valley « New Plateaus

RSS

Posts Tagged ‘valley’

Wild Monkeys

21 Sep

It was my last day at the Wu Dang Shan Tai Chi Academy. I was leaving at four o’clock that afternoon. And the anticipation of my exit gave a new vibe to my remaining hours.

One thing I wanted to squeeze in that day was to explore a creek that flowed down in the valley below. Unseen, but told to me by other students, I wanted to walk beyond and withing the hillside forests and discover this creek for myself.

I love creeksespecially in the woods. And this rocky, hilly landscape gave me higher hopes yet.

These hopes were met. The creek was gorgeous. I drank from it, I walked along its length. I… Well, let me just show you. And at the end, as there was for me, therell be a clan of monkeys waiting to greet you.

We started down late that morning—myself, my teacher, and the two boys:

The often-written-about, intense, nun-chucking trainer

And his two pupils:

Soon after we got underway, the group of middle-aged women students there joined in. The tone jumped from a few guys on an adventure, to a more leisurely, family stroll. A narrow, weaving trail wound down the mountain. Sometimes level, sometimes steep, sometimes along the cliff, we made our way.

At the bottom was a homestead. This reminded me of cabins my brothers and I used to explore on our deer hunting land back in Minnesota:

Home of the Chinese hillbilly

And like the woodsmen back home, I had to wonder how they built this structure way out in the middle of nowhere.

A look inside:

After this detour, parade of cabins, I had to catch up. Pacing toward my group, I found what they had already found:

The creek

Gosh, it was pure and clean. The crispness was so sharp and vibrant; this seemed as much a calling to one’s own artistic and true self as it was a simple observation about its clarity and potability.

I’ve written before about the depth of this image: the stream lapping along the rocky creek bed. It’s an artery of the forest. It’s a statement of the ever-flowing water, the never-moving stone, and the unique, but nonetheless effective, forces that they are, but also represent in humanity.

The boys went back up the cliff after some time. I wasn’t keen on that return trip, so I opted to follow the creek out to the road with a couple of the gals.

The walk was beautiful:

As we know, but ought to be reminded, photos are just a square. Imagine these sights in the midst of the 360 degrees of nature around you, first filling your monitor, then filling your room. Your periphery frames these luscious sights within a context in their home on this vast planet.

At the base of this trickling falls was some strangely colored water:

Is there a botanist or ecologist in the house that can explain the blood-red color?

At the end of the walk, a clearing:

It was through this final stretch that we met nature’s ambassadors to this valley:

A couple quickly turned into a clan:

Indeed, I first saw them playing on the ropes stretched across the gorge. They see humans and apparently think food. The stone path we were upon was populated with them to the point where one of the ladies I walked with didn’t cross until I shooed them away.

Do be careful, though. These are some wild apes, and they’re hungry.

This leg belonged to another woman there with her two kids. The monkey went after her purse.

Another stared at me so I smiled back. Not sure why, and it was a mistake. In monkeyese, showing your teeth is threatening, I guess. He showed me his fangs and let out a nice yelp to go along with it.

Kinda freaky so we kept a-walking until we got to the road where a bus eventually came to bring us back to the school.

I left that afternoon back down the mountain to the town below. It was much warmer down there. I arrived back at the makeshift apartment/hotel that boarded me my first night in town. The next day I got on the train and said goodbye to Wu Dang Shan.

The nine days here were incredible. Up on Wu Dang Shan there were many lessons: patience and contentment, living without luxuries, discipline, being “in your body” rather than thinking all the time, and like so many other places in China, the beauty and power of nature. I know it sounds silly to say it “changed me”, but as I said when I introduced the place, I still practice the physical and mental routines that were established on this mountain. (In fact, I’m writing this in my exercise gear, ready for a morning routine as soon as I publish this on the website.)

This stay would be the last major event for me in China before returning coming home to Minnesota. Afterward it, I briefly visited Xian, a city worthy of much time and attention, but shorted because of time constraints. And a couple days after that, I also said goodbye to my China home, Zhuhai, as well as to China altogether.

Next time, I’ll write about this mixed-emotion, reflective parting.

For now, I hope you got a lot out of the wisdom I encountered and experienced on this mountain top in Hubei province. Regarding this post, I hope you see your world a little smaller as the woods in China sort of look like the woods anywhere. Sure, there are different plants in the Earth and animals in the water, but the differences between there and a Minnesota summer aren’t too drastic.

