Why I Go to Acupuncture and Tai Chi Class All the Time
One beautiful day in 1995, I took an early morning walk in New York City’s Central Park when I came across something incredible. A group of about 50 elderly Chinese people wearing black exercise outfits were each doing slow, graceful moves in unison. They were doing tai chi.
I was in the city for work, but I really wanted to go see that world-famous park. There was a lot of activity going on that day with joggers, bike riders, and couples taking walks. My mind was filled with the work I had to get done while in NYC. But the tai chi group was the only thing that stayed with me from that trip.
They were in true unison with each other. I don’t know what was most amazing — watching something I’d heard about but had never really seen before; or observing this group of people who seemed to be in their 70s and 80s who were not aging like anybody else I’d ever seen.
Nearly 30 years later, I’m finally coming to terms with tai chi. Lately its been through 24 Forms, a popular tai chi practice. Years ago, it was Ba gua, which is considered to be a Chinese internal martial art similar to tai chi. But for me, it was tai chi.
That means doing a slow, graceful series of movements designed to improve health, fitness, calm the mind, and offer you a method that you can use for powerful self defense, if you have to.
Most of all, it’s a disciplined practice that you can apply to every facet of your life — if you’re willing to do so.
It took me nearly 30 years to get to a place where it could become like one of these disciplined, peaceful and focused Chinese tai chi practitioners.
I’ve had the same level of reluctance and resistance to having acupuncture done, mixed in with fascination and a drive to keep coming back. A few years ago, I would cancel or be late for appointments all the time.
Going to acupuncture appointments started for me in the first half of the 2000s. My then-wife Amy was attending a graduate program to become an acupuncturist, basically something like going to medical school. I was able to go see one of her instructors, an experienced acupuncturist, for a student discount rate.
I remember the acupuncture appointments were good. I felt more relaxed and centered for a few hours after I’d had all the needles put into my skin.
Things took a big turn in late 2007, about two months after my near-death experience from encephalitis.
While Amy had moved out of the house and we would be divorcing, she was great about getting me in for acupuncture appointment treatments with her then-supervisor, Allen Arnette.
Going to acupuncture appointments with Arnette is about more than just going in for acupuncture. It’s always been based on the wholistic, mind-body-spirit approach inherent in the eastern health and vitality practices. Perhaps stress and anxiety had been derailing my life for the past few days or weeks prior to an appointment. Then it’s time to talk to your acupuncturist about it; that professional will vary based on expertise, interests, and experience, but it may be covering nutrition, exercise, and meditation.
The same is true for tai chi. I’d been practicing it for years — at a martial arts temple in Southern California for about a decade and through going to a few classes in parks. Eventually, I came back to one of those instructors, Marc Saldana, to go deeper into tai chi practice. Like acupuncture, a tai chi class could cover the spectrum — the ancient tradition and its meaning, and how it can be applied to your everyday life.
Canceling and running late: Why is that?
Not all that long ago, I admitted to Arnette that there had been a period of time when I kept running late for appointments with him, and occasionally canceling some of them for new good reason. While going to appointments with him in the first years after having had encephalitis was consistent and rewarding, eventually old habits came back. Perhaps he and his staff were asking too much of me?
No, not really. What I was paying for appointments and any supplements was more than reasonable. It was the deeper process I was still grappling with.
This became all the more clear more recently when showing up late for tai chi classes became a recurring theme. I knew I had my part in it, but it took a few months to consciously recognize it and to change my habits. I had to set my alarm earlier and do what my traditional, old-school parents always recommended — get to appointments early. Bring a book or play a hand-held game like Yahtzee while waiting to go in early.
I bucked that one until I started having clarifying experiences during tai chi class and acupuncture appointments. I started realizing it was essential to attend all the sessions, of course missing if something important came up, but getting there on time and participating fully.
So I started doing it. I admitted to Arnette and to a couple of tai chi classmates that I’d had a bit of a scam going on.
I realized that participating fully was a big part of the whole experience and the whole discipline.
Tai chi and acupuncture, and related practices like qi gong exercises and having oxygen-sucking cups placed on your back, are all about getting your chi flowing as it should be. Sometimes referred to as qi or prana, chi is the energy that flows through the body for strengthening health and vitality, healing, balance, and other benefits.
Acupuncture and tai chi go way back in China’s history — 3,000 to 4,500 years for the needle-insertion method, and 1,500 to 3,000 years for the exercise and martial art. There does seem to be a few good reasons it’s all lasted this long, and keeps finding new participants and advocates.
Making peace with the bullies
Being 6’3” and not being stick-figure thin since I was 10, I wouldn’t think I’d have been someone harassed by bullies at school. But it did happen a few times — in grammar school and high school.
I get the impression that some of us get into martial arts because we’d been bullied.
Tai chi has something to do with it. While not as obvious as the karate I took in college and the the kung fu and tai chi a few years later, this latest version of tai chi has that reality come up every time I go to class. Saldana will often illustrate a move in slow motion, commenting that it can be used for defense along with the discipline of consciously practicing the form. Don’t forget, it is a martial art.
