Spring term at Ninja High

[davywavy]

I've mentioned Ninja Master round here before. He's an amiable bloke in his fifties who has been pracitising various forms of Kung Fu for several hours pretty much every day for the last thirty years, which means that he's got the good-natured, nothing-to-prove demeanor of a man who knows he could pull your arms clean off if he fancied so why worry about a certain amount of good-natured banter?
Every so often he puts together a day-long seminar which features his Ninja Master who is, in his turn, similarly mellow and amiable which I think is largely due due to the fact that he is utterly ****ing terrifying.

As far as I can make out, about ten years ago, the ancient masters of Kung Fu in China looked at us decadent westerners and the martial art we called Tai Chi, and what they saw filled them with horror. In the west, Tai Chi had become the preserve of hippie-types who'd bought into the idea of flows of energy and reckoned that slow, gentle postures and inner peace were a good prelude to hugging bunnies and communing with trees.
On the other hand, what the ancient masters of Kung Fu thought was that Tai Chi was a slow-motion practice run for turning yourself into an awesome whirlwind of death should you be cornered by a gang of street toughs in South Central Los Angeles like what happens in Jackie Chan films. Plainly these points of view were incompatible in their eyes, and so they dispatched their various pupils around the world to show us how to do it properly.
Which brings me back to Ninja Master's Ninja Master. I've sometimes observed in impressed tones that he was twice the all-China full-contact champion which, given that China has something of a history of producing people who can fly and do the death touch, is an impressive achievement. Turns out that I was wrong, though. He was actually all-China champion three times.

Oh, he was all-China stabbing people champion as well.

Quite seriously, I don't think I've ever been so polite to anyone ever before in my entire life.

Comments

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

My kung fu teacher used to say that it takes about a year for kung fu training to make someone into a competent fighter, but that it takes ten years for tai chi training to make someone into an excellent fighter.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

This is my tenth year of Tai Chi. Kneel before my Kung Fu Might!

[(Anonymous)]

You like it when guys kneel in front of you.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It's better than the alternative, certainly.

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

My experience of Tai Chi was short, but included my teacher saying such things as 'This movement is very relaxing and promotes grace - and if you hold your fingers like this, you can use it to take someone's eye out,' in a gentle, pleasant tone of voice.