Lunch

In the previous post I discussed Dr G spending most of his time with the women, and usually ignoring the men. In fairness, I need to talk about lunch.

The first time I went to lunch with the Ba Gua group, I cannot recall the reason. It was both men and women. It must have been an after class type of lunch. We all went inside and sat at one big table.

Lest anyone forget, this was when I was sick. Anxious, nervous around strangers or of enclosed spaces. The restaurant was small and it was packed. There was lots of noise and bustle. I recall I was sitting next to Arol who was either next to or maybe one person removed from Dr G. In keeping with the unspoken rule, all the men were on one side of the table, all the women were on the other side.

We are inspecting the menus looking for something to eat. Part of the meals was soy milk. Soy milk would come in two varieties, sweet and sour. Dr G says "what kind of soy milk should we get". I instantly blurted out "Sweet!".

You would think I had just killed a baby.

The entire table stops looking at the menus and looks at me. Dr G gives me an absolutely withering look. I am surprised my hair did not catch on fire. I literally look around the table, look at Dr G, then I looked at Arol. I shrugged my shoulders and, refusing to look at Dr G, said "He asked what we wanted".

I am a loud and boisterous kind of person at times. Under the pressure of being in the enclosed restaurant with strangers, I didn't really think about what I was saying or who I was with. Dr G asked for an opinion, I gave my answer loudly and instantly. No big deal to me. I still to this day do not understand what it was that was wrong. I can make a guess. Part of my health problems was that I was partially deaf. I wonder if instead of speaking loudly, I shouted instead. Sometimes people tell me I am loud. It is hard to tell that about yourself.

I pulled my head down into my neck like a turtle and pretended I did not exist. I tried to turn invisible. I don't even remember the rest of the meal. I only wanted to get out of the embarrassing situation for I didn't even know what reason.


Getting back to Dr G's dealings with the men in the class. For a period of time, them men's group and Mike would go to lunch. The practice area was close to a major street that had many small restaurants of different types in it. We would all walk over after class to go eat. The destination was usually a chinese restaurant. The restaurant was divided into a front and a rear area. We would go to the rear area and, because of the time of day, it was like being in a private restaurant. No one else was around.

The point of these lunches was for people to become familiar with each other. I was new and as a person might suspect from my description of Dr G ignoring the men's group, the combined group of the men and Dr G were not exactly meshed. It was very odd. Dr G was the instructor, everyone respected him and listened to him. Yet when everyone was together, there always seemed to be an undercurrent of tension.

I attributed it to Dr G himself. Dr G was always talking about family style, about how Ba Gua was based on relaxation and letting go. Dr G was one of the most tense, strict and tight people I have ever known. Just being in his presence made people tense. I think it is that feeling that the men reacted to. Dr G would come by, some man or men would get tense, and Dr G would flee back to the women.

The lunches were an attempt to get by this. It did not pan out very well. We all went to lunch. We all sat there, talked, ate together, discussed various things. It never worked because it was fake. Everyone's personality came out in the intimacy of the lunch. There was no place to run like the women's group or to go practice.

Lonnie was desperate for Dr G's attention. This made him totally fake and dishonest. He would never contradict Dr G. He would say things that he thought Dr G wanted to hear. Lonnie would best be described as a sycophant. George was a follower. He would follow whoever was the leader. If Dr G was the leader, George followed him. If Lonnie was the leader, George would follow Lonnie's example of being sycophantic.

Jeff liked to hide. It was kind of funny because he was the best martial artist. It was probably that training that made him hide. Jeff was interesting in that he seemed friendly but it was an act. He had real trouble getting along with people. He would be the obvious fake kind of friend. Laughing at what people said, or sitting quietly, absorbing every word.

Chris was standoffish. I think I had something in common with Chris. Chris acted arrogant. As if he was better than every one else and he was only there to be with Dr G. At the lunches, his body posture was held back as if he did not feel he was part of all of us. He would talk, but he was not really interested. He had better things to do, or he could not believe the uninteresting things others were talking about.

Arol and Tim were the most normal of everyone. They had nothing to hide, no game to play, no one to impress. Dr G or the others would describe them as stupid or childish. It is funny to think that being normal would be described as stupid or childish. Arol and Tim would sit there and talk about anything, until Dr G let them know they shouldn't

Arol was very persnickety about his food. He was allergic to, or did not like, the food additive MSG. There was always some conversation or the other about MSG. Was it in the food? Did they put it in there without telling us? Arol thought he had a headache so he would not eat anymore food because he knew there was MSG in it. Everyone treated him similar to a hypochondriac or a complainer. That was wrong because now I know that MSG is bad for you and will give some people headaches. Arol was not trouble, he was right long before the rest of us were.

The most memorable lunch was not even the lunch. It was the walk to the lunch. The major street we were nearby was a popular destination. There were many people walking the sidewalks. There were also many homeless people and other young people who were there because the street was a well known drug market.

The group of us are walking up to the major street. We are all dressed in our outfits which were black pants with a white shirt. No attention grabbing Chinese symbols or Fists or any kind of obvious kung fu insignia. Just plain black pants and white shirts. Some people changed into street clothes.

I think it was probably our manner, and Dr G of course, that grabbed attention. We all moved as a group which is what we were. There was a group of 6 or 8 men dressed in black pants and white shirts moving purposefully in a group. Maybe it was because of the drug market reputation of the street. We might have looked like police or something.

Then of course there was Dr G himself. Just as the women could feel his kung fu energy and become infatuated with it, anyone walking down the street could feel it. There is no mistaking power. When you feel power approaching, you know it. If no one looked at the rest of us at all, they were pulled in by Dr G's power. Then you had Jeff who was also powerful, and Lonnie, who was less powerful, but powerful enough to involuntarily pull people gaze to them.

We are walking up to the intersection of the cross street and the major street. There is a homeless man sitting on the ground. We are walking purposefully up to the corner and the homeless man loudly says "Fucking Asians". Mike and Jeff were both Asian. They both turn and begin to walk down the street. The homeless man says "Ya, I killed a bunch of Asians in Vietnam and I should killed a lot more".

To me it was obvious the homeless man felt Dr G's power. There was no other reason for this outburst to a group of 8 men. Seriously, we all could have turned around and kicked him senseless. Which is exactly what I wanted to do.

If you are new to this blog, I came to Dr G from a Wing Chun school that was run by a sadist. The teacher thought hurting people was the greatest. He would encourage students to go look for people to start fights with. He told me to go look for homeless people to practice on! I never did such a thing, but I did develop a very.....angry or intolerant attitude.

I heard that man say that stuff which was directed at Dr G and I wanted to do something about it. I know I tried to stop and confront the man. Everyone else kept on walking. I wanted to discuss what he had said. Everyone ignored me. It was strange. I can understand it is stupid to be dealing with a homeless man. To me it seemed like they ran away from the homeless man. I guess it depends on how you think.

I would have been satisfied to see Dr G stop and give the homeless man a peace lecture about how he knew the homeless man was troubled and he was sorry he did not like Asians. For Dr G and the others to pick up the pace and run away from a homeless man confused me. I had serious doubts about what kind of men they were.


So Dr G did not completely ignore us as it might have sounded in the previous post. We did have these lunches together which lasted for an hour or so. They did not continue thruout my 3 years with Dr G. In fact, they took place over a short time period. I think it was because they did not work. Nothing was happening. We were going to lunch, spending money to eat, but there was no progress made. Nothing new that was not already done at the class.

No one seemed to get friendlier or more chummy. No one's personality changed from standoffish, or stupid, or hiding, or controlling or sycophantic. They stayed exactly the same.