Kung Fu, Natural Cycles, Movie Stars and Tai Chi

The 21 August issue of Rolling Stone features Erik Hedgaard’s beautifully written portrait of Robert Downey Jr. as a man who keeps knocking himself down and getting up again, all with such charm and innocence that we welcome him back each time. Downey’s cycle of self-abuse, self-loathing and redemption make perfect sense to me. We all have these cycles, both in our health and in our behavior. That’s why we get sick and then we get well, we gain some weight and then we lose some, we are mad at our kids (or our parents!) and then delighted by them. The moon grows bright and then darkens, the tide rises and then it falls.

I was interested to see that Downey studies Wing Chun kung fu, a close-quarter fighting art originally devised and titled for a nun (the name means Beautiful Springtime). I figure that his teacher may have shared the cyclical aspect of life with him in the context of Chinese medicine, part and parcel of all good kung fu training.

It was also nice to see Chinese kung fu (in this case tai chi) featured on the cover of the online edition of the New York Times today, 20 August. The story, by John Branch,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/sports/olympics/21park.html?_r=1&hp&oref=login)
is about parks in Beijing and the people who go there for their morning exercise, and who find an oasis for mind and body. The notion is that exercise and training are so endemic to Chinese culture (as contrasted to our nation of couch potatoes) that their Olympic successes should be no surprise to anyone.