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Sadness

I was one of Grand Master Pan’s oldest students, if not the oldest, and I started late. I first came to Kitchener on a whim in 1999, with three other martial arts novices from Milwaukee. A rank beginner and very nervous about my capabilities, I announced in a loud voice at our first lesson, “I just want you all to know I am 60 years, so don’t expect too much!” As it turned out, Grand Master Pan expected quite a lot.

I would return to Kitchener to train every year afterward, sometimes twice a year, for almost two decades. Grand Master Pan changed my life. One of the things he liked to do was have his students “show something” to one another, to encourage us. My speciality was crane stance. Every year in class, or at a demonstration, I would at some point be standing on one leg for as long as he said, in front of everybody, as he shouted out my advancing age. As in, “Would you believe she is 77 years old???” In the early years, I was embarrassed, but as the years passed, I grew to wait for his affirming and affectionate shout “Would you believe…?” It was my secret wish that one day I would hear him yell out to anyone in hearing distance, as I demonstrated something or other, anything at all, “Would you believe she is 90 years old???” But now, to my everlasting sorrow, that will never come to be.

Posted by Carol Tennessen
Tuesday July 4, 2017 at 12:54 pm
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