Ten Needles, Four In The Bum

Wednesday arrived with a dull ache in the lower back and a sharp complaint from the left hip — the body presenting its invoice, as it occasionally does, without much ceremony.

A lunchtime visit to the TCM doctor. Ten needles in the lower spine, four in the bum, two in the calf, and then the electrodes added, presumably because the needles alone felt insufficiently eventful. Just another Wednesday. Apparently this is simply the reality of being a long-term student at a Kung Fu school in China.

With the body under negotiation, training was kept to what I would generously call light duties. Tai Chi was the order of the day — practising, learning new movements, and then practising again. The new form is coming together in that quiet, incremental way that's easy to miss if you're looking for the wrong kind of progress. My coach noted that things looked tight, and he wasn't wrong. But I enjoyed every step regardless — every stance, every position, even the uncomfortable ones. Perhaps especially those.

There is a particular beauty in being forced to move slowly. You stop rushing past the details. The form reveals itself differently when you have no choice but to listen to it.

The body was not at its best today. But I still found small steps forward, a few sideways, and the occasional step back — which, taken together, is still movement. Still enough.

The evening brought something that made the whole day worthwhile. I had noticed over recent weeks that a fellow student seemed to carry a kind of blockage through the hips — something held, something that hadn't been given permission to move. We spent a few minutes together, tracing the concept, working through a handful of exercises, and then — almost as if something unlocked, as if it had been waiting for the right key — they began to move. Stiffly at first, like old gears reacquainting themselves with oil, but gradually finding a freedom that perhaps hadn't been felt since childhood.

It was a small thing. But not a small thing at all.

The smile on her face was the only thanks that was needed, or wanted.