The Outside Of Everything

Chapter 25
The Stances

One of the guys very kindly gave me a DVD last Christmas. It was a nice thought, but I’m still not sure what the thought was meant to be telling me. The DVD was David Carradine’s Chi Energy Work Out – An Introduction for Beginners. The cover declared I could enhance my inner strength and power my mind and body with the star of Kill Bill. Kill Bill? Oh no, no, no. To us David Carradine always was and always will be Caine, the wandering, searching Shaolin priest, also known as Grasshopper if I remember rightly, stranded in America’s mid-West weekly on our TV screens in the series Kung Fu which we watched devotedly when we were kids. It had a lot to answer for, and we often would joke we were spiritually related to him when we doing our own wanderings.

Kung Fu was such a big thing. Not Bruce Lee though. Caine was our man. Although strangely enough we were strictly armchair Shaolin students. It was to be our Fair One’s sibling, Soul Sister Number One, who excelled in the martial arts. She had the discipline and get-up-and-go we so spectacularly lacked. She also had the far eastern connections from work in the City, where she worked for one of the banking corporations where the big wigs smiled favourably on her progress in Tai Chi and Kung Fu. For some reason though she failed to convince us we should sign up for classes, though we were certainly very much full of admiration for the way she made time to practice exercises even early in the morning. It was worth getting up early just to go and watch. She was full of grace and full of serene fury. You did not want to mess with her. How on earth could we compete?

No, it wasn’t until my pal and fellow scholar from the reference library Taj slapped me on the back one day, and poked me in the ribs as I poured my soul into another dead end writing project. You’re getting round shoulders, my man, he said with a laugh. Not good, he said, not good at all. You need exercise, or you’ll be old before your time, he said. Why don’t you come along to my Tai Chi class, he asked? You’ll like it. The guy who runs it, Pete the Sikh, you’ll love him. He’s a real character. They’re taking on beginners now. You should get your compadres to come down and release your inner selves. You won’t regret it, I promise you my friend. He whacked me on the back again. And off he went chuckling. That got to me. It really did. What could I do? Well, to save face, I had to do the honourable thing. But I wasn’t going alone. Oh no.

So there we were, round the local community centre, of a Wednesday evening, absolute beginners, learning our stances. Crane, cat, horse. We’d swallowed our pride, kept it quiet from Soul Sister Number One, just in case we didn’t see it through, which we knew would give her ammo. But we were smitten. There we were, back in Chinese plimsolls, waiting for Wednesday to come around each week, getting really into it. The movements, the philosophy, everything. And, yes, it did us the power of good. We could feel ourselves loosening up, unwinding, getting more flexible, light on our feet, and yet stronger. Physically and spiritually. We begged, stole, and borrowed all the books we could find. Read up on the history, the tao, meditation, qigong, and so on. Soul Sister Number One smiled, benign, and I have to say she was a great encouragement. But we had a long way to go.

As part of the journey, Pete the Sikh had arranged for one of the grand masters to visit our class one week. This was quite a coup, and we were on tenterhooks to see this great man. Pete the Sikh, being a very well respected man in Tai Chi circles, knew the grand master pretty well, and my pal Taj had been away on a weekend workshop and was positively buzzing about this old boy. But wait, he said, see for yourselves. So we waited. And wondered. We were beginning to wonder about the world. Tai Chi, and martial arts in general, it seemed to us was no different than politics or music or poetry or painting. There were all these different schools. There were all these variations on a theme. You started where you started from though. And you ended up where you ended up. Hey ho. But we liked where we had ended up in the world of Tai Chi. The way of thinking. The gentlest being the strongest. The slowest of movements being the most effective. That sort of thing was important to us. It reminded us of our love for Postcard Records, the subversive use of the playful kitten as a symbol for the label, the camp, the cleverness at a time of doughty dullness and clodhoppersomeness.

