(If this is better in Off The Topic then please move accordingly)
Background:
Recently I was in another city, at a kind of tai chi get-together/picnic in a park, a lot of people centring around an established Chinese teacher. Most of the people were his students but not all. The teacher doesn’t teach much tuishou, mostly forms, but he himself has some experience in this area. The teacher had met me before and when he saw me he asked if I would like to demo a little form. OK, I said, be happy to. Later I was out at the back edge of the gathering, just started doing some friendly free tuishou with another Chinese guy who I had never met before but who, friends had told me, similarly to me also liked to do tuishou. This other guy has been doing tai chi for maybe 30 years, so he told me, but hard to understand because his German is not so good and I have almost no Chinese. And he’s a little guy, much smaller than me. Then the teacher comes over and asks me to demo my form in front of the crowd, which I do for a couple of minutes. Then the teacher says, now show us some tuishou, and with fajin, and sends out the other Chinese guy to me. That put me in something of a quandary: in principle I was OK to demo a little tuishou since some people there hadn’t seen it or only the fixed-pattern, back-and-forth variety. And yes, I’m comfortable ‘on stage’ with my dance and theatre past. But I didn’t want to really start throwing the other guy around, do all macho and make him lose face or even hurt him. On the other hand, I didn’t want to look like a total no-hoper in this demo (yes, that’s my ego waving it’s arms here…). So I thought (and whispered to the other guy): ‘let’s take it slow, we’ll push free but we can take turns to be ‘got’ by the other one, OK?’ I hoped this would give the crowd something nice to see while we could both acquit ourselves honourably in the few minutes of the demo.
The issues:
So off we go; after a moment I get his balance/structure and I give a gentle impulse, just enough to move him a step or two. And in response he jumps up in the air and does the double-foot hop backwards for three metres!! Never experienced that before in real life! And I felt really embarrassed because anyone with knowledge could surely see it was faked. (And also assume that I want this kind of reaction). So then I whispered: ‘Please don’t jump, not necessary, just respond naturally!’ He whispered back (his German not so good): ‘Demonstration, must show people big energy, we jump high.’ Me: ‘No, please don’t, it’s better the natural way.’ I get him again but give just a soft impulse, and he jumps/hops back 3 metres again. Ho-hum. After a moment I offer him my centre, he pushes and moves me one step back, which I’m happy to do (but I go no further than that, no hopping). Dammit, I’ve let myself get into a situation where every option feels bad (just stop and walk away? go along with his fake hopping? me start hopping as well so as to give him some face in return?). Then I get his centre again, do a relaxed ‘an’ kind of push, it feels like nothing to me but this time he really is uprooted, stumbles back several metres, falls and rolls backwards. The Chinese teacher laughs and shouts out ‘Ha, good, this is first time for real!’ The other guy is wide-eyed as I help him up, dust him off, apologize and feel something of a jerk. But maybe subconsciously I was p****** off and did it on purpose? We do a moment more circling with no more ‘fajin’ and then I bring it to a close, we bow to the audience, I shake his hand and we leave the ‘stage’.
So two things from this:
Firstly, I wonder if this kind of hopping in demonstrations is even more widespread than I thought. Which doesn’t mean it’s always faked, but still…
Secondly, in retrospect I think I should have found an excuse not to do this tuishou demo in the first place, with someone I didn’t really know, or even the form demo. Maybe the teacher was using me to make the other Chinese guy lose face? I don’t know what kind of relationship they have. Or maybe it was just a kind invitation, but one that led to a culture-clash dilemma for me.
Your thoughts on the story?