A Touching Performance

"I might have a go at this tai chi lark" a prospective student said to me, "But I don't hold with all this touching business..."  I'd really never considered this before: having played rugby for years as a youngster, with my head stuck amidst the muddy posteriors of my team-mates, body-contact really held no fear for me (the wonders of an English boarding school education hem hem...). But it's true: some people are scared rigid of being touched. I am quite sure that this explains 99% of those bar-brawls which start with an innocent nudge whilst waiting for the barmaid. Those beer-fuelled lads who stalk through town with their shoulders wide and unyielding as moose antlers are just begging for someone to bump into them so they can get all, well, touchy.
Tai chi chuan is an instrument par excellence for the honing of one's sense of touch: through contact in Pushing Hands one can learn all sorts about the intent, skill and mindset of the opponent. We tai chi folk like our oppponents up close and personal-like, so we can feel what they are about. We listen with our limbs, with our very skin. Learning by feel is not  so popular these days: learning has become all about intellectualisation, but perhaps Tai chi chuan shows us that this is not the only way.