Repel the Monkey

[dr_pretentious]

One of the things I love about Tai Chi is that I don't feel any need to be the best at it, I don't need to be the fastest at picking it up, I don't even need to be one of several A students, as if there were really such a thing as an A student in the art. Kinesthetic learning comes hard to me. I have to do it slowly. And it's gratifying, after so many years of rush-rush-rush, to have to do something slowly, indefinitely.

And yet, and yet...

Repel the Monkey was one of the first Tai Chi moves I learned, back when I used to take classes through the university. Now that I'm studying with the same teacher at her own Tai Chi studio, we've backtracked to discover that, in the years when I practiced on my own and had no time to attend classes, my form drifted, and I settled Repel the Monkey solidly into my muscle memory...dead wrong. I can Grasp the Bird's Tail reasonably well, and I do a good Punch Eye, for someone who's only been a serious student for a year and a half. White Crane Spreads Wings? No problem. I haven't quite figured out Pat Horse on High, but at least when I'm Patting said Horse, the more senior students don't flinch to see my form.

I cannot Repel the Monkey.

Keep your weight on the front foot. Good. Now, while keeping your weight on the front foot, turn it. Turn it? Like this? No, not like that.

And suddenly, a golden marmoset skitters through the Tai Chi studio, steals my car keys, and brachiates away, screeching, into the forest canopy. I have failed to repel the monkey.

Try again. No, you're still turning from inside the knee joint. If you turn from inside the knee joint, you'll injure yourself. Now you're turning from the hip joint, but you need to turn from your center. Nose, navel, toe--all must move together, as one piece. Like this? No, not like that.

A baboon knuckles through the window and out the other side of the room, steals all the chocolates off the desk in the office, and opens the front door to let itself out to the parking lot, snickering all the way. I have failed to repel the monkey.

Could I watch you do it right a couple of times? Okay, when is the moment when your weight shifts. No, I've confused myself so much, I can't see it, even when I'm looking right at it. Is it now? Now? No? How about now? That's the point when you shift your weight? Wow, I had no idea how wrong I was. Okay, is it like...um...this? No, not like that.

An entire troop of lemurs swarms the Tai Chi studio. Of course, lemurs aren't, technically, monkeys. But that's okay, because whatever it is that I am doing, it's not, technically, Repel the Monkey.

Not surprisingly, I don't repel the lemurs, either.

So, back to Grasp the Bird's Tail. Because, dammit, when I Grasp that Bird's Tail, I mean for it to stay Grasped.

Comments

[wayzgoose.livejournal.com]

This was a very funny post. I'm not a Tai Chi practitioner, but just from the names of the moves, I had incredibly vivid visual images of what you were doing. And in spite of the Marmosets, baboons, and lemurs, you were never actually overrun by monkeys! Thanks for a badly needed chuckle this morning!

[kistha.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine who is really not comfortable with violence, but feels that defense is necessary, was taking Tai Chi. Since it all looks so soft, and slow he was very comfortable with it.

At the annual New Year's eve party one year we're half an hour in; and he still had this horrified look plastered over his face so I asked him what was wrong. He said that he liked Tai Chi, but that he frequently forgets that it has a violent application, and had been completely repulsed when it was revealed that evening that "Monkey Gives Peaches" which sounds so harmless and adorable was actually blocking a punch while raking out the eyes of your opponent. He apparently couldn't get the image out of his mind.

It's the Monkeys. Just stay away from the monkeys.

[wayzgoose.livejournal.com]

Quick! Learn that move. This news story just came across my desk:

Baboons move into S. African beach homes
Locals describe fearless behavior as monkeys go after easy food pickings
By Anton Ferreira

Updated: 10:50 a.m. PT May 23, 2006
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Unruly gangs are raiding the expensive homes that line the spectacular coast of South Africa's Cape Peninsula, clearing out pantries, emptying fridges, and defecating over the designer furnishings.

