Friday, November 25, 2005

The general class atmosphere - controlling, oppresive

I need to say that my chronology of events is slightly fuzzy. I have various notable events in mind. There exact order of appearance may or may not be accurately reproduced here. I wish blogs had a way to reorder posts. Then it would be no problem to rearrange things into the proper chronology if I realized something was out of place.

Right now, the thing uppermost in my mind is the next new student.

I don't know if I have mentioned the arrogance, superiority, rigidity, overbearing, controlling atmosphere that permeated the class. It was all kind of funny, because all of those qualities were ones that were specifically rejected in the talks that Dr G. gave before class every week. Now that I am older and wiser, I can look back and say it was a case of a person admonishing others for their own foibles.

Dr G. was extremely controlling. He was the boss and anything other than obedience and submission was frowned upon. I believe this was because of his young age and his goals. Dr G. was in his mid 30's or so. His goal was to become rich. There were many members of the class who were older than Dr G. Humans being who they are, it would be natural for the older people to challenge Dr G., or to treat him as an equal.

This was not tolerated.

J was an especially amusing example of this pattern. J was the sadist who I sparred with on my first day of class. This should indicate to you that J was a handful to deal with. He was his own man, while many of the other members of the group were subservient, or people looking for someone to tell them what to do. J stuck out like a sore thumb.

Dr G. would finish saying something and J would have a question. Dr G. had this incredibly annoying habit of asking for questions, then refusing to answer them. It felt like a "bait and switch" scam. He would say he was interested in questions and he wanted to hear what we had to say, but his replies always seemed to go somewhere else. Sometimes it felt like he completely ignored the questions.

The reaction of most people to this behavior was acceptance. What was their to do? Dr G. was the instructor. If he asked for questions and refused to answer them, what could you do? Complain? That was another area of the rigidity and tension that was a part of the class. There was a very clear, unspoken opinion in the class.

If you didn't like it, you could leave.

This seems like reasonable opinion to hold. Until you understand what "if you do not like it" included. The phrase included any kind of independence or disagreement at all. Of even the smallest thing, no disagreement was allowed. No one had to say anything verbally. If a person was complaining or unhappy about something, it was possible to literally feel a buildup of rejection and disapproval from the other members.

J did not always play the game of acceptance. On occasion his independent spirit would force itself to the front. Dr G. would ask for questions. J would ask his question, and Dr G. would do the usual talking about something else. J would not let Dr G. get away with this. J would bring the conversation right back to the question he asked. I felt it was reasonable behavior and I agreed with J. I did not think his attitude was the best. He had a slightly aggressive or challenging manner.

The few times that this occurred, Dr G. was not a happy man. J would repeatedly refuse to accept the meandering, wandering everywhere answers to his questions. He would force his question to the front and press for an answer. The result? Either other people in the class would politely tell J to shut up, or Dr G. himself would say, "That's enough".

If we were to talk to Dr G., or many of the other students about this, they would tell you that J was being argumentative. He was being argumentative. For Dr G. and the class, this was the most terrible thing on earth. The only part of the entire situation that had any importance at all.

From my perspective, J was being "argumentative" because he could not get an answer. I understand why Dr G talked the way he did. It was part of the kung fu and Ba Gua training. I think I mentioned that Dr G was a Tai Chi practioner also. The idea behind these martial arts is to avoid force. To never meet force with force unless necessary. J's pushing during these question and answer sessions was forceful. Dr G.'s training told him to avoid the force and talk about something else.

I can understand Dr G's motivations for avoiding the questions and answering as he did. I can also understand the frustration of J. When a person looks you in the face and says "ask me a question", then their reply seemingly has no reply to the question, it can be frustrating. I know I was frustrated. I was so frustrated with this behavior that I eventually never bothered to ask questions anymore. I knew for a fact I would not receive an answer, so what was the point?

The same refusal to answer questions applied to the actual kung fu training. I had a real problem with that. The usual answer to a question in class was "figure it out". Because of the high level of training that Dr G. himself had undergone, he felt that students should not be "coddled". Or, I don't know, maybe he was refusing to tell people things. He did not want to teach them the answer to something so he refused.

Regardless of Dr G's motivations, kung fu training basically consisted of being shown an exercise, being asked if you "got it", then being completely ignored. We would each go off and do our exercises. I think that Dr G was wrong in his approach to teaching. The class was not made of up highly trained martial artists. The majority, 75% at least, were regular people who had very little martial arts training. He knew the class was not like him, yet he pushed them to those high standards.

This was admirable from the viewpoint of pushing people to high standards. The problem was, it did not seem to be working in the physical area. Many people did seem to learn the mental and verbal kinds of lessons. In my opinion, maybe 5% of the class was learning the physical lessons properly. I think if Dr G would have been more open to questions, all of the students in the class would have progressed more rapidly. I know I would have.

What made it even more difficult was that the older students quite naturally emulated Dr G's attitude. If they were asked a question, they would frequently respond, "figure it out". If they did deign to speak to you about something, the explanation was limited. If they did not feel you understood immediately, the conversation was ended.

I have been exposed to other teaching styles in my life. One of the teaching styles that appealed the most to me was an easy and open kind of teaching. Everyone was friends and everyone talked and laughed and joked. The exact opposite of the stern, quite, oppressive atmosphere of Dr G's group. In that kind of open and fun atmostphere, people might stand there and talk for 15 minutes trying to explain things to each other.

Writing that all down I am laughing. Dr G. would dismiss that kind of teaching as "hand holding". Maybe it was hand holding. But it worked. People were happy, they enjoyed each others company and they seemed to learn. I cannot compare the Ba Gua class directly to this other teaching style. Ba Gua is a combat or philosophical kind of art to learn. This other class, while philosophical, had nothing at all to do with combat, and actively repudiated it.

Dr G or anyone else could make the argument that the oppresive and controlling and stressful atmostphere was necessary to turn out people who could perform in combat with other people. Fighting is serious business would be there attitude. I have a hard time with this because I can honestly see maybe 4 people out of the 35 in the group who might ever get into actual combat. To make the class stressful and oppressive for all 35 people, when only 4 of them would benefit from that type of attitude was the wrong decision in my opinion.

To provide more insight into Dr G's behavior, if you said the above to him, he would say "I did it on purpose. I wanted to get rid of 31 people and keep the 4". He was really funny when he responded like that. Saying anything to avoid the thrust of an accusation or description of his behavior.

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