If you get the chance, watch a few episodes of the Cobra Kai series on Netflix and other streaming channels.
Look for Season 4 when Kenny Payne, played by 16-year old black actor Dallas Dupree Young, plays out an age-old reason most of us became active in martial arts. Payne is picked on by a school bully, and joins up with a karate school to find some skills and more courage and self respect. It takes him quite a few episodes, but he’s finally pushed into a fight where he finds his own internal strength, courage, and stick-to-it-ivness to win — and to not get bullied anymore in the schoolyard.
In Season 5, he would tap into that internal power to win a big martial arts tournament match. He’d become a different person.
Bullies won’t ever disappear completely, but continuously practicing one or more of these arts does make it all more livable. I think that eventually the danger pretty much goes away; unless you get brilliant ideas like hanging around bars, or insulting someone at the gym.
I will not use violence unless it’s the only way to survive. Then I would keep it quick and direct. I don’t want to hurt anyone but if a knife is coming at me, I can’t stand still.
I enjoy the fact that Chinese monks, including Shaolin, practiced a lot of kung fu and tai chi. They were usually considered to be calm, centered and peaceful spiritual beings. But don’t push it — you’d probably get your ass kicked by the monks and the nuns.
My favorite show in the ’70s was Kung Fu starring David Carradine. He might be abused and hit with racist slurs, along with someone else being bullied by the thugs. The fight would be in slow motion and over fairly quickly. It wasn’t like seeing Bruce Lee throw a flying kick to the head.
Carradine’s character Caine had to flee China after his master was killed. He did have fond memories of his Shaoiln monk Master Po teaching him wise lessons.
He was a peaceful man with a mission: finding his half brother in America. I don’t have a half brother to find, but I do strive to be a peaceful man.
Screwing up my tai chi
For Marc Saldana’s tai chi classes in the south bay, I eventually had to admit to myself and others that I’d been pulling a similar scam as acupuncture appointments. I might end up being late for class consistently, and then there’s being distracted and drifting away from the class and the experience. It might be a bit of a negative vibe for classmates.
That can become quite annoying under different circumstances, with one of them being having a newcomer to the class carefully watching my movements. What if I forget the next ones and get both of us way off track?
What if a group of passers by could see me screwing up my tai chi? That might be a group of fourth graders being led by parents and teachers through the park, and boy do I feel judged and persecuted!
They probably have had very little awareness of what I was doing, and if it was off the mark or not. But boy do I get self conscious when running off track like that. They’re likely most interested in watching a group of people doing some moves and motions they’d never really seen before.
It could be caused by what’s going on in my head. I might be thinking about this book and points I have to make, stories to tell, when I suddenly realize my tai chi has been derailed. Perhaps it will take me to the very end of that class to suddenly fall into the chi flow and move along just right. It’s not perfect, but it feels good. What a joy that becomes!
Marc has a way of sometimes making it even more uneasy, and eventually good. That could be asking for input on how the class is going, or being given guidance by him on working out the position of your weight distribution and how your feet step into the next spot consciously and not just through routine. It’s a slow, subtle, and detailed process that takes a while to sync in.
I have to admit there are times I just can’t wait for the class to be over so that I can take off and do the rest of my day. That will many times end with me opening up, relaxing, appreciating that I’m there; and I can’t wait to come back.
On my worst day, I feel so off track that I should just be escorted back to my car and told to get the hell out of there. I get so off track doing the art, which might be 24 Forms tai chi or some variation, that I want to just throw up my hands and quit. I might stop and watch the instructor and class finish the form, or I might trudge along and get to the end somehow. If others in the class have been watching me (or at least I think they are) when I get in that bad vibe, the class officially becomes a bummer — at least in my head and emotional state.
But I keep coming back. That seems to be at the heart of it.
As has been the case with acupuncture appointments, things have gotten better for me at tai chi classes.
As for chi flow, I do believe it’s unleashed and happens during acupuncture and tai chi. One piece of evidence for me is how many times I’ve had what I consider to be good ideas for this book, other writing projects, and maybe another facet of my life.
I love the little things. I might notice a subtle detail that needs to be adopted, which makes the tai chi form work out the way it’s supposed to. That’s when the name of movement, translated from Chinese and long ago, might make a lot of sense. It could be about combing a horse’s mane. What does that have to do with anything, I might ask myself; until the day when it completely makes sense to me.
It’s still strange for me to think about tai chi coming from a similar place as kung fu, karate, jiu jitsu, aikido, and other Asian martial art forms. It wasn’t about inciting violence, but all these forms show us how to harness our energy and force to possibly save our lives and maybe the lives of others.
I’m grateful that doesn’t come up in my life anymore. I’m there for the focus, energy, and flexibility, my health, and doing something that calms and focuses me in a very good way.
I doubt I’ll quit this time.
Jon LeSage is a Southern California-based freelance writer.
Photo credit: Pete Oxford in Art.com
