It was lovely morning today. I just found out that I landed a beautiful apartment a few blocks away from Sunset Park in Brooklyn, NY. So, I decided it would be nice to go do some Tanren/Qigong in the park. After a healthy dose of iced coffee I went with my very tolerant girlfriend to practice my routine on a lovely spot of lawn there, facing the Manhattan skyline.
Sunset Park is a very weird and wonderful place. In the morning, it is full of Chinese folks, mostly ethnic Fuzhou and Cantonese, performing every sort of health routine. Tai Chi, Bagua, and Hsing I are to be found, as are family and regional martial arts and their variations. There are also all manner of coordinated dancing groups with music blaring over loudspeakers, as folks in fancy dress or sweatsuits shake what they have in unison. More interesting to me are the folks walking backwards with swimming arms, or standing shirtless, wiggling and stretching and rubbing their skin. All types of body longevity practices are to be witnessed at beautiful Sunset Park.
The funnest thing for me was that as my girlfriend and I practiced our routine, we had just as many looky-loos as anyone. It was cool to be part of the morning body conditioning scene, with the fresh breeze blowing in from the bay and Manhattan in view, just another couple of weirdos in a vast crowd of weirdos doing their thing.
