​Adrian Wilson

​No matter what sport, hobby, career or discipline we choose to pursue with passion, there are mentors or role models to whom we aspire to be more like. For me, as a tai chi practitioner, one such person was Adrian Wilson.

I first met Adrian on a tai chi study trip to the Beijing Sports University. He was living and teaching tai chi in Canberra at the time and we seemed to hit it off right from the start. He was much more experienced than I but that was only part of the attraction. His tai chi was like nothing I'd seen before. It was liquid and grounded, without the pomposity of the gymnastics that the Chinese were serving up.
Adrian kindly tolerated all my stupid questions about the art of tai chi and throughout my time at the Sports University I think I learned as much from him as from the Professors.

We stayed in touch after returning to Australia. He would come down to Melbourne or I go up to Canberra. I was progressing quickly ( or so I thought ) through my tai chi studies, practicing up to 4 hours a day. Each time I caught up with Adrian, a small part of me wanted to impress him with the skills or theory I'd recently acquired. On every occasion I would finish up feeling more humble and further in awe of his talent. The more advanced I became the more I was able to see just how good he was. Just how much better he was at tai chi than me. Adrian's only retort to such a revelation was to say that all he saw in his own tai chi these days was faults.

​Time moved on. I represented my country at the World Wushu Championships, was Australian Seniors Champion in 1999 and then went on to judge at National level. At no stage did I ever consider myself anywhere near the level of Adrian Wilson.

Chatting to Adrian on the phone one day I happened to mention the upcoming National Titles being held in Melbourne that year and suggested that he come down and compete. He wasn't overly enthusiastic about the idea but he did acknowledge that a trip to Melbourne was long overdue. He agreed to come down but probably just as a spectator. Competition wasn't really his thing.
In hindsight I would have done things differently but at that stage I was Vice President of the Association, a Judge, a strong believer in the concept of competition and very fond of the people involved in organising  the event. I concede that I did put quite a lot of pressure on Adrian to compete. From a purely selfish standpoint, I wanted people to see just how good the guy was. Why I rated him so highly.
He reluctantly agreed.

Adrian competed in the Beijing 32 Sword Forms. I have always had a soft spot for this slow grinder but Adrian transformed it into a show stopper. He regularly guested at a local Chinese Restaurant in Canberra and would entertain the diners with souped up renditions of traditional sets.
His 32 Forms was exquisite. He breathed life into it. Made it martial, made it real. He moved with the stealth of a cat and wielded the jian with supreme skill. He truly was a master at work.

​I was part of the judging panel and when he finished I held up 9.4. The other 4 judges held up 5.1 / 6.8 /5.3 and 4.8 respectively. I almost choked. What is this, are they serious?  I immediately called for a meeting of the judges. I queried their sanity. Were they not watching? Did they understand the level of skill they had just witnessed? No, the consensus was that his performance was too different from the assigned expectation of how it should be presented. So Adrian finished last in a group of essentially talentless amateurs because he didn't do the form as badly as everyone else.

After the competition I felt really bad. Facing Adrian was awkward.
"I'm so sorry mate, that was very unfair", I told him.
He was totally upbeat and not in the slightest affected by events.
"That was a great result", he added, without even a hint of sarcasm.
"It just absolutely confirms that I'm on the right track. If they had given me high marks it would have seriously contradicted my understanding of where I'm heading as an internal martial artist".

The events of the day and Adrian's comments put modern tai chi competition into a new perspective for me.  I quickly lost interest in pursuing that side of tai chi.
I never competed or judged again and now have little more than a passing interest in such displays.
I no longer confuse the art of tai chi with a poorly assessed choreographed routine.