Shoba Narayan writes in a travel magazine:
"When I informed my conservative Indian family that I was interested in tai chi, they were appalled. Why was their Indian child, heir to an ancient and proud tradition—yoga—leaning toward an alien discipline? "
The concern seems naggingly familiar, though I must admit my own myopia. Growing up in Los Angeles, I have always thought of yoga and tai chi as forms of exercise. I would never have imagined that switching from yoga to tai chi (or, heaven forfend, pilates) could possibly be considered tantamount to forsaking one's faith.
Narayan goes on to describe how she traveled to China to search out the perfect tai chi master, which she finally manages to find in a public park in Beijing on her last day before her return to India. After her lesson with the master--a Mrs. Shi--they get to chatting.
Narayan goes on to describe how she traveled to China to search out the perfect tai chi master, which she finally manages to find in a public park in Beijing on her last day before her return to India. After her lesson with the master--a Mrs. Shi--they get to chatting.
"...She has one daughter, she says, who is twenty-one and living in India. What does your daughter do? I ask.
She is a yoga teacher, Mrs. Shi says.
I laugh. I cannot help but appreciate the irony of coming all the way from India to learn tai chi from a Chinese woman whose daughter is in India studying yoga."Narayan finishes the story with old moral: Even on terra incognita we carry a bit of home in our heart.
I bow to Mrs. Shi, give her the martial arts fist-to-palm salute, and once more offer to pay for the class. Again she refuses. As I walk through the ballroom dancers, I turn back and find her watching me, waving.I have to offer my shifu something. I am not even sure if I will ever see her again, although of course that isn't the point. [...] On the spur of the moment, I stop. The grass is my yoga mat. I wave at my shifu, who is still watching me. My elbows support my head as I bend and execute a perfect headstand. Years of practice as a child still haven't left me. I am doing the Sirsasana yoga pose in a Chinese park as an offering for my tai chi teacher. Someone claps. I get back up on my feet, wave at my shifu, turn, and head to the subway for the long ride home.
This is a good parallel to teach Jewish children also of the fact that there is no need to go outside of Yiddishkeit to search for meaning b/c it can all be found in the Torah.
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