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Young at Heart at 50
Alice Shu 2005
At the insistence of my friends I am telling my experience in picking up
Yuanji, an aerobic dance that combines tai-chi and aerobics. Because I have not
written anything for a few decades, I am reluctant to write anything now.
However, for the sake of promoting the art, I抎 like to share with you my joy in
discovering it. My body is quite 慺it? for my age because I learned ballet as a
child. In school, physical education was my favorite subject. I had not been a
fan of aerobics or any exercise since I had been busy with work and raising my
daughter. However, recently, I felt that my body
was under pressure from work and aging. I had been to the gym, pumping some
irons, modern dance, Tai-chi and Mulan boxing. I had not found a match between
my body and any of these forms. I simply moved on from form to form and had not
actually committed to any one.
When I visited friends in Los Angeles and Toronto, I was introduced to Yuanji to
dance 1 and 2. Since it was quite time-consuming, I was not committed to
practice regularly. About three years ago, Yuanji dance 3, 4 and 5 were
released. I was very impressed with the seamless matching of music and dance
movements. These new dances enabled me to rediscover Yuanji. So, I signed up
with the New York Yuanji Society. The first day I was fortunate to be taught by
Master Huo. He explained in an easy-to-understand way the various movement sets
and the long history of the art, dating back to over a thousand years ago.
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Due to time conflicts and the distance I had to travel, I spent about a year
practicing at home after a brief spell at the Society. In May of last year, a
few friends and I started practicing Yuanji at Columbus Park in Chinatown ?
shortly after daybreak on a daily basis. We enjoyed the friendship, the dance
movement and the music to which we danced to. We started with five of us. We
were open to the public. After six months of showing up daily, our dance group
at the Park was sixty strong. Anyone could join us and after an hour or so of
good exercise there was an uplifting feeling and we felt happy about ourselves.
We knew that although we could not prevent aging, we still could feel good about
growing old by having a
good time doing Yuanji. It even changed our attitudes in looking at life. Some
of us became very good friends. Growing old was not as helpless as one would
have traditionally imagined.
Personally, I was glad that I found a hobby that was going to take hold and
occupy a meaningful space in my life. For example, the interest was strong
enough to get rid of all my previous non-committing attitude to exercise. Those
fits and starts were no more. I got up early and was at the park early at 8
A.M.
You can find me there ? rain or shine. I would be there and so will my
friends. I got back to my youth, the very thought of being able to take care of
my body, not with any outside help, but with my body. I guess that is why
people jog and do aerobics consistently. This must be the dance getting a hold
of us once we embrace Yuanji, an ancient form of aerobics that is very suitable
for New Yorkers today.
If you have time, do it regularly and meet some friends at Columbus Park. If
you do not have time, just do it at home. If you feel like checking out as to
how you progress, come visit us from time to time.
We will be there. Perhaps one day you will write about your good fortune with
Yuanji, like I just did.
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