It has never occurred to the student that the goldfish might be happy in its bowl. If anything, she’s pitied the creature. But now the master is telling her that when she advances to the next level of tai chi, she will be approaching the happy mindlessness of the goldfish swimming in his bowl. Here the master does a creditable imitation of a goldfish hanging motionless in the water, giving just an occasional flick of his tail. Then someone taps on the bowl, and the master, as goldfish, becomes, with no visible transition, a study in motion. He is swimming in the air, sparring with shadows; he is a wave in the sea. The master has no compunction about mixing metaphors.
She repeats a small movement over and over until he says yes, perfect, now you will never do it wrong again. This, unfortunately, she knows from long experience not to be true. She will go home, bowing to the room as she leaves. She will practice. And when she returns, bowing respectfully again as she enters, whether it is tomorrow or three weeks from tomorrow, the master will stop her before she is 30 seconds into the form, smiling and shaking his head. But when he shows her how it’s done, moving with his easy natural grace, she will swallow her disappointment and again fall under the spell of this beautiful, impossible thing.
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The master, Wai Lun Choi, who’s in his 50s, drives every day from the home in Skokie where he lives with his wife and two teenage children to his rented storefront on Irving Park Road just east of Damen, a single carpeted room measuring about 1,300 square feet, where he teaches five different styles of Chinese Internal Martial Arts to anyone who has the time, the ability to pay the modest fees, and a lot of patience.
Many of the onlookers were ready to sign up for classes on the spot, but without a translator teaching was impossible, Choi’s English still being very meager. Choi eventually returned to Chicago, to Chinatown, where he was recognized on the street by people who had seen his picture in Chinese martial arts magazines. Before leaving Hong Kong Choi had won the All-Southeast Asia Hand-to-Hand Martial Arts Tournament, as well as other competitions, and he had received a lot of attention in the press. After settling in Chinatown, he taught Chinese students at the University of Illinois, then a class was arranged for him at a community center. When he arrived he found a roomful of young men staring at him defiantly, daring him to prove himself. He says he felt angry, but nonetheless he offered to take them on, one at a time. After a bit he took them on two at a time, then three and four at a time. When ten was suggested he demurred, explaining that in such a situation he would no longer be able to control his responses and might really hurt someone. After this demonstration, students clamored to sign up, writing their names on the back of a brown paper bag, the only piece of paper in the room. Choi left with 100 names on the scrap.
But even as he vanquished his opponents, Choi became aware that something was missing. He experienced a certain disturbing shortness of breath during exertion, and it seemed to him that too often his opponent was not where he expected him to be. He knew there were other, more “internal” styles, and he suspected that these were the most powerful of all. When a friend mentioned the name of a teacher to him, Choi set out to persuade the man to come out of his retirement and teach again.
Choi spent every spare minute practicing, trying to work out for himself the ancient ways of fighting developed by men who had created the techniques in a desperate struggle for survival. Choi frequently explains that whether the student is interested in the practice of martial arts as a fighting technique or simply as a healthful exercise, it is necessary to understand the meaning of each movement, i.e., its use in combat. Successful self-defense requires the ability to use the kinesthetic possibilities of the body with absolute efficiency, involving the mobilization of the chi, or inner power, through a special technique of deep breathing. In a master like Choi, the result is a breathtaking fluidity of motion, subtle explosions of terrific power, and an uncanny ability to turn every move of his opponent to his own advantage. Like pornography, it’s difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it.
