Dear Everyone,
This has been a couple of eventful weeks. Maybe the most important first – Jasper
graduated from Hinsdale Central High School a week ago Thursday. Nicola and Lucas were present for the ceremony,
which was proceeded by a take-out dinner of Uncle Bub’s (Buffalo wings, ribs,
brisket, pulled pork). The weather was
perfect, sunny, and in the low 70’s. We dropped Jasper off at the high school
for his mustering, parked, and made our way to the football stadium. The bleachers were already pretty full close
to 45 minutes prior to the ceremony, and Cindy astutely had us sit on some
blankets on a berm in front of the east set of bleachers. Much more comfortable, and closer to the
stage. It was a bit hot and blinding as
the sun set to the west of us, but the earth retained some warmth as it got
quite cool once the sun went down. The
kids proceeded in at 7 pm sharp, and filled out the rows of seats. Jasper was in the 4th row – unexpectedly
directly in line with where we were sitting.
The five students entering the military were presented specially, as
were the 14 kids who were in the top 2% of the class (of 705). Jimmy Lee, one
of Jasper’s swim team and water polo team friends, who was president of the
student body, was the MC. We heard four speeches. First from the president of
the school board, who quoted extensively from ‘All
I really need to know I learned in kindergarten”. We heard from two of the top students, one
who compared her years in school to trying on different pairs of shoes, and the
other who sang snippets of popular songs to preface each of the themes of his
speech. The Principal (the third in four
years) gave a pretty boring, and long, speech about how he trusted the
students. There was also an amusing reminiscence
of the four years of the class of 2016 presented by two other students. This all took about 45 min, and then another
80 min of the kids going up, row by row, to hear their names called and receive
a handshake and diplomas from the Principal.
Afterwards, Cindy also knew a short cut out of the parking lot, so all
in all it was a pretty easy ceremony.
Good thing I had my kindle though!
Jasper’s next event was a dinner on Sunday at Café Central in Highland Park. This was a fun meal, which Roger already
mentioned. Barbara and Roger were unable
to make Jasper’s actual graduation (Dad’s back was hurting, and Mom had a prior
engagement at the Botanic Garden - - and due to the time and uncertain weather,
we had tried to dissuade them from coming, in any case), so this dinner was to
make up for it. Mom had the calves’ liver.
I had the special (which I have since forgotten). Dad, of course, had a Grey Goose.
Jasper’s third event was the annual water polo dinner. This was held at the Ruth Lake Country Club,
and was a lot like the Swim team brunches, but it seemed even longer. Each class of kids stands in front, and the
coaches try hard to say something good about their individual achievements. We heard a lot “You really learned how to
play this position”, and “We are really looking forward to seeing what you will
do next year”. The funniest part was
learning that a couple of the seniors had stolen a trophy from a closet they
had discovered in the locker room of a school hosting a weekend tournament. They presented the stolen goods as an “award”
to a younger player to encourage “good sportsmanship”. Hinsdale’s water polo
team is not made up of the better swimmers (they are swimming year round in
swim clubs), and so they have an average to below average team. I think their record this year was about
.500, which is good for them. Jasper
only participated this year since he had finished his final High School swim season,
and he was curious to try it. I don’t know if he liked it that much. He might be working out with his old swim club
this summer.
As for me – it’s been a double weekend of martial arts
seminars. Last weekend was our annual
aikido seminar with Ed
Germanov, from Bulgaria. I probably
mentioned before that Germanov was one of Toyoda’s students in the mid-late 90s
(after I had left for Baltimore). He has
a pretty successful school in Bulgaria, and some interesting techniques and
ideas about how to move people around.
He has softened up a lot in the dozen years I have known him. He used to incorporate a lot of scary Russian Sambo techniques
– more wrestling, ground work, super painful locks. Like a lot of martial
artists, as he aged, he became less willing to subject himself to all of that!
Speaking about older martial artists, I went to a four day
tai Chi seminar this weekend. This was
sponsored by the Taichi Tao Center in
Oak Park, which is run by Master Waysun Liao.
He is an internationally renowned grandmaster of the temple style of tai
chi. He runs a lot of seminars
throughout the world. I don’t know him,
but my instructor, Bill Grizzle, is one of his oldest students. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of Bill, and his wife Nancy. Master Liao lives in Clarendon Hills, and considering the cost of the seminar, and the cost of his instructional DVDs and books, I am not surprised. No price is too great for True Wisdom!
