I joined my little Asian grandmother for some Tai Chi in the park at the nasty hour of 5:45am this morning with her friends. It was something. I've always wondered why the old people love doing this stuff every single morning. Well, now I know that its like the best workout in this country. We arrived at the park and there were already tons of people in different areas doing various exercises and dances to music. Some with flags, some with swords and some with fans. Interesting. As we walked in we passed these two old guys doing something like squats and yelling "huh, huh, huh, huh, as they dropped. I knew I was in for something crazy then. We got to this little clearing amongst some trees and there were already some people there stretching and warming up. I thought I was pretty flexible for a fat guy until I saw these old people almost touching their noses to the their shin. I started doing some of the stretches I do before I jog and then they motioned for me to put my foot up in this branch and stretch my legs like they do. So I was gung ho about it and tried to kick my leg up there (which was about shoulder height for me). I did get my foot in the cleft of the branch but realized that I couldn't bend down and far as they were. I didn't feel too bad. After that the Kung Fu teacher shows up to start the exercises. Everyone starts telling me, "that's the teacher, that's the teacher, Kung Fu teacher, Kung Fu teacher." Granny walks me over to him and I shake his hand and we pretend to have a conversation in his language for a moment then I start to understand that he is telling me to watch at first and then join in. So I do just that. I watched for the first little segment then they breathed and he motioned for me to jump in now. I had been watching his feet and not so much his hands before so I was trying to concentrate on what to do with my hands and my feet at the same time now. It was crazy and I was laughing but not out loud because for the first time in this country I felt I prolly shouldn't laugh out loud right now. It was a pretty funny thought in my head, what I must have looked like trying to be all graceful, smooth and ninja like, as they were. Every now and then they would throw in a move from like “mortal kombat” or “street fighter” as well as a little grunt. I really enjoyed imitating that part. Soon I began to figure why this is considered an exercise. I broke a sweat fast and my legs got so tired. I kept thinking to myself, how I was young and I've been riding bikes around and taking the stairs alot so I should be able to hang with these old people. Well, I lasted for about 20 minutes, maybe. My knee was killing me, I was hot, and just tired, man. I saw that a few of the old people on the edges of the group had dropped out and my little Granny had dropped out long before them so I decided that I had given it a valiant enough effort and this was a great first try. I tried to walk away and just about couldn't because my knee hurt so stinkin bad. I don't even get that from jogging. So, the moral of the story is that the cheesy little exercises I see the local old people doing in the square are not cheesy at all. Heck, they have a Kung Fu master leading them in it so its gotta be legit, right? My little granny wants me to go back tomorrow morning at 6am again with her. She had a lot of nerve asking me to go back with her considering it appeared that she never goes there. People seemed to know her but she was horrible at the exercise. I don't mind doggin' her about that because I was horrible too but, I'm not a local. It was a lot of fun though and it was just challenging enough that I may consider trying it again. It wasn't too hard. It feels a little ridiculous to try to gyrate my hips the way I saw them doing it but it's cool to them so I didn't feel too stupid.
After all that was over we walked over to this guy playing with this spinning top thingy on a string. Maybe you have seen such things before. I don't know that I have until I got here. It's really cool. When they get it going real well they can throw it off the string and catch it again with it still spinning. This man and my little friend were trying to show me how to do it and I could do it a little bit but not near as good as he. This too was really fun. All in all, I guess it was worth a stinkin' early morning for such a great cultural experience. Stay tuned...