Rachel Alexander 02 - The Dog who knew too much

Suddenly he grabbed one wrist and pulled me off my feet, into him. “ T’ai chi is a martial art,” he said. He spoke softly, but he was still holding on to my wrist. “When someone wants something, you give in to them.”
    I thought he would yank me into him again, to illustrate the lesson, but he didn’t.
    “Watch,” he said, releasing my wrist as suddenly as he’d snatched it and taking the position I had been in. “Take my wrist and pull me toward you.”
    I closed my fingers around his wrist and pulled him in to me. Where I had gone crashing into his chest with my other hand, Avi’s other hand bent against my shoulder. I felt his wrist, then his arm, then his shoulder as his arm melted against me.
    “Again,” he said, taking the position I had been in when he’d pulled me off balance. “Slowly,” he said, “see how I give in, I fold my hand, my wrist, my arm, like so. I give you what you want, but what have you accomplished?” When he grinned, I could smell the woody odor of bancha tea. “The same holds true if you fall, if you trip, if you are pushed to the ground. Fold. You won’t get hurt.”
    “When you talk about folding with dogs, it means giving up,” I said. “When you work a nasty dog, a miscreant, you need to get the dog to fold, to give up, to demonstrate that he knows you are top dog. Otherwise, he is. And he’ll use his teeth to prove it.”
    “That sounds like a dangerous battle.”
    “This is true. Some dogs won’t give up. They’d sooner die than fold.”
    “Some people, too. But in t’ai chi, the goal is to win without ever fighting. T’ai chi is an art of peace.”
    “So is dog training,” I said, “properly done. But sometimes an owner only calls for help after the war has already started.”
    “In that case, it’s best to be prepared. As in t’ai chi. Come, I’ll show you.”
    He stood facing me, his arms in front of his chest. He merely looked at my arms, and I raised them up, as his were, understanding what he wanted in the way I know to fill Dashiell’s water bowl when he indicates with his eyes that it’s empty.
    Avi placed the backs of his hands next to the backs of my hands, not touching, but close enough so that I could feel the heat of his skin, and slowly we began to shift, small movements that changed the balance of our relationship, back and forth, like the glider on Ceil’s back porch, yin and yang, as graceful as a dance, but, as Avi had just reminded me, not a dance, a martial art. His hands began to push lightly against my wrists, against my arms, my shoulders. Moving slowly, we felt each other’s strengths and weaknesses, we felt each other’s total beings, without speech, using only touch, the way a human and a dog telegraph the facts of life to each other up and down the leash.
    If you looked casually at what we were doing, it resembled the way Lili and I used to fight when we were kids, hands everywhere, pushing, shoving, circling round and round, each trying to get the upper hand. But if you looked carefully, the same, the same, only ritualized, like the dominance displays among dogs or wolves, each posture full of significance and information, each touch revealing the strength or lack of strength, both mental and physical, of the opponents.
    For a single moment I thought about Paul, about the way his lips brushed my skin, barely touching it. In that instant Avi pushed, catching me so completely off guard that he sent me flying backward across the studio.
    “Keep your mind here” he said, waiting for me to approach and begin again. “Concentrate on getting out of the way.” He motioned for me to push him and he turned his body slightly to the side, deflecting my push and letting my own force take me off balance, using my own force against me.
    The next time I felt my attention drifting, I was able to bring it right back. I’d once let myself drift for a split second when working with a scoundrel of a dog. I had the scar to remind me that, in dog training, the time is always now.
    But then, despite trying to remain as riveted to the task at hand as Dashiell always was to a stick I was about to toss for him, I thought about Lisa, at the window. Once again, Avi threw me off balance. When moments later I tried to do the same with him, I failed to budge him. He was as rooted as a great oak, as difficult to capture as the wind.
    My legs were burning, and I was out of breath. Avi motioned for us to sit, leaning against the wall of