Tai Chi

It is 6:30am and I am trashed!  I was walking around during the early morning several days ago and found a Pagota on campus.  I walked in and found a group doing Tai Chi.  I watched for awhile.  One of the younger women spoke excellent English. I was very surprised!  She invited me to join their group---at 5:30am!!

So today I headed out the door at 5:20am.  Met the group.  They start out by doing simple exercises--pushups, yoga type of moves, and some type of reflexology or pushing on pressure points on different places on your legs, ankles, etc.  After that was over, you beat on each other for awhile.  One fellow started to give me a back massage.  Cool, says I.  Then he SLAPPED my back and sides and lower back FOR A LONG TIME.  It started out feeling good...suddenly feeling good turned into pain.  I was too stubborn to say stop.  He wouldn't have understood anyway.  But then it was my turn.  I got to beat the crap out of him for awhile.  The only problem was that my arms got tired and I had to stop before he wanted me to!

The next phase of this experience was starting the Tai Chi.  There were about 6 people and they put me in the middle so as we turned, I could watch someone and try to follow them.  They are very, very good. I am very, very bad!  But we did three sessions of the same moves.  Each session or set took about 5 minutes.  Then we stopped and "talked".  

Next the swords came out!  They have these really cool collapsing swords.  You do similar moves swinging the opened sword around.  It really looked neat!  I pretended to have a sword....and if I stick this out, I probably will try to buy one.  Hopefully I can get a sword home on the airplane!

Ok...it is not over.  Out come the red Kung Fu fans.  Yes, they are called Kung Fu.  They did several sets of activities using the fans.  First one fan--then two fans.  They would snap them open....then do some beautiful moves...then snap them closed.  I was very taken with this stuff. 

I lasted until 6:30am.  One hour and I can hardly walk.  My leg muscles are cramping. My arms are tired.  Funny, but my back feels great.  Must be that the "beating" was good for me!  I limped home and now am cooling down.  Needless to say, I need a shower!

So......a pretty cool experience.  I know that a Tai Chi class runs in Columbia, so if I stick with this group, I am going to follow up when I get home.  I just hope I can make it up each morning here.  As I walked over to the pagota to meet the group, I was struck by all the activity in the morning.  A group of women were doing exercises....and when I walked home, they were playing volleyball --more on the volleyball group later--because I played with them two days ago.  They waved and said H E L L O as I walked by.  Hundreds of students were walking on the running track.  No wonder everyone is skinny here!  They eat well...and exercise.  Amazing what that can do for one's health.

So.....interesting experience.  Stay tuned!  More to come............