Pink Thunder: Famous People Who Do Tai Chi

I just saw Jet Li's Fearless.

There are some pretty good fight scenes especially with swords, fyi. The Chinese triple nunchucks vs. Japanese samurai sword -- seriously bad-ass. Watch the clip above. You can tell fight choreographer Yuen Wo Ping is onboard, for real.

Jet says it's his last martial arts film; that he has said all he wants to say. There's a lot of suicides among young people in China. That was true when I taught there. There were a few suicides and attempts each year. Strangely though -- none the year that I was there. None that I heard of. I expect with all the socio-economic changes there that there's been an acceleration in the alienation among young people.

From a moral standpoint, it's a beautiful movie. It's a bit patriotic though. It made me think of how people in other countries watching American movies must feel when there's a clear political agenda in a fictional film.

Anyway, that's not what this post is supposed to be about! Anyway, Jet Li is a real martial arts master. At 2 critical points in the movie, he does some movements that look like Tai Chi Chuan -- must be so. One of Jet Li's most famous films is Tai Chi Master.

The last scene in particular is so amazing. You see both his technical perfection and Li's open, graceful, brave, beautiful heart. I know that that's why my teacher Zheng Qin started me off with a real sword. He knew or hoped that someday...someday my tai chi would be beautiful and show my heart.

Well, it's not. Not yet at least. It takes a little courage to reveal your heart fully. Or even just a little while passing your sword from one side of your body to the next.

OK, so it might not be Tai Chi Chuan -- it could be Mizhong Chuan he's doing. Whatever. It's pretty cool. I'm not the only one who thinks so either.