By Pawel Müller
Regarding DQS: I like it very much. I’m not practicing so much (only 4-5 hours daily) because I also try to learn chinese. Last weekend I become a cameraman and recorded some scenes for a short promotion vid for DQS.I have a version compiles already, but will change it tomorrow, because I have a better idea how to do this. I became a video editor last weekend btw. so I needed to get to know my tool of choice which is iMovie (thankfully).
But yeah, training:I feel making progress like almost every second or third day, meaning that there is also progress in between too, but it feels rather depressing. But I practice Taiji for a longer time now and now that this is normal, so everything is fine. After all I had so many breakthroughs here in the last three weeks that it actually feels really good. With breakthroughs I mean this tiny changes you feel while practicing and you realize that you now can move this or that part or at least have the awareness that you can do it. Then after practicing this in detail you get a better understanding and hopefully it will be second nature and you can use it while doing the form quickly.
This is actually quite a challenge. The guys here are running through the form very quickly. After I learned it (roughly) I can keep up with them, but the quality is really bad. It’s getting better and better though. I practice alone during the day or with Zili (if you know him). I like to practice alone though, because then I can take my time and do a movement several times before continuing with the next. Most movements (I think) are still quite empty. For some I have an idea how they should look like, but it’s really a huge building site and I try to ignore some things and concentrate only on a few.
Apropos building sites: It’s a building site here at DQS. They build a new Hotel. It’s huge. There are many workers around and sometimes it’s also very noisy, but it isn’t annoying and if it is, then I go somewhere up away from all this. I have found some nice places already.
The training is very different compared to Chen Village. I’m not talking about the content of the training now. I mean that in Chen Jiagou I was in a taijiquan School. So everybody was practicing taiji at the same time before breakfast, after breakfast, after lunch and after supper. Everybody, really. You actually couldn’t do anything else, as everybody was busy practicing. Here it’s different. Most of the students work during the day. We practice together only in the early morning and in the evening. The rest of the day you can do whatever you want. So you need some self discipline to also practice during the rest of the day. This is really OK with me, after all I came here to practice, but I miss the group dynamic a little bit I confess.
I also miss a special room for Tuishou. We were practicing in a conference room, but this is occupied now, so we didn’t practice tuishou for two weeks now. I miss that. I was hoping that since this should be a place for learning Taiji there might be a room for that, but it’s rather a scenic spot with a hotel and restaurant than a taiji school. Maybe this will change at some point. Who kowns.
OK, I need to get some sleep. In short: I learned a lot already and I’m curious how much I will learn in the two month ahead. I like the place and feel like at home now after almost 4 week.
Hope to meet some of you guys here. Cheers