Our seminar was at George Williams College of Aurora
University in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, which is on the northwest region of
Lake Geneva (or Geneva Lake, I’m not sure which is the proper way to mention
this). They had the seminar there last
year (which I skipped), and they used to have seminars there in the 80’s, but
in the interim he had been holding ones in Florida and Arizona. The campus is
petite, but very bucolic - - they only have 350 students, of which about 50
live on campus. Most of the students are
commuters, and getting Masters or Doctorates in Social Work, although there are
also degrees in applied psychology and nursing. George Williams
was the English founder of the YMCA.
Training hall on second floor. There was a little cafe on the first floor with great ice cream (I had cinnamon churro)
Lake Geneva. The boat was named 'Obsession'. There were lots of water skiers and pleasure boaters
Registration hall (looking back from boat dock)
"Hotel" for conference guests
The campus also had a replica of George Williams' study, and a small music pavilion with summer music (Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees was one of the headliners this summer). I also saw many barn swallows and orioles.
I left work around 2 pm Friday, and took about 2.5- 3 hours
to drive to the campus, including a stop in Pleasant Prairie to give my car a
little extra juice. I was sharing a
hotel style room with one of my fellow students, Marty Grogan, who is a teacher
at Brother Rice. He teaches the computer
lab (Autocad and Microsoft office), and he is also the tennis instructor (by
the way, Hinsdale Central took second in State this year). We registered, had
dinner in the college cafeteria, and then went to the first session, which was
taught by Master Bob (last name I don’t remember), another long-time student of
Master Liao’s. On Saturday there were four sessions (2 in the day with Master
Liao, 2 in the evening with Master Bob), Sunday had three (2 in the day with
Master Liao, one in the evening with Master Bob), and Monday had one morning
session with Master Bob (which I skipped).
Pretty much all we did was eat, sleep or do tai chi, although there was
a small bonfire Sunday night.
Marty Grogan. Maybe a larger tai chi ball than typical participant.
The physical and mental differences between tai chi students
and aikido students are pretty obvious.
I think 55 and poorly conditioned was the average age and fitness of the
male tai chi people, compared to 30 and moderately condition for aikido. There were probably about equal numbers of females
for both arts, although the tai chi females skewed younger than their male
counterparts. And huge differences in
the physicality of practice. In 12 hours
of aikido, I must have fallen at least 400 times, had joint locks placed on me,
etc. Tai chi hurt mostly because you
were on your feet on a hard floor for 2 hours at a stretch. There was also a lot less emphasis on having
the correct physical form in tai chi - - there was a surprising amount of
variation in the practice of even well experienced people. Here the emphasis was on moving meditation,
moving the ‘tai chi energy ball’ out of your center, putting it on your palms,
expanding it, shrinking it. The Tai Chi
people are the first to admit that the energy ball is completely imaginary, but
that by imagining it consistently and constantly, you can eventually make it 'real'. If you know me, you probably have
a good idea what I thought of some of this.
Some of their ideas I actually thought worth pursuing - - perhaps the imaginary energy is a
metaphor for ‘something’, and that the physical practice is an embodiment of
taking in ‘energy’, and letting ‘energy’ go.
Some of the things Master Liao discussed are very Zen in outlook. But….I think there is a lot of self-selection
in the typical tai chi practitioner (as you could say about anything –
aikidoist, pathologist, artist, businessman), and I think a lot of the tai chi
people are high on the self-deluded scale.
I am pretty sure that Master Liao, Master Bob, some of the other
students (including my instructor Master Bill) are capable of ‘something’, but
I don’t know what that is, or how they do it. A lot of the other students - - I
wouldn’t want on my side in a bar fight, and I doubt I would want their hands
on me for psychic healing either.
My certificate of completion. Perhaps Bill W can translate the Chinese!
Not much else. I
finished a poster presentation (a case report of an unusual tumor) for the
annual Neuropathology meeting. It’s on
my google drive if anyone wants to look at it – email me and I will toggle
permissions if you want. I had it
printed out on fabric instead of paper (twice the cost but a lot more
convenient - - no need for a poster tube, and as Cindy said, I can use it for a
table cloth afterwards).
Happy Memorial day.
Lucas and I made Bul Go
Gi, in honor of the Korean War.
Love, H.
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