The sky is dark. It’s 6 am in Bangkok. The full moon is a dark gold coin, so big and close it looks like you could pluck it out from behind the branches of the trees in Lumpini Park. Lumpini is the biggest park in Bangkok. Notwithstanding that, the young driver of the taxi I flagged down on Sukhumvit didn’t know where it was, which is a bit like a New York cab driver not knowing the location of Central Park. Anyway, we got here and now I’m walking up the main road through the park, past the large lake and little pavilions. At this hour Lumpini is full of people practicing Tai Chi and wushu - in groups large and small, or solo - mostly Chinese Thais, some native Thais, and a (very) few westerners. I join my group, which meets on the road next to a grove of date palms with ornamental boulders on the underlying grass. Greetings are exchanged, the music starts, and Mei Lee, one of the assistant teachers, leads the warmup. The sound of knees cracking ripples gently through the air. Crows cry out. The sky is turning from black to the indigo, which, when serving as a backdrop to palm trees, as it is here, reminds me of old Bible storybook pictures.

After warm-up I go off to practice the Yang style 24 form with Pao, a civil engineer, who’s a fellow beginner. Pao speaks good English and translates what the teacher says when needed. An unusually fresh, even approaching chilly, breeze is blowing across the park - it comes from China, says Pao, where it’s now winter.

I’ve been getting up in the dark to come here every morning for a week. I did some Tai Chi and related things back in Melbourne, but I slacked off and didn’t practice when I came to Bangkok and consequently forgot a lot of what I knew. After more than a year, I realised that Tai Chi was A Good Thing and I ought to start it up again. I wandered around Lumpini on a Saturday and chose this group on the basis of three things - the teacher, Ajarn (means ‘teacher’) Prasit, who was wearing gorgeous pale mint green silk pyjamas (wish I could teach in my pyjamas) and doing beautiful Tai Chi, the presence of farang in the group, and the sight of twenty or so middle-aged to elderly Chinese women doing kickass Shaolin sword routines.

So far it’s been great. The teachers are patient, everyone’s friendly, the atmosphere is informal and the exercise is enjoyable and fascinating. When I decided to give writing a go as an occupation, I didn’t realise how much I was going to dislike sitting still at a desk with mind disconnected from body. Tai Chi gives me a couple of hours a day when I’m not thinking about anything except what my physical self is doing, here and now, which I find beneficial. It’s also rather more strenuous than it looks, and feels like pretty good exercise.

Dawn comes quickly and the park’s wildlife starts to stir - white cranes commute between the bank of the moat and their nests in the trees, and one of the big water monitors that inhabit the moat comes up on the bank, waddling on powerful legs, tongue flicking in and out of the snout of its small wedge-shaped head. A note from Wikipedia: “In Thailand, the word water monitor or actually local word ‘เหี้ย’ is used as an insulting word for bad and evil things including a bad person. Its name is also considered a word bringing a bad luck, so some people prefer to call them ‘ตัวเงินตัวทอง’ which means ’silver and gold’ in Thai to avoid the jinx.: So there you are.

As I wander off (it’s come when you like, leave when you like), I go past one of the younger instructors teaching jumping wushu kicks to a girl, who is wearing ankle weights (so that she doesn’t accidentally launch herself into orbit?) I can’t resist having a go. It’s great fun, though I feel my nearly 35-year old knees protest loudly as I land on the road. If I ever try to learn this I think I’ll be doing it on grass, of which there is thankfully plenty. The other day I tried doing cartwheels, and was pleased to discover that I still can - the day I can’t turn cartwheels anymore, I’m gonna feel old.

So at the moment I’m ironing out details of the Yang 24 form. After I get it right, I can go on to the 42 form. After that I get to play with fans and swords - which is really why I’m doing this. As long as I can keep getting up at 5 am…