by RickMatz on Mon May 13, 2019 9:08 am
If asked, I’d have to say that the main reason that I study taijiquan is to help cultivate a calm mind.
That it is also an excellent exercise for a man my age (61) which helps with leg strength, flexibility, range of motion and balance is also true, but secondary.
As a man my age has no business getting into fights, self defense isn’t really on the agenda for me anywhere.
The organization I work for was hosting an event over several days at a hotel. We had around 150 registered guests. After our closing banquet on the last day, we had opened a hospitality suite for our party.
As a member of the staff, I was one of the first ones there to make sure everything was going to go smoothly. A couple of our more prominent guests were there and I joined them. Everyone else was still in the banquet room.
I’m standing there talking to our guests when a stranger kind of bursts into the room like he owns the place, grabs a beer and just walks up to our conversation. It was clear that he was quite drunk. He was loud, but he was funny, so we humored him. My idea was to let him have a beer and ask him to leave before our people started showing up in any numbers.
Well, he was loud and sloppily spilling drinks. He started becoming abusive towards the bartender and disrespectful towards my guests.
When he cracked open another beer, I told him that was enough. He wasn’t a part of our group and he had to leave. He didn’t like that.
So here I am, nose to nose with this guy who is a good twenty years younger and in far better shape than I am. He was really worked up.
I found that I was dead calm. I was firm and assertive. He couldn’t get a rise out of me.
He kept flashing his credit card and a wad of money around. He couldn’t believe that I was kicking him out. He could buy and sell the whole lot of us he said. I wasn’t backing down.
Maybe he became embarrassed by getting faced down by an old man, but at this point, he finally left.
We could hear him at the hotel bar which was across the hall from us carrying on and learned that security had asked him to leave there a little later.
For cultivating a calm mind, I think taijiquan worked.
Addendum: they told me at the hotel that this guy got into a fist fight with someone else later and was evicted from the hotel. He was there with a work group, apparently and I imagine will have some explaining to do.
Last edited by
RickMatz on Mon May 13, 2019 9:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
I think this discussion thread is over for me and I also wish you the best of luck in your continued education of the young.
If you ever again visit Sweden it would be great to have a beer and compare notes.
.... Sweden has changed drastically ever since the 90s. Gradually colder and less friendly. Before the 1990s there were virtually no beggars or homeless people. It's still ok. China has improved drastically, yet some things are going backwards as well. I would prefer to move to China though. Maybe if I can stabilize my business better I'll try to work from there. ...If it still will be possible... 