The biggest mistake of Mike's Ba Gua Class
There are a few things that led to the dissolution of the Ba Gua class in the end. One of them in my opinion was the training.
Mike, being the man he was, was the source of ultimate authority. I know that I never thought to question any pronouncement he made about kung fu. He had 15 years of Tai Chi. He knew some famous Ba Gua guy from China. He displayed the signs of advanced training. He was the kung fu God.
The weekly classes consisted of an initial set of Ba Gua stretches. Maybe 10 in all. Then we would perform one complete long style Tai Chi form. Then we would do 8 of the forms from Ba Gua.
For those that do not know, Tai Chi is performed with the tailbone tucked underneath. This is the same thing as saying with the pubic bone thrust forward. The entire form is performed with the tailbone held underneath like this.
Mike's Ba Gua style was unique in my experience. In this Ba Gua style, the practitioner crouches down very low. The buttocks and hips are strongly thrust to the rear while the chest is strongly thrust forward.
If you think about it for a minute, you will see that the two styles were complete opposists. Tai Chi tucked the tailbone under so that the back acted as one large piece. Tai Chi will stiffent the back up and make it very strong. This is good from a health perspective. Yin Fu Ba Gua thrust the tail bone to the rear, totally breaking the continuity of the back. The theory behind Ba Gua was that flexiblity was the key to long life. By stretching the back as strongly as it was, all of the internal organs and the body received maximum stretching.
The most obvious question in the world to me is, won't practing the two styles together clash? One style is designed to make the back one big piece. The other style is designed to break the back down into a flexible unit.
For some reason or the other, Mike never really thought about this. Actually there was a very good reason. Mike had been doing Tai Chi for much longer than the Ba Gua. He felt safe and strong as a Tai Chi practitioner. In Tai Chi, he was very strong, very skilled, very dangerous. He could feel that within himself. He knew it for fact.
Even though he knew the Ba Gua and trained it and taught it, I do not believe he trusted it. He knew he was a big man in the Tai Chi world. If he switched to Ba Gua, he would be a little man learning all over again. As a man whose goal was power and money, he simply could not mentally let go of the power his Tai Chi training gave him.
This was bad for the class. Because in reality, the two styles did clash. I cannot speak for the others. I know for a fact that training the two differnt styles slowed down my learning. I feel it also may have actually caused me more problems. It would requre another post and the reader would have to be knowledgeable about kung fu for me to explain why it caused me problems.
Even though I cannot speak for the others, whether they felt training both styles was a problem, I think it was. As I said before, There were maybe 4 or 5 people in the class that showed any real comprehension of what was being taught. Maybe there was some other reason the people did not get it. I think a big part of it was the unconscious mental confusion caused by pushing the tailbone forward for some training, then pushing it to the rear for some other training.
Related to this mistake was Mike's refusal to talk about the Tai Chi. We would perform one complete long form during the full class practice. That was it. I and the others requested some additional instruction in the Tai Chi. We were refused. I did not know why at the time. Looking back, knowing Mike as I do, I am going to guess that since he felt that was where his real power came from, he was not going to teach anybody.
Lonnie and Jeff both knew the full Tai Chi form. Mike had no problem speaking to them about it. Mike's attitude seemed to be that if you could not learn the form and remember it from the full class practice, you were a problem. Instead of asking questions, you were supposed to learn from doing the form.
This was a foolish attitude to have. There were 35 people in the class. I had to try and watch Mike thru the other 35 people. We are all obviously moving as the form progresses. Trying to twist your head around to see how the instructor is performing a move never works. If I did not know the Tai Chi long form before I came to the class, I would have been in trouble.
As it was, the only reason I could keep up was because the style I learned before was similar to the one that Mike practiced. I was taking another Tai Chi class simultaneously with Mike's Ba Gua class. I went there 2 or 3 times a week. I recieved more Tai Chi instruction from them than I did at Mike's class that I paid money for. The other Tai Chi class was a free one put on by a nice old Chinese Man who wanted to help people.
The Tai Chi styles were very different. The free style was a soft and flowing style. Mike's style was different in a hard to describe way. The person was supposed to be hard. That sounds totally wrong when describing Tai Chi. That is the only word that really works.
Mike said that "other Tai Chi teaches you to be soft and circular. My Tai Chi says you need to be straight before you can be circular". I don't think I can explain it without some huge post. Then it still would not make sense if you do not know Tai Chi.
At first I didn't know what to believe. I had been at the other Tai Chi class for a bit. I liked it's soft and flowing movements. Mike's style reminded my of the Wing Chun I had done that made me sick. After some time though, I came to realize that Mike was correct.
Mike's Tai Chi was real fighting Tai Chi. The free Tai Chi was more of a health thing. Don't get me wrong. The old Chinese man who taught the Tai Chi class was bad news. He used to talk about how he was a gang member in his youth. The style he taught free to people was for health purposes mainly. The old guy had a private Tai Chi class. Maybe he taught the same way Mike did in private. I know the private students seemed to progress and show the effects of the training much faster than the free students.