And when you boil it all down prior to technology and even civilization, you realize the universal trait among all people, which is the appreciation and comfort with nature, the realm all our ancestors enjoyed.

to new plateaus,

Brandon

p.s. Here’s a video compilation of the day…there’s monkeys, too:

1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Studying Tai Chi: The Students, The Landscapes

01 Sep

I attended a music camp back in high school. We rehearsed with this involved, focused presence, only a few days to master our music for a performance at weeks end. These rehearsals were different than regular band class during the school year. There, we were more likely to clock-watch and wish for the hour to end so we could get away. Once that bell rang, whew!, finally.” I think we were mostly glad because rather than having to put forth our attention and energy into the music, we could drift off into the lazy daze of horse play and daydream.

The difference between that exciting, intense camp and the boring, drawn-out school year is a degree of time. Knowing that we had just a few days at camp made us present and allowed us to wring every moment out of each hour. The school year, by contract was, well, a year! So it seems the tidbits of time, the portions that are allotted, are often better used. Think about how focused and present you get when you go to a retreat, camp, or seminar.

But what then of the prospect of an open-ended amount of time, like say, the prospect of our life?! Well, shoot. Who hasn’t idled away an afternoon (or longer) awaiting the evening, weekend, or upcoming vacation? Who hasn’t measured their schedule in weeks and months and forgotten about the imminent hours? So in the spirit of wringing life out of each moment, I shook off my initial hesitation and got started with the tai chi training here on a mountaintop in Hubei province. My trainer led me outside:

This cement slab across the street was where much of the training took place.

And this is what I worked on again and again….and again:

If you watch, tai chi mimics actual fighting moves that are slowed way down. It’s a meditative challenge, and it’s said to be healthy. Here’s a link to the Wikipedia page if you’re intrigued: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tai_chi_chuan

After my solo lesson, it was group time. Here were some other students and teachers at my school:

Let me also introduce you to the scenery that added to the ambiance in ways only thought possible in movies or imagination:

This was the actual view doing tai chi from this spot.

I was amazed at the how “kinetic” they were. So with it…so conscious of their movement. We in the West exercise, but we like to do it with headphones and even conversation. These guys seemed to truly be one with their body.

Here’s me giving it a whirl:

This was one of our trainers

And here’s where we were on the map:

This was the environment.

Here were some interactions:

It turns out, that cement slab we practiced upon was actually the roof of a mountainside shelter for other trainers and students. One time I heard some commotion over the edge below:

Tai chi landscaping

I hadn’t shoveled dirt in a while and found a spare shovel so dug in. No biggie. But the trainer down there (the sword guy from the picture above) interrupted my work to show me how its done. He took the shovel and blurted, “Ha!”, the shovel prepared for battle, “hoo!”, it was thrust into the pile, and “hwa!” it removed with a load of Earth.

On one hand, seeing this devotion to their practice wasn’t all that surprising—-I mean, it was a tai chi school. Just the same, it provided this striking example of taking this ordinary chore and perfecting it. He didn’t think about how to get it done faster or easier, but how to get it done better. Me? I started shoveling and daydreaming. Heck, if I had a relevant thought, it was “where’s the backhoe?” It seemed to be an illustration of a stereotyped, but nonetheless evident difference between classic East and West thought and action.

I took a walk into the valley forest with five others one afternoon to gather firewood and kindling. Bagging twigs and pine needles was a problem for one young woman because they cut her hands. She remedied the issue by taking two five-foot sticks and using them as giant chopsticks to pinch and lift the pile.

She wasn’t getting too far just as I don’t eating rice with chopsticks. But my fork-using, Western mind saw two rakes and used them to bundle together the pile like salad tongs. It was much quicker and they referred to me as being “so clever”. Well, I just eat different, I thought.

Then as we bundled the wood, we needed a tight packing to hold them together up the narrow and hilly path. Out-jutting branches had to be snapped, and one was proving to be difficult despite the kung-fu trained kicking the men were attacking it with. I saw a large rock and wedged it under the branch. Like a lever, the force of my undisciplined, less-effective kick was enough to snap it. They were grateful for my cleverness once again. I was elated that I could actually be helpful and contribute something.

It seemed they thought how to better use their body while I looked for alternatives to my body. These are generalizations, of course, but in the general we see trends, and in the individual people and individual examples, we see illustrations. I couldn’t help but wonder about the connections they played in the development of the East and the West. And best of all, it quaintly displayed the benefits in store when strengths are offered from different cultures. If even just gathering wood.

After work, we took a break:

Two young boys, the only ones at the school, were always together.

Meanwhile, the sword-shovel trainer stayed relentless:

You may wonder why his shirt is so dirty.

Here’s why:

He had another student stepping on his lower back, forcing those hips into the ground.

I’d regularly see him do handstands against a building with fists against the concrete. He was pretty intense.

In evenings, we’d go for a walk and take it easy. Less a participant than an observer, I watched the students and trainers socialize and sing while the head master entertained with music: