After our lectures at Nankai University, there is usually an activity planned for the class. Today's activity was a lesson on Tai Chi in a slightly wooded area on campus. Tai Chi is a martial art, although it consists of a variety of very slow-paced "moves." The instructor is a professor at the university and she walked us through two different forms of Tai Chi.
Before we performed any of the forms of Tai Chi, we had a little bit of a warm up. The warm was a little grueling and some maneuvers were a little ridiculous, given the relative inflexibility of our American group. The first form of Tai Chi that we attempted was as grueling as the warm up, in my opinion at least. As soon as we walked through every move of the routine we put them all together and attempted to do them in sequence. A lot of people got pretty sore and had to sit out for a little while. I'm not sure I really enjoyed the first form, maybe I would enjoy it a little more with some practice and familiarity with the moves. I did really enjoy the second form of Tai Chi we attempted. It was a lot slower-paced and more fluid, in my opinion. It was really relaxing and a nice end to the activity. Overall it was a nice experience, and good example of a large part of the Chinese culture.
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