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 them apart from the other people 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.

A few years passed. I’d moved cities, changed jobs, picked up and dropped a handful of hobbies I can barely remember now. Then one summer I found myself restless and at a loose end, scrolling through travel options on a slow afternoon. I stumbled across a kung fu school in the Wudang Mountains — images of people jumping off temple ruins, practicing flying kicks against a backdrop of mist and ancient stone. Something about it caught me. I booked before I could talk myself out of it.

I arrived in Wudang in the middle of the night. All the taxi drivers were asleep so I waited outside the dirty station, surrounded by peeling posters advertising 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 reminded me of a British Chinese take-away; the back had a paved training area, an ornamental pond, a small red temple, and stone steps that led into the hills.

The training area was full of foreigners, their white and black uniforms peppered the grey stone with flashes of colour. Unlike me, most hadn’t arrived on a whim. Many had studied kung fu in their own countries and were here to hone their skills. Some had been at the school for years, others until their cash ran out. I was already wondering whether I’d last the week.

The days had a rhythm that was relentless in its repetition. Breakfast in the canteen (soup, rice, porridge), then group training in the yard: punching, jumping, kicking. After that, individual practice with your own instructor until lunch. Afternoons followed the same pattern, only now everyone was exhausted, perfecting routines beneath a burning sun to the ubiquitous sound of kung fu music. By evening we were usually too tired even to go into town. Students wandered the temple complex or watched films in their rooms. I did a lot of staring at the ceiling.

My first two days were spent walking. Just walking, back and forth across the yard to develop awareness of where the weight sat in my body. At first it was interesting to notice the subtle shifts in balance. Then it became the most boring thing I had ever done in my life. All around me people were flying through the air and I was pacing up and down like a patient on a ward round.

On day three we moved to tai chi, practicing a single movement for hours at a stretch. I checked my reflection in the training hall mirror and what looked back at me bore no resemblance to tai chi whatsoever. I asked my 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?”

It stung because it was accurate. I had spent the past five years doing exactly that, flitting from interest to interest, place to place, job to job, never building or mastering anything. Always dipping a toe in, getting bored, moving on. The kung fu school itself had been a last-minute substitution for a trip I’d abandoned.

For the next week his words stayed with me, and I began to understand that people don’t learn a martial art merely to defend themselves. The real battle is with the voice in your head that says: why are you bothering with this? Quit. Move on. My instructor started showing me how each tai chi movement might play out in a fight, and what had felt like pointless repetition began to reveal its logic. A few weeks later, I was genuinely enjoying it.

The more serious students complained the school was a tourist trap, a watered-down version of the real thing. They were right. But I’ve always had a soft spot for the watered-down version of things; I usually preferred European Chinese food to the authentic dishes anyway. Sometimes a gentle introduction is exactly what you need.

My time at the school passed in a flash, the days blurring into weeks the way they do when routine takes over. Before long I was back at the train station, surrounded by the same kung fu posters, and the whole experience felt like a vivid, slightly surreal dream.

Did I keep practicing after I left? No. But that’s not quite the point. Whenever I feel the urge to abandon something the moment it becomes slow or repetitive or hard, I think back to those long afternoons spent trying to master a single movement and I pause. That pause, small as it is, has turned out to be one of the more useful things I’ve ever learned.