Road Trips by Trevor Carolan

Author:Trevor Carolan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mother Tongue Publishing

THE PARADISE VARIATIONS

I’d been training with my old Tai Chi master, Sifu Ng, for three years when Kwan-shik and I rented a shack by the bay in an isolated hamlet on the island of Maui, replete with lush jungle and orchids at the door. Heralded by an unimaginable chatter of songbirds, dawn comes early in the backcountry, with the sun rising east from the sea. From this humid morning air, guttural WAHOOOOS, shatter the primeval heaviness. Each day, I rose quietly with the birds and went fishing for our dinner.

One morning, as usual, I made my way up the lane to an unused jetty. The hour was calm, the nearby sugar mill abandoned. Across the bay, coco palms swayed in the breeze. Patiently, I cast out my line, trying baits without much success. Content for the while to let the line dangle, I surveyed my surroundings. The breeze was young, and the waves rolled in nicely without any great force. Not a soul stirred ashore. Magic.

With this perfect tropical occasion to move with the Tai Chi, I paced off my space on the old wartime dock. Breathing steadily, deeply, I commenced moving. Growing sure of my footing, I progressed through the movements, sweeping to the right and Grasping the Bird’s Tail. Rocking softly in reverse, and stepping lightly to the left, I caught a glimpse of the land and sea. Shallow whispers blew in from the bay; then something unfamiliar began. From the open ocean, I sensed my old master rise before me like a presence.

Breathing, I felt his spirit enter and move through my limbs. I let his presence flow of itself, and as I moved, my posture and expression attuned themselves with a softness and fullness I had never previously known. The chi was moving, I knew; more palpably than anything I’d experienced before—a steady magnetic pulse through my limbs and torso. I understood in that moment it was Sifu who directed its course. I moved about the jetty, and he showed me the way: the ripple of his fingers unfolding in space; the weightless sinking of his sweeps and feints; the inward turning of a heel; or the effortless thrust of a knife-edge hand.

What I had seen with my eyes for the past three years was transpiring within my own being with only this sense of occurrence. No thinking; none at all, for the merest intimation might dissolve the visit spontaneously. Only movement, being present, full attentiveness. Breathing as the body wished.

“Don’t think,” Sifu taught. “Only move.” No-Mindedness as the way to mindfulness, I heard him saying.

The changes progressed: Raise Hands Up, Slap the Face, White Stork Spreads His Wings. I sensed the old man very clearly, his visage blank of expression, moving like a frond in the wind. No resistance.

The litany of Yang forms and mudras worked on, transforming and completing itself as a course. Late in the second set, I became aware that I was flying solo again, although Sifu had been there; that I knew.

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