So, the grand master? Well, he certainly wasn’t flash. He looked so completely unassuming. An elderly gent of Chinese origin. Diffident, polite, but you got the sense of something straight away. Strange. And hard to define. Anyway this was a big occasion for our class. You could tell. The big guns, the ones who usually only turned up for the serious stuff, the kung fu related activity, were there rubbing shoulders with us humble beginners, showing off their perfect stances and all that. I bet our grand master had seen such blatant showmanship a thousand times over. Anyway, the star of the show may have been as self-effacing as George Smiley, but he was a born entertainer. Purists should perhaps cover their eyes or ears, but the great man soon had us spellbound as he showed off some of the tricks of the self-defence trade. Come on strangle me, he said to the boldest of the big guns. And boy did they try. But our grand master just stood grinning, nonchalant. They can never strangle you, he said, if you clench your back teeth and grin at them. Try it sometime.

What was most astonishing was the way he used the powers of concentration. By dint of concentration, and by focusing energy, by disturbing other people’s concentration and energy flows, well ... Our grand master could literally make someone move simply by standing in front of them, and closing his eyes. You’d see them start to wobble, and stumble, unwittingly, unwillingly. It was wonderful. Pete the Sikh swore he’d seen him stand around a corner from someone, out of sight, and cause them to sway. That was special, he said. To us, the unworthy but keen as mustard, the grand master passed on the gift of being able to break free of any hold on your arm without any effort by simply going with the flow, and the ability, if developed, to use one finger to do some pretty special things, which if you will excuse the pun came in pretty handy from time to time.

Like? Oh, well, there used to be this horrible place out to the west of London, next to the underground station at Hammersmith. Horrible place. Faded glamour. Shell of a lovely old ballroom and hotel. Going to seed. Sign of the times. Probably now a supermarket or something. Even more of a sign of the times. We’d go there only if we really had to. Our shows would be upstairs in the old ballroom. Downstairs in the basement though there used to be a club where all these psychobilly types would hang out. These guys were one step further up the evolutionary ladder than the sad skinheads. Probably very sweet guys really, much loved by their mums, but incredibly intimidating on account of being seven feet tall with the added protection of flat tops and extendible quiffs matched only by the size of their boots. We tried to steer clear, but sometimes fate would conspire against us.

So one night. Before the respective shows. In the bar next door. A tap on the shoulder and an invitation. In the shadow of a quiff. Got 50p mate? What could you do? Well, if you were our Fair One just once in a while you might want to live dangerously. 50p? The Fair One repeated it again incredulously. 50p, he said. He slapped the psychobilly boy on the back. My dear fellow, he said, where’s your ambition? 50p indeed. What’s that going to get you? Well, it would get me ‘ome at least, said the stunned psychobilly. Tak, tsk, let’s have some fun, said The Fair One. Let’s gamble some. Are you game, he asked the ‘billy boy? Look, I’ll hold my arms out in front of me, and I’ll clench my hands like so. See? Now you try and push down on my hands. You see, I’m resisting, and it’s not easy is it? Ok, now you try it. Yup, like so. Now if I try to push down. Like so. Nope. No movement is there? Right, well, if we go double or quits on this bright shiny 50p, you’ll have yourself a pound if I can push your arm down with this wee index finger. Are we on? Good. Very good. Right, here we go. I’ll close my eyes, and I’ll just scoop some of your energy out of the space between your arms where your power lies. Like this. And this. So now it’s oh so easy to push your arms down with this little index finger. Ooh look here we go. Tada, one pound for me please!

What’s that? Oh no, no trickery. You saw exactly what happened. You took the bet, so pay up. Oh ok. We’ll do it again. Look to show there’s no fix, first let’s see if your mate King Kurt here can do what I did. Oh dear, I don’t think he can. Oh well, this time let’s try something different. You see, once again I can’t push those arms of yours down. So what I’m going to do is lift my leg like this and just wave my foot in a circular motion under your arms. Can you feel your power fly away? Well, you should, because look how easily I can push your arm down with my little old index finger. Again. Uh uh. I must stop you there. Now can I buy you a drink. Snakebite by any chance?

True story that. And I wish I had that down on DVD. The David Carradine is pretty neat though. Been getting back into the Tai Chi thing. I can feel myself loosening up again. The energy coming back. The meditation’s helping. But oh the music. Dear oh dear oh dear. It would send you doolally if you listened to that for any period of time. A bit of jazz is called for methinks.