Any self -respecting Nebraska girl would be in awe of the corn of Chenjiagou. It is everywhere. Rows and rows of shucked kernels dry in wide, copious lines up and down either side of Main Street. The rows take up about one quarter to one third of the road, forcing cars, trucks and three wheeled vehicles to negotiate what is left. They never run over the corn, instead risking an accident to avoid even one inch of one row. Ears of corn are bundled and attached to tall poles that are driven into the ground. They look like totem poles, cluster upon cluster reaching at least 8 – 10 feet up, each dried ear bundle telling its own ancient story. The corn of Chenjiagou is also stacked at least two feet deep and stored atop temple-style roofs. I walked through the Ditch at midday yesterday enjoying the light refracting off of the myriad rooftop cornrows, yellow-oranges deep and bright glistening like so many luminarias.
The whole Village is preparing for winter. The days are warm and glorious, perfect for sitting on a stool and carding wool. It is a busy, hard working time in the Village. To help the corn dry, women shuffle over the street rows of the bright yellow orange kernel for hours, or rake it; both methods seem like a meditation on the dissolving season of plenty. The men are harvesting and turning over the beds. Sweaty, they pause for a moment, lift their shirts up to dry their bellies. They look up to the sky, then drop their shirts back down and return to the hard labor at hand. You will also see the men separating large piles, 20’ long, 4’ high, of dried beans. They rake and rake and then pile up & tie bundles onto mid-sized trucks. Sometimes the loads are so high – perhaps 10 or more feet, there is a person sitting way atop the bundles to keep them secure. I’m not sure how that works but nothing bad seems to happen as these old vehicles chug their way through town, avoiding the cornrows, on their way to somewhere else.
The training began in earnest yesterday. Many of the readers will know what I mean when I refer to “Village Style” training but some will not. In essence, Village Style is the traditional method of training where the teacher transmits one move, corrects the student in detail, and the student then practices it…for quite some time. By Western “teach it to me quick” standards or for those who pride themselves as form collectors, it can be quite a paradigm shift. And, it probably does not suit everyone. For example, yesterday’s morning training consisted of 40 minutes of standing, 40 minutes of Silk Reeling, and 80 minutes on the first movement of form, “Buddha’s Attendant Pounds the Mortar.” During this time our teacher, Grandmaster Chen Xiao Xing demonstrated, then explained in exact detail the absolute essential points of the form: the body mechanics, the energy flow and the intention. We practiced individually, not following him, but committing the lesson to our own body. He let us have at it for a bit and then returned to hall and corrected each one of us. No one is under any illusion that we will “go through the whole form.” Instead we are all looking for our own key to go deeper into our art, to understand just a bit more of the vast and rich practice that is Taijiquan. It is exactly what I came for.
Chen Xiao Xing’s corrections are stunning and magnificent. He is a deeply internal martial artist and his mastery at conveying the details is unparalleled. It is all hands on; he subtly places his hands on hips and glides them exactly into place. He is gentle, but his touch is clear. He does not allow you to move incorrectly by even a centimeter. Any doubt about where your weight should be or your hips positioned is gone. Any resistance the low back has dissolves. Rib cage, collar bone, shoulders all connect under the hands of this master Taijiquan chef, the whole body becoming comingled like the finest crock pot stew you could ever hope to eat. And then he will add a bit more spice just as he sees the student is ready: guiding the body into a deeper understanding of hip position, energy and intention, collar bones, rib cage and dantien. It’s so glorious you don’t even notice that your thighs are on high burn until you stop. So you don’t. This is Village Style training in Chenjiagou.
While we are training inside Chen Xiao Xing’s hall, the kids are training outside. At this time there are about one hundred students. They come here from surrounding communities and sometimes there can be as many as three hundred. They are the kids who have had significant discipline problems and have been kicked out of school. Or, they are children from prostitute mothers who have no real means for caring for them. Or, they are from poor families, especially the girls in this case. They don’t get a lot of formal education here but they do learn to read and write. Their Village Style is rigorous endurance and strength training and quite a bit of martial arts. They train a good 8 hours a day. When they are finished they can become Taijiquan teachers if they are good enough, or they go into the police or army. Some simply have to return to their families to farm or run the machine shop.
The food is quite a bit tastier than on previous trips. Davidine requested that we get a bit better fare than the main school and the cooks are delivering. Admittedly I was surprised and am staring at my 8 pounds of extra food that I brought to keep me going, thinking I’ll likely bring 4 of it back. Thus far the meals consist of millet, eggs & tomatoes for breakfast, various noodle and vegetable dishes, especially beans, for lunch and dinner, some quite spicy and some with a little chicken or pork for protein. There are also a variety of sweet fried buns, balls & skewers. Gaining weight in Chenjiagou was not something I was prepared for! The weather continues to be fine; even hot, though there is a cold snap forecasted over in a few days.
The roosters have been calling for a couple of hours now and that means its time for me to get up, have another cup of tea, shower up, and get to the training commons before breakfast. One day is already gone and I want to be sure I commit as much sensation to memory as I can. My daily routine will surely include another walk around town. I also want to commit as much of the Village in October to memory as I can, especially the myriad images of the corn of Chenjiagou.
Kim
Very nice Kim!
Posted by: James C | October 18, 2011 at 04:36 PM