,” he said, and I repeated the movement. “Still leaning back,” he observed laconically, and on it went – probably for only a few minutes, but it seemed an eternity.
I couldn’t say, “Yeah, I get it.” I had to show that I did. In those seconds, I concentrated as I had never done before, listening intently to what the instructor was saying, watching his movement and then willing my body to move in imitation. I was simultaneously unlearning and learning, crowding out any self-consciousness to focus. As I corrected, my emotion shifted from humiliation to exhilaration. I realized that I was learning not just a new step but a new way of being in the world – truly listening, open to correction, deeply vulnerable.
I don’t know that I will ever master the 108 moves. What I do know is that I have found an activity in my seventh decade where change and growth are not just possible but expected, even when my stubborn personality tendencies re-emerge at every turn.
Gradually, I have become that lily unfolding, awoken not by sunlight and warmth but by this gentle martial art.
Heather Avery lives in Peterborough, Ont.