Stiff as a board

One of the first things that Dr G. and the other students said to me at the weekend classes was that I was stiff. This did not surprise me as I had done part of it purposefully. The kung fu style I came from was a hard style that focused on making the limbs very hard. At the first few Ba Gua classes, they commented on how I moved stiffly. One of the students, L, even pointed out to me one of the areas that was stiff. He pinched the upper part of my arm between his fingers. I could feel how it was thick and fibrous feeling.

For Ba Gua, this was all wrong. Ba Gua was about flexibilty. I did not really believe in energy too much at this point in time. I believed in energy from the point of power. How much power could be developed for kung fu. Energy as something that flowed within the body the way water flows in a stream was not something I even thought about.

From the Ba Gua perspective, the body needed to be flexible and open. In this way, the natural energy from inside of the body could flow where it was needed. The Ba Gua forms were designed to channel this energy in one way or the other in order to achieve the desired goal. The reason they commented on my hardness was that energy could not flow thru me very well. The reason I reacted the way I did to energy was that instead of flowing thru me as it should, the energy would hit the hard areas of my body and get plugged up. The resulting pressure build up caused however I reacted physically. Making faces or whatever.

What I recall mostly from the day that L pinched my arm to demonstrate my hardness to me was a comment by Dr G. I must have been to a month or so of weekend meetings by this time. I was doing a form and was doing it my usual stiff way apparently. Dr G. said that I was too stiff and I needed to relax. Then he said "We are not going to nag you".

That bothered my alot. Mostly the tone of voice. As if it was an imposition to tell me I was too stiff. From my perspective, the instructors job was to correct the student. For the instructor to say "I am not going to nag you" sounded like he was saying he was not going to do his job.

Dr G. was an elitist. From his perspective, he was telling the student what to do. The student was then supposed to obey the instruction. Period. If the student did not understand the instruction, or did not act on the instruction, the student was worthless and the instruction would not be repeated. Dr G. never said anything about a student being worthless. That was not his style. I formed this impression because I could not think of another reason why he would walk away from a student who was their to learn.

I have described my hardness when first entering the Ba Gua class to introduce this next part.

I described in the previous post how I discovered that when people put energy on me, I would involuntarily make odd facial contortions. The extra energy would express itself in many ways. The usual nervousness that any person who has extra energy experiences. Tapping feet, shifting around, talking or laughing. Another way that I never realized for ages was writing.

I was told it was a good idea to bring along a notebook to the weekend meetings. Dr G would talk about various things that I might need to record. I was extremely serious and sincere in my desire to learn Ba Gua in order to ameleorate my health problems. Perhaps too serious.

I brought the notebook to the weekend classes as instructed and took notes. I found that I was stimulated to write down all kinds of things. Dr G. would talk for maybe an hour or maybe more sometimes. During that time I always found many things to record. I would scribble away furiously in the notebook. I frequently had 3 or 4 pages of notes. My hand would ache from writing so much.

I did not know it at the time, but part of the motivation for my furious scribbling was that I was receiving energy from being part of the group. The energy would get inside of me and get plugged up as described above. I had no outlet for it. I was sitting on the cold concrete listening to Dr G. I could not get up and move around or stretch more than moving a leg or arm. My reaction was to pick up the pencil and scribble furiosly in my notebook.

I did not find out till much later that this really bothered Dr G., and I think other members of the group. I was writing down the wisdom of a man who was going to fix my health. I am guessing when I say that Dr G. must have been nervous or leery of what I was writing down. I cannot guess why. I only know that later on in our relationship, he made pointed mention of my penchant for writing in the notebook. It was almost a rebuke.

Now I thank the stars that I wrote all of that stuff down. The material is still available to me after all these years. I wonder how many other group members who did nothing but sit there and daydream during Dr G's talks now wish they had listened, or had recourse to some written records of what was said.