The world needs you!

doing things The Right Way

[garybart.livejournal.com]

Tell me about it. I once got lessons in table tennis, but I'm sure any half-way decent coach would be appalled at the stuff I do at a TT table nowadays.

Luckily, no monkeys are involved, or no doubt they'd be laughing their asses off at me.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

My teacher is very big on reminding us that Tai Chi really is a martial art. When in doubt about correct form, she says, correct yourself by visualizing the violent application.

For a while, my official brat-student question was, "How can this move kill?" But then, as the Dante's Inferno quiz meme informed us, my besetting sin is wrath.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Funny you should send that--the main way my form drifted was that I was determined to have Tai Chi in my repertoire of chronic pain management tricks when I went to South Africa. Once the conference where I was giving a paper was over, Dan and I went out to one of the big national parks to view creatures, and in those parks, people are confined to cars, and the animals have the run of everything but a few fenced human-safe enclaves. We'd drive around the bush for hours, reach an encampment and stop to stretch our legs. I'd do the Twelve form, and the locals would watch the crazy foreign lady doing her mysterious interpretive dance. Everything stopped while they watched. Everything except me, because I had hours more of sitting in that car ahead of me, while we chased reports of rhinoceroses.

And it was the baboons I visualized repelling, because I'd been stopped behind them in a monkey-induced traffic jam in just such a beach town on the Cape Peninsula. "Roll up the windows!" our host said. "Baboons ahead!" Man, if you think you don't want a baboon loose in your kitchen, you really don't want one with you inside a moving car.

Re: doing things The Right Way

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

The Cult of Livejournal claims another innocent! Bwahahahaha! Oh, um, I mean, welcome!

Americans are not the best table tennis opponents. I'm sure our collective national lameness at the sport has contributed to your drift.

I've been told that I missed a really impressive sight, when I missed the party where you unveiled your mad table tennis skillz. Dan and Rick talked about it every time they crossed paths for at least a couple of weeks afterward. I believe the words, "He totally smoked us," were uttered. Or something to that effect.

Re: doing things The Right Way

[garybart.livejournal.com]

I was going to reply to this here, but it got too long. So I've made it into my first post (i.e., after the obligatory "here's my brand new blog ain't it cute" post) on my own blog. So, thanks for the idea...!

[tracyandrook.livejournal.com]

...maybe if you tried to teach "Repel the Monkey" to somebody else, it might help? That way you could see it all happening and not be inside of it. I volunteer. You tried to describe it in enough detail that it could be done, but sorry, it loses something in translation.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

It's a kind offer, but I'd be far more likely to talk you into injuring your knees than to talk myself into understanding the move. I'm just not (yet) at the point where I have any business teaching Tai Chi to anybody. If you ask me again in five years, maybe...

eep eep eep EEP EEEP EEP EEP

[cthulhia]

man, I have really got to stop just skimming LJ. I totally missed the humor of this, and just thought it was you discussing tai chi, until zarf suggested I go reread it.

Re: eep eep eep EEP EEEP EEP EEP

[(Anonymous)]

I've been skimming a lot lately, too, or just missing stuff altogether. Maybe it's the change in the weather--my bicycle and computer compete for my attention, and the bike wins.

Love the subject line. Did I tell you about the time Rutgers had Jane Goodall as a commencement speaker, and she congratulated the graduates in chimpanzee? Lots of screeching and arm-waving.

My attempts at Repel the Monkey would certainly be ineffective against a determined baboon, but they might work against Jane Goodall. Next time I screw up the Twelve form, I can just tell my teacher I've invented Repel the Primatologist.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

You are so, entirely, a genius. Thank you for adding laughter to my day!

[shakti-lemaris.livejournal.com]

And, of course, Shoot The Monkey is right out.
Some times it sucks to be zen.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

If you meet the monkey on the road, kill him?

Hm. I guess it's more in tune with the Tao to say that the monkey that can repelled is not the eternal monkey.