Two months after my first trip to Wuhan, I am back again in the capital of Hubei province. In the meantime, I have continued my Web search, and I’m therefore leaving with more informations that I will check on the spot. The day after my arrival, got up at dawn, I take the bus to Zhongshan Park, a park that I visited during my first trip, but in which I had met no spinning top players.
As I have understood from reading articles (in Chinese) on this topic, it was simply a matter of time. Chinese top player gets up early as all Chinese who practice exercise. Actually, when I landed at Zhongshan Park around 7 o’clock in the morning, it’s still dawn but the Park is already crowdy and I believe I hear the snapping of whips from the entrance.
I no longer have that to be guided by the noise, I rubbed between groups of women who practice dance or gymnastics. Further these are couples who exercise the waltz or the tango face to a teacher who has brought his PA and it was installed on a bench. All these people arrived well before me, probably between 6 and 6:30 am, while it was still night and the temperature was close to zero.
Finally, I join the circular Plaza that I had discovered in my first visit and I view dozen of spinning top players who all practice with a stick. The majority are men, not young, and most are carried with small tops of 6 or 8 centimetres in diameter. Nothing to do with the ‘monster’ of 14 cm in diameter that I have in my luggage since my departure from Zhanjiang.
A stick lesson
After leaving my bag, I unpacks my spinning top and my whip and begins to warm me up under the curious gaze of the other players. A foreigner who arrives at 7 o’clock in the morning to play spinning top and that also uses a whip, one shouldn’t see everyday at Zhongshan Park. But after my experiences of Zhengzhou and Kaifeng, I get the habit, and I keep on warming-up, unflappable, before showing them I’m not a beginner. A quarter of an hour later, I dropped the jacket and I take the 1,3 meter stick I bought here on my previous trip. A few players take the opportunity from addressing me; I am asked where I come from, inspecting my stick and my whip, and some test my spinning top. I think I have passed the examination. When I take my stick, a player gives me some advice and this is my first real lesson with this kind of material. I understand that everything is in the posture and movement and especially why I crumpled a muscle of the back after having practiced the stick when returning from my first trip to Wuhan.
Not so “cushy” players
After twenty minutes exercise, I have not made impressive progress but it is normal; all these players practised daily for 5 or 10 years and this is not in an hour that I’m going to feel the gap. I let the top spining and go around to meet other players and observe their practice and try their spinning tops; I notice that these small spinning tops are misleading. With their 6 or 8 centimeters diameter, they do not weigh a kilo as I believed when I arrived, but well 2 or 3 kilos (the weight of my wooden 14 centimeters spinning top). What makes most impressive performance of these retirees that while pretend play “pépère” are spining their tops with no effort. But as I will understand after meeting players from Yanjiang Park, anyway here people play “cushy”. They give a few strokes of sticks and start chatting with colleagues or drink tea from their thermos. Nothing to do so with the “cracked” Yanjiang Park players, fighting with tops of 15 kgs and 2 meters long sticks.