Mike, being the man he was, was the source of ultimate authority. I know that I never thought to question any pronouncement he made about kung fu. He had 15 years of Tai Chi. He knew some famous Ba Gua guy from China. He displayed the signs of advanced training. He was the kung fu God.
The weekly classes consisted of an initial set of Ba Gua stretches. Maybe 10 in all. Then we would perform one complete long style Tai Chi form. Then we would do 8 of the forms from Ba Gua.
For those that do not know, Tai Chi is performed with the tailbone tucked underneath. This is the same thing as saying with the pubic bone thrust forward. The entire form is performed with the tailbone held underneath like this.
Mike's Ba Gua style was unique in my experience. In this Ba Gua style, the practitioner crouches down very low. The buttocks and hips are strongly thrust to the rear while the chest is strongly thrust forward.
If you think about it for a minute, you will see that the two styles were complete opposists. Tai Chi tucked the tailbone under so that the back acted as one large piece. Tai Chi will stiffent the back up and make it very strong. This is good from a health perspective. Yin Fu Ba Gua thrust the tail bone to the rear, totally breaking the continuity of the back. The theory behind Ba Gua was that flexiblity was the key to long life. By stretching the back as strongly as it was, all of the internal organs and the body received maximum stretching.
The most obvious question in the world to me is, won't practing the two styles together clash? One style is designed to make the back one big piece. The other style is designed to break the back down into a flexible unit.
For some reason or the other, Mike never really thought about this. Actually there was a very good reason. Mike had been doing Tai Chi for much longer than the Ba Gua. He felt safe and strong as a Tai Chi practitioner. In Tai Chi, he was very strong, very skilled, very dangerous. He could feel that within himself. He knew it for fact.
Even though he knew the Ba Gua and trained it and taught it, I do not believe he trusted it. He knew he was a big man in the Tai Chi world. If he switched to Ba Gua, he would be a little man learning all over again. As a man whose goal was power and money, he simply could not mentally let go of the power his Tai Chi training gave him.
This was bad for the class. Because in reality, the two styles did clash. I cannot speak for the others. I know for a fact that training the two differnt styles slowed down my learning. I feel it also may have actually caused me more problems. It would requre another post and the reader would have to be knowledgeable about kung fu for me to explain why it caused me problems.
Even though I cannot speak for the others, whether they felt training both styles was a problem, I think it was. As I said before, There were maybe 4 or 5 people in the class that showed any real comprehension of what was being taught. Maybe there was some other reason the people did not get it. I think a big part of it was the unconscious mental confusion caused by pushing the tailbone forward for some training, then pushing it to the rear for some other training.
Related to this mistake was Mike's refusal to talk about the Tai Chi. We would perform one complete long form during the full class practice. That was it. I and the others requested some additional instruction in the Tai Chi. We were refused. I did not know why at the time. Looking back, knowing Mike as I do, I am going to guess that since he felt that was where his real power came from, he was not going to teach anybody.
Lonnie and Jeff both knew the full Tai Chi form. Mike had no problem speaking to them about it. Mike's attitude seemed to be that if you could not learn the form and remember it from the full class practice, you were a problem. Instead of asking questions, you were supposed to learn from doing the form.
This was a foolish attitude to have. There were 35 people in the class. I had to try and watch Mike thru the other 35 people. We are all obviously moving as the form progresses. Trying to twist your head around to see how the instructor is performing a move never works. If I did not know the Tai Chi long form before I came to the class, I would have been in trouble.
As it was, the only reason I could keep up was because the style I learned before was similar to the one that Mike practiced. I was taking another Tai Chi class simultaneously with Mike's Ba Gua class. I went there 2 or 3 times a week. I recieved more Tai Chi instruction from them than I did at Mike's class that I paid money for. The other Tai Chi class was a free one put on by a nice old Chinese Man who wanted to help people.
The Tai Chi styles were very different. The free style was a soft and flowing style. Mike's style was different in a hard to describe way. The person was supposed to be hard. That sounds totally wrong when describing Tai Chi. That is the only word that really works.
Mike said that "other Tai Chi teaches you to be soft and circular. My Tai Chi says you need to be straight before you can be circular". I don't think I can explain it without some huge post. Then it still would not make sense if you do not know Tai Chi.
At first I didn't know what to believe. I had been at the other Tai Chi class for a bit. I liked it's soft and flowing movements. Mike's style reminded my of the Wing Chun I had done that made me sick. After some time though, I came to realize that Mike was correct.
Mike's Tai Chi was real fighting Tai Chi. The free Tai Chi was more of a health thing. Don't get me wrong. The old Chinese man who taught the Tai Chi class was bad news. He used to talk about how he was a gang member in his youth. The style he taught free to people was for health purposes mainly. The old guy had a private Tai Chi class. Maybe he taught the same way Mike did in private. I know the private students seemed to progress and show the effects of the training much faster than the free students.
posted by Happeh at 10:18 PM
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