Friday. Lunch break. I'd normally head to Yoga but was in no mood. I was bothered partly by little details of my interactions with old friends, a bit about the lack of love felt for my work, and wondering how I might go about addressing questions of movement and connection. That's another way of saying spirituality.
I decided to take a walk, simply take in a bit of the city and let my mind do whatever it wanted. As I walked I suddenly became aware of a presence, something creeping up behind and to the left of me. I looked over.
"Hi," says Ryan.
"Hi,' I say back, "I haven't seen you in a while."
We used to take Kung Fu together. He's one of eight people in something like twenty or thirty years to ever earn a red sash from our instructor. He's a bit short, shaved head, powerfully built. Winding black tattoos decorate forearms that are easily as big as most biceps. I've seen him jump and clear a good five feet, and once saw a larger man try to tackle him only to be lifted overhead and thrown half across the room. Ryan isn't much of a kidder.
"You look really irritated," he says. I tell him a bit about my frustrations, noting that they are minor. Ask how he's been.
He's been taking a form of martial art described as "Tai Chi boxing," apparently he loves the instructor for being even more precise than our old Kung Fu teacher. I ask him about applicability, about ground fighting and whether they actually practice hitting in class. He makes a pretty good case for the quality. Hard to imagine Ryan
getting these things wrong.
One could easily claim serendipity, if one were the type to say such things. To be honest, I'm torn between the desire to be truly free of illusion, see only what can be proven, and an innate craving for mysticism. The question is whether I'm going to jump on the MMA bandwagon or go for something potentially less effective in the hopes of discovering something of internal value, of satisfying that space that Yoga touches but is too passive to fill.
Regardless of how that pans out, I will need to spend some time dancing. If I've learned nothing else in the past few weeks, I have at least established that Hol Baumann cures all mental stress.