Each morning millions of Chinese people rise before the sun to practice tai chi. Ancient stereos crackle with gentle music as practitioners drift through their routine. The meticulous movements set these people apart from the others hurrying past; it seems they have dropped in from another era or even another world.

After a few months of living in China I began to search for a tai chi master. It took a long time to find one and there were many dead ends. But eventually I located ‘the greatest tai chi master in town’. Small and in his thirties, he made tai chi look like the most natural thing in the world. 

When my flatmate and I arrived at the park for our first class we towered over him. He wore traditional tai chi silk wear, we were in branded t-shirts. Foreigners in China always get a lot of attention so you can imagine the crowd our class drew: people laughed and took photos, whole families even sat down to watch.

Over the next few months the spectators continued to grow. We were annoyed by this: the only thing worse than failing is having an audience to watch you do it. Our instructor was patient, but we showed very little improvement from week to week. Sometimes I couldn’t remember a single thing from the last class and each time it felt like starting over again. My flatmate wasn’t faring much better, and after one particularly miserable class we called time on our tai chi career.

I didn’t give tai chi another thought until a few years later. The Chinese summer holidays were approaching and I had planned to visit Burma but due to political unrest I didn’t want to risk it. While researching alternatives I stumbled across a kung fu school in the Wudang Mountains. Scrolling through images of people jumping off temple ruins and practicing flying kicks I forgot about my first ill-fated venture into the world of Chinese martial arts and decided to give the school a try.

I arrived in Wudang in the middle of the night. The taxi drivers were asleep so I waited outside the dirty station — surrounded by peeling posters which advertised kung fu schools. Gradually the darkness lifted to reveal the Wudang mountains which, steeped in mist, looked like an ancient Chinese painting.

My taxi punctured through this ancient canvas and arrived at a modern building on the other side. The red entrance to the school was reminiscent of a typical British Chinese take-away, the back of the building had a paved training area, an ornamental pond, a small red temple, and stone steps that led into the hills.

Most of the other students were foreign and it was surprising to see so many of them in one place. I lived in a third-tier city so there were usually only a handful of foreigners around. But here the training area was full of them – their white and black uniforms peppered the grey stone with flashes of colour. Their decision to come here had not been spur of the moment — many had studied kung fu in their own countries and were in Wudang to hone their skills. Some had been studying at the school for years, others were staying short-term until their cash ran out.

School days began at the canteen for a breakfast of soup, rice or porridge. Then we gathered in the yard for group training. This involved punching, jumping and kicking. After that we practiced the Tai Chi 18 form, which every student had to master before they left.

After the morning warm-up we separated for individual practice. Each student had their own instructor and a set of skills to learn.The instructors didn’t smile much, kept themselves to themselves and spent their breaks in the indoor training hall — wielding axes and sword fighting. 

Individual practice took us through to lunch. This was vegetarian and always included rice. Everyone ate a lot – there was never anything left in the kitchen by the end of the hour.

After this came the afternoon session. This followed the same pattern as the morning — only now everyone was tired. Beneath the burning sun, students perfected their routines to the ubiquitous sound of kung fu music.

The evenings were free but there wasn’t much entertainment. Students wandered the temple complex, others watched movies in their room. Occasionally we went to town to fetch supplies, but most evenings we were too tired even for that.

In terms of class content, I spent my first two days walking to increase the awareness of where the weight was in my body. At first it was interesting to notice the subtle shifts in balance, but I soon became bored of it. All around me people were doing kung fu and I was walking up and down like a mental patient. 

On day three we moved onto the tai chi training, which involved practicing a single movement for hours at a time. My enthusiasm for this didn’t last long. The frustration was incredible, especially when I checked what I’d learned in the mirror and realised it looked nothing like tai chi.

I asked the instructor if we could switch to something more exciting. He looked at me as if he’d heard this a million times. “What happens when you realise punching and kicking is tiring? Will you want to switch to something else again? Do you want to spend your life leaping from one thing to the next never mastering anything?”

He was dealing in patterns but he made a good point. I had spent the past five years flitting from interest to interest, place to place and job to job, never building or mastering anything. I was constantly dipping my toes in the water, getting bored and moving on.

For the next week the instructor’s words stayed with me — and I began to realise people don’t learn a martial art merely to defend themselves or put someone in hospital. The real battle is with that little voice in your head which says: “Why are you bothering with this? Quit. Move on.”

I also began to learn how each tai chi move had a purpose — and my instructor showed me how these moves might play out in a fight. This made things more interesting – and after a few days the practice no longer seemed a chore. A few weeks later I even began to enjoy it.

The more serious students complained the school was a tourist trap. And they were right that it was a watered down version of the real thing. But the watered down version of China always struck me as better anyway — I usually preferred the ‘European’ Chinese food to the real Chinese dishes.

My time at the school seemed to pass in a flash — perhaps because of the repetitive routine which blurred the days into weeks. Either way I soon found myself at the train station surrounded by kung fu posters again. The whole thing felt like it had been a weird dream.

Did I continue to practice after leaving the school? Technically no, but I still use the lessons I learned from those long days spent trying to master a single movement. An older student at the school summed this up best, “The most important skills are not subject specific; there are bigger things to be learned like patience, grit and discipline. These skills are not limited to kung fu, they’re much much bigger than that.”