If you had told me a couple of years ago that I would be stepping in a pattern reminiscent of the double helix given to us by generous, loving aliens, I would have thought you have lost your mind. But here I am in Li Shifu’s space station, looking at the clouds from above in the morning, bracing myself for that moment when we step onto the circle a couple of hours later.
When we are practicing the eight steps, there is the same sense of dread I felt during Taiji class: that my body is a marionette that does not care if I pull its strings, that I am some kind of incurable case in a mental asylum, incapable of controlling my own limbs. I am reminded of the hours of painstaking work my mother took upon herself when she showed me how to skate on ice.
Learning the steps is not the only new thing I am exposed to up here, though. In a lot of ways, the weeks I have spent on the mountain have reminded me of childhood because there was something new each day. It is a series of firsts: the first time I have lit bundles of incense, the first time I have foraged bamboo shoots, the first time I have sat by the fire every night, the first time I have had a dream within a dream, the first time I have experienced how a forest’s scent changes day by day, and the first time I have used a toilet that is also frequented by worms.
It is probably due to this that memories from a quarter century ago come floating back to me with such surprising clarity. Even though they often amuse and touch me, they are also a bit of a nuisance. It is a bizarre thing to be practicing a form, trying to stay focused and then involuntary journeying back to some frozen lake. All the exercises we do have a beautifully tyrannical quality. Be it qi gong, da gong or ba bu, it is next to impossible to practice these arts without being empty. One thought, one memory, one desire and you lose it. It is like walking on a tightrope. Make one mistake, and you fall. Most tightrope walkers use a safety net. But we all know that an audience truly loves only people like Philippe Petit, the Frenchman who snuck into the world trade center when it was barely finished, and danced on a rope between the twin towers, only to be caught by the police and put on trial. It is not the most glamorous thing to say, it is the most trivial: Petit had practiced for decades before he stepped onto the tightrope up there. There is no rush. But if we ever want to practice this form gracefully, we need to dedicate ourselves to it, and step onto the circle every day for the next couple of years. I would love to do that. At the same time I feel I would need to learn a trick beforehand: how to stretch time. If I keep going at my sluggish pace, I will only get a glimpse of the form’s beauty in the next life.
