Ideals versus Reality
In among all the talking of family style and loyalty and righteousness and pride and upright and good, there was talk of relaxation. Part of being healthy was being relaxed and not reacting to provocations from the outside. Any person who is familiar with Asian culture or Asian people will recognize this concept.
In speaking about Yin Fu Ba Gua, the main emphasis was on opening. Opening up the body and being an open person. Because the mind and the body are inextricably intertwined, anything that happens to the body happens to the mind. And vice versa. If the forms of Ba Gua opened up the body, then the mind would have no choice but to be open.
In the kung fu style that had made me ill, the instructor encouraged being hard. In Tai Chi and in the Yin Fu Ba Gua, the emphasis was on being softer and more relaxed. This was a mantra when performing the forms. They must be done in a soft and flowing way. Stop being so tense. Do not be hard or jerky. The power comes from the inside of the body and is delivered thru the limbs. The power cannot flow thru a hard body. The hard body acts as a blockage to the flow of power from the inside.
All of this made absolute sense. After years of life and kung fu, the idea is a proper one. There was a conflict though, between what was said, and how people acted.
Mike said that Ba Gua was about relaxing, yet he was one of the most tense and controlling individuals I have ever known. Sitting here right now writing this, I had a flash of intuition. I cannot help but wonder if his tense and stiff attitude was a result of his Tai Chi. I mentioned a post or two back about how Mike was defined by his Tai Chi skill. How he apparently did not want to give it up for complete devotion to Ba Gua. I wonder if the hardness and stiffness of the back from his style of Tai Chi made him mentally hard and stiff.
When Mike was around, no one did anything without his permission. Maybe not explicit permission. It was not necessary. His attitude was available to anyone who cared to look at him. If people were talking and Mike had a bad look on his face, that person shut up as soon as possible. If people were acting and Mike had a bad look on his face, the stopped whatever they were doing and looked to him for instruction.
The contrast was considerable. In the talks, the class and Ba Gua itself was about relaxing and being open. In reality, everyone was always repressed because of Mike's influence.
This was not an overbearing attitude. I do not want to give the impression of a prison guard over prisoners. People laughed and talked and enjoyed each others company. Mike included. The tension was an unspoken and low level thing that was always there. The kind of feeling you might have if you are in a room with a troublesome person. You are not controlled by that person, but you do feel uncomfortable that they might cause trouble at some point in the evening. You are always a little on edge, a little wary.
I did not realize most of what I wrote until years later. While I was with the class, I did not consciously think and feel the way I describe above. It wasn't until a particular event in my life that I realized how things were in the Ba Gua class.
After I left Ba Gua, I consciously went looking for people that enjoyed life. People who found joy in everything they did. Nothing was too mundane to be considered fun. I didn't know why. I only knew that was what I wanted. I spent a long time with people like this. Years of time that I have fond memories of.
With one of these groups of people, I was in another instructional setting. The instructor was the most admirable man I have ever met in my life. Likable, fun, enjoyable to be around. It is hard to think of a negative thing to say about him.
I arrived for the class early. There were two women there early also. The doors were locked for the room we were to use. The room was in a large building with poor ventilation. The instructor was going to go open some windows to get some air for the lobby area we were in.
One of the women was sitting on the ground. She might have been stretching or just sitting. The other woman was standing up doing something or the other. I was standing also, not really knowing what to do with myself. The lobby was small. The class was open to anyone that came by. I did not know the other two women well enough to speak to them. The situation was uncomfortable for me.
The instructor said something about sitting down to wait. He was going to go open the windows. I sat down and it was like someone pulled a switch. The second my butt hit the ground, the instructor shouted "relax". This was weird because he was 10 or 15 feet away, walking away from me to the windows.
It was obvous who his advice was for. Me. What I had unconsciously done was take the attitude and posture I had in the Ba Gua class. One of tension and hardness. I was not even aware I did that. In that small lobby, with only 3 other people who were strangers mostly to me, they instantly saw and recognized what I was doing.
I wonder if the other people in Ba Gua class were like me. Did they even realize that on some low level, they were tense and repressed? Looking back in my mind's eye right now, I can pick out people whose body language tells me that they were tense and uptight in the same way I was. I wonder if they knew they were like that, or if they were blind to it they way I was.
I was mortified that the instructor was forced to shout "relax" because my tension was making him and the women feel bad. By that time in my life, I had begun to accept the idea of human beings having energy. I could believe that even though many feet seperated all of us, my tension could reach across that space and make those innocent strangers ill.
I was grateful to him though because after he shouted, I sat there and had the epiphany this post is about. That on some subconscious level I was not even aware of, my time in Ba Gua had trained me to be a tense and tight, repressed person. Actions that were so obvious, total strangers could see it in my behavior. All of which was directly against the verbal instructions repeated almost every weekend about Ba Gua being for relaxation and openness.
Words are like noises animals make at each other. It is the subtle body language and unspoken communication that is what human interactions are truly about. I feel that Mike's personal tendency towards tension and control subtly affected all of the students.
I am also open to the idea that Mike attracted students predisposed to that type of behavior. Perhaps all of us were tense and controlling. When we met Mike, we saw ourselves in him, so we signed up for the class.
Whichever it was, I don't think I saw the Ba Gua open and relax any one of the 35 students or the instructor. Of course maybe they were monsters before. What I was seeing in Ba Gua class was the improved version of the people after Ba Gua training.
;)
In speaking about Yin Fu Ba Gua, the main emphasis was on opening. Opening up the body and being an open person. Because the mind and the body are inextricably intertwined, anything that happens to the body happens to the mind. And vice versa. If the forms of Ba Gua opened up the body, then the mind would have no choice but to be open.
In the kung fu style that had made me ill, the instructor encouraged being hard. In Tai Chi and in the Yin Fu Ba Gua, the emphasis was on being softer and more relaxed. This was a mantra when performing the forms. They must be done in a soft and flowing way. Stop being so tense. Do not be hard or jerky. The power comes from the inside of the body and is delivered thru the limbs. The power cannot flow thru a hard body. The hard body acts as a blockage to the flow of power from the inside.
All of this made absolute sense. After years of life and kung fu, the idea is a proper one. There was a conflict though, between what was said, and how people acted.
Mike said that Ba Gua was about relaxing, yet he was one of the most tense and controlling individuals I have ever known. Sitting here right now writing this, I had a flash of intuition. I cannot help but wonder if his tense and stiff attitude was a result of his Tai Chi. I mentioned a post or two back about how Mike was defined by his Tai Chi skill. How he apparently did not want to give it up for complete devotion to Ba Gua. I wonder if the hardness and stiffness of the back from his style of Tai Chi made him mentally hard and stiff.
When Mike was around, no one did anything without his permission. Maybe not explicit permission. It was not necessary. His attitude was available to anyone who cared to look at him. If people were talking and Mike had a bad look on his face, that person shut up as soon as possible. If people were acting and Mike had a bad look on his face, the stopped whatever they were doing and looked to him for instruction.
The contrast was considerable. In the talks, the class and Ba Gua itself was about relaxing and being open. In reality, everyone was always repressed because of Mike's influence.
This was not an overbearing attitude. I do not want to give the impression of a prison guard over prisoners. People laughed and talked and