STICKS AND STONES

By Gina Singleton

I've always wanted to do some work with youngsters, to try to introduce them to T'ai Chi. There is so much in the arts that should be made available in schools clubs and in community centres to help give them a different slant on what's on offer in their area. Well wouldn't you know, a few weeks ago I got my chance, (did the Tao hear me)? I was asked to give taster sessions to two groups of kids from clubs set up in my local area, to give them somewhere to go instead of just hanging around. The experience was rather different from what I had pictured it would be.

I carried my backpack, CD player and a bag of sticks into the centre and the two members of staff allocated to the session took me upstairs to the hall. Well, what can I say, when you go into a hall and have to clean it first before you can start makes me very grateful for the clean fresh halls that I hold my classes in. Anyway, we made quick work of cleaning and sweeping up the floor. I opened the windows to  let in some fresh air, oh boy that must have been a first, and finally one of the staff gave the room a quick blast with some 'instant death' to any airborne creature in the vicinity. We were ready to go.

The kids came charging up the stairs and into the hall and the noise was deafening. The atmosphere was charged with that almost frenetic energy only early teens can generate, effortlessly. I watched them running, jumping, pushing each other, dummy fighting, real fighting and as for the language well, you're all to young to hear it. I stood and watched as thirty seven kids, yes thirty seven, literally ran amok in this large room while two members of staff frantically tried to calm them down. As the seconds ticked by the kids started to look my way, then they stopped and watched as I just stood quietly waiting. The noise level started to fall which was a blessing as I feared for my hearing and their voice boxes.

Hey miss, who the **f** are you" shouted one lad to the absolute delight of all the kids.
I smiled at him and gestured for him to come over, as he walked forward the noise level became almost normal.

"Do you know what that is" I said pointing to the door.
"Aye miss it's an **f** door".

"Well best if you use it then" I walked over to the door and opened it.

He walked to the door and I'm sure in his mind he was going to say any manner of things but I just moved into his space and escorted him into the arms of the third member of staff, a huge guy who was on the door, so to speak.

No messing with that guy.

I walked back to the centre of the room and told the rest of the kids that I wouldn’t put up with anyone swearing at me. But, as always someone has to try to challenge you and another lad started to rhyme of a stream of swear words. I walked up to him and put my arm around his shoulder and escorted him to the door too. At the same time I reminded him of what I had just said and that I thought it was unfair to the others, to the staff and to me if I let him disrupt the class. I also said that I was sorry that he didn't want to give T'ai Chi a chance but that it wasn't for everyone and that he had most likely made the right decision to go. Ahh, only thirty-five to go. It was a lot quieter now and the kids were beginning to pay attention to what I was saying. I turned on a piece of music I had chosen for its calming sound. The two members of staff seemed a bit stunned but I motioned them to come on to the floor and help me get the kids in line. This took a couple of minutes as they all wanted to stand beside their pals, but eventually we had them pretty tidy.

I told them a bit about who I was and what I was going to do with them for the next hour. I started a short warm up and then went straight on to some breathing exercises I had chosen. I was trying to help calm their minds and bodies to hopefully make them calm enough to move on to working with the stick, oh yes folks, the stick. First exercise was the sleeping drunkard which they all thought hilarious. (I was later to find out that there had been forty kids coming to the demonstration but that three of them had had to be kept downstairs because they were too drunk to join in, maybe not such a happy choice after all) Then on to Flying Fox (loads of airplane noises here) I moved among them correcting hands and demonstrating the breathing, giving words of praise and encouragement as they worked their way through the first part of the program. Well, after only ten minutes of activity I lost ten kids for various reasons. Reasons like, its too hard, I'm knackered, all that breathing is stupid and a few of them who needed a fag, to calm their shattered nerves.

I moved on to the next part of the program were I told them that they were going to work with the stick. First question from one wee lad at the back of the hall.

"Do you get to whack people over the head with it miss"
To his great disappointment I told him no you didn't and asked him why he would want to do that.

He couldn't think of a reason other than to say.
"It would be cool".

There followed a couple of minutes of half the class leaping around like Bruce Lee on speed and the other half trying to avoid the souped up Bruce Lees and kids flailing the air with pretend sticks. The staff and I quickly got them back into line and I started to go through the prepare sequence and the stances. I have to praise the centre staff who were brilliant at learning the moves for themselves and still being able to help keep the kids focused while I kept moving among them correcting their posture and stance changes. After fifteen minutes concentrated effort I noticed that there were less kids on the floor and that a small gang had decided to sit it out. I gently but firmly escorted them to the door, all the time sympathising with the injustice of them never having anything great to do and the boredom they had to suffer because of it. The hall was getting emptier by the minute.

Then it came to handing out the sticks and adding in the hand movements I could see the staff were a bit uneasy but as "Mr Cool" had been one of the kids who had left before he expired either through boredom or lack of nicotine or both, I was confident no one was in imminent danger of being pole axed. Well not right away. We had a short talk about it being better to be a person who was in control of a stick rather than being a person who was controlled by a stick. It came up how easy it was to get mad and hit out and how hard it was to step back and keep control.  The kids were quite open about how they tried to deal with situations such as fighting with brothers and sisters, or friends upsetting them or people just getting on their nerves. A lot of the solutions to these issues was to hit out before they thought about the situation. I asked it they thought it would be ok to hit out with the stick in those types of situations and asked them to think about the damage they could cause to a wee brother or sister or a friend if they did. Then I said that sometimes what you say, or if you hit someone, it’s as much of a dangerous weapon and can cause as much pain and hurt as whacking them with a stick. I reminded them again that they were now in control of what was to all intents and purposes a dangerous weapon. They looked quite stunned at that but I could see that the penny had dropped and there was no more talk about whacking people over the head.

We moved on to adding in the hand / stick movements with the feet and they worked hard repeating the moves over and over and getting excited when they were able to move on to a new move. They were quick, and I could tell some of them were really beginning to enjoy what they were doing one or two were struggling but we worked with them trying to coax them through. A few more kids drifted off because as one girl put it,
"My head is sore what with all this thinking"

As we worked I noticed that most of the kids eyes were either looking down or darting around all over the place. None of them seemed to be able to keep focused, look forward or maintain eye contact for any length of time. I told them to look forward, relax their eyes and hold their heads erect, as this was a very strong and powerful thing to be able to do. Silly me, I was suddenly confronted by about a dozen kids screwing up their faces and baring their teeth at me.

"Hey miss is this it, do we look mean and powerful".
"No" I said "You just look like a bunch of psychos"

They had a good laugh at that but it made me realise that they thought all the snarling and grimacing in movies made people tough. So I asked them to watch me do a small demonstration and to tell me what they thought about it when it was finished. I suddenly jumped forward into dragon stance, shouted loudly, crossed my eyes screwed up my face and snarled at them, needless to say they almost died la ughing.
"Miss, you looked totally mental" was one girl’s opinion.

I slowly lowered the stick to my side and moved a lot closer to them and ran my eyes slowly over each of them if any of them sniggered or moved I stared at them for about three or four seconds. I could feel a change in the atmosphere and I smiled and stopped. Now then I asked "What felt more powerful to you all".                                                                                     

At first they didn't really know what to say but then one kid said she had felt very uneasy, then another said he felt anxious. I asked them why as I hadn't shouted at them or waved my stick at them in a menacing way.
"It was the way you looked at us" said another.
I told them that they were right and that's what real power was and that if they looked up and forward and looked situations and people in the eye then it was a powerful thing to do and it changes peoples attitude when they see it. So I did the first six moves of the stick with focus, they got it.

We were working now with focus and relaxing into the moves I was taken aback at one stage when a girl working next to me just followed from seven to eight without instruction. I asked her why she had done the movement that way and she said it seemed the natural thing to do!  What a gem that was, they were getting so easy to teach.  We worked on flow and the ten movements until the end of the session. As usual I finished with five lotus blossoms we made our bow and it was all over. They were so chuffed at themselves that the two members of staff and I gave them a round of applause. They thought that as they had done so well they deserved a treat so we got them a can of coke and a packet of crisps and they were well pleased.

As I was packing up my stuff the course coordinator who had watched the final five minutes of the demonstration asked if I would help at the next course in September. Oh well in for a penny. She also said that a lot of the kids that had left the hall for one reason or another had said that they wished they had stayed when they heard the kids talking about it. We agreed that by not letting them back into the hall had made a difference to their attitude and that maybe they had learned something from their mistake. Some of the kids helped me out to the car with my gear and I told them that I would be back in September if the course ran.
"I'll be back" in the style of Arnie Schwartz said one boy and we all had a bit of a laugh. I drove off and could see them waving in the mirror.

Going down the road I thought, "Good grief maybe they think that I'm some kind of a terminator with all the T'ai Chi / Feng Shou we had talked about".

Then I thought, "Its a good job I didn't tell them I was a Ninja".

THE END