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The Monkey Mountain Story
A new way to learn and do Tai Chi
By Michael White AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2013Michael N. D. White
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4817-1607-9
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Tai Chi trip up to Monkey Mountain Lookout
I am going to have you join me on a trip up to the so-called Monkey Mountain Lookout. Monkey Mountain is the name of a small ridge in Western China. It is also the name to the popular lookout on top of the ridge. The ridge and the lookout are very similar to the Mount Douglas lookout on the top of that small mountain in the south of Vancouver Island, British Columbia in the west of Canada. The difference is the monkeys.
The monkeys have lived on Monkey Mountain ever since the lookout was built. They were there long before the old man built his little house and shrine further up the ridge. Young and older people from the valley come up and visit him. The old man came and looked after the monkeys. He learned to live with them and enjoy them. He is a very patient old man.
Monkey Mountain is an imaginary mountain. Maybe it exists somewhere in far western China in the foothills of the Himalayas. There it would be complete with its lookout, its monkeys and its old man. The slopes, paths, valleys, its old roads, its temple and the villages around it, even the great river and the dragon island and its cave are all part of the Monkey Mountain story landscape.
Join me climbing this mountain. It is the new way to experience a wonderful exercise that was invented a long time ago in China. This climb is the new way to experience and learn Tai Chi.
We begin our outing from the back door of a little cottage. It is on the edge of a little village in the valley below Monkey Mountain. The village is beside the broad river that flows south through the mountains. The cottage is on the small main road through the village. Its back door overlooks a walled garden full of flowers and vegetables and chickens. Beyond the garden, outside a gate, fields and more gardens run down to the riverbanks.
Beyond these fields, a small stream flows into the river. A beautiful old stone bridge leads over the stream. The road runs along the shore. Farm gardens, fields and rice paddies rise up on the lower slopes of the hillside. Above the rice paddies are woods and bamboo thickets. These go up the side of Monkey Mountain ridge.
Up there on the ridge, a long time ago they built a path up the ridge and a lookout. From there you can see the great foothills and mountains that stretch into the distance.
The sun rises and we start our trip up to the Monkey Mountain lookout. The early rays of the morning sun shine on the back steps of the cottage, and on the garden, the flowers and vegetables.
"The sun rises" is also the name of the first movement of Tai Chi. It is the traditional first move of all the different kinds of Tai Chi that have been done all over China for a thousand and more years, since and before this exercise was first given this name.
To greet the sun, we raise our arms. It is as if the sun were on our finger tips. Our arms rise with the calm slowness that you will learn is special to Tai Chi. The movement could even be as slow as the rising of the sun itself if this were possible. For most of us it is just slow and smooth. The slowness of "the sun rises" will be the careful way of all the 23 and more Tai Chi moves that will follow as we climb the mountain and back.
The sun shines down on the cottage, the garden and flowers and the chickens. Your shoulders relax and your arms come down in front of you. Pick up your pack with some food and water. We begin our trip.
Ride ponies to the base of Monkey Mountain. "Comb the wild horses' manes" in Tai Chi
In the field beyond the garden gate, small mountain ponies are grazing. At the gate, we can reach over to the rack to pick up saddles and bridles. An apple slice will bring the ponies over. We are going to ride them over to the base of Monkey Mountain.
Grasp a saddle firmly. It's heavy, made of wood and leather in the country mode with bright ribbons, brass buttons, padding and stirrups of wood and leather. Throw it over the pony's back. Tie it tightly beneath the animal's stomach. Put on the bridle. If your imagination is good, swing a leg up over the pony's back and mount up.
We will ride the Ponies over to the Mountain but in the second movement of our Tai Chi set. It is called "Comb the wild pony's mane".
To ride your pony and comb its mane, step forward, raise your hand, palm up, fingers relaxed, and "comb" the hair of the your pony's thick mane. Step forward with the other foot and comb with the fingers and palm of the other hand. Right foot forward, right hand combs. Left foot, left hand combs. Repeat, left, right, left, right, left. This is how we will ride our ponies through the gate, down the trail across the fields towards the river and the mountains beyond, in Tai Chi style.
When we ride our ponies we will also learn a special Tai Chi way of walking. It is among the most important lessons of Tai Chi. It is how you use Tai Chi to strengthen your legs and improve your balance. It is different from the ordinary walking we use in our day to day ordinary lives. Later we will also use the way of walking in other moves of Tai Chi, and it will affect and improve how you walk or even streide in your day to day business.
At first, learning Tai Chi walking will be slow, even difficult. We practice it as we take our ponies across the fields. But we get better and stronger. We learn to transfer all our weight from one foot to the other. Each step is done with care because it tests our balance. Someone described this Tai Chi way of walking as how you would need to walk across a rough floored forest safely on a very dark moonless night.
We ride the ponies with our new careful way of walking, one step after another, combing the pony's mane each step, across the fields toward Monkey Mountain, slow at first, then more smoothly. Your legs become more used to the movements, your balance steadies. You will begin to become graceful.
There is more to tell you about "Combing the Ponies' manes".
In Tai Chi, as we comb our pony's mane, the raised and sweeping palms of our hands are defensive moves. "Combing the wild horses' manes" is part of Tai Chi's other job. It is a defensive martial art. We clear the way ahead of us, parting the way with our hands as we ride.
We ride across the fields, down the slope toward the river. A few steps of the Tai Chi walking and combing are enough to take you across the fields, down to the river's edge and up onto a small bridge.
We have arrived at the banks of the great river. The old stone bridge spans the fast rivulet that flows down from the hills above. Here, we leave our ponies with a young girl of the village. She will ride them back to their home fields.
We step up onto the bridge. Now we see a sight that has enthralled the people of China since before history.
In the marshes and wet lands beyond the bridge and beside the big river, tall white cranes are feeding, courting and sparring.
"The White Cranes Cool Their Wings" is how in China they describe the dances of the big white birds. These dances are sometimes stately, sometimes humorous. Our Tai Chi will mimic the white cranes cooling their wings in the next moves that we learn on our trip up the Mountain.
In North America we are more familiar with great blue herons of our rivers and marshes. They do mating dances on their great nests. But these are nothing compared to the dancing of the cranes. In Canada there are Sandhill Cranes. They also dance. Some Cranes are rare. The big white Whooping Cranes of western Canada have almost gone altogether.
The most famous cranes of China are tall and white, with flashe
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Excerpted from The Monkey Mountain Story by Michael White. Copyright © 2013 by Michael N. D. White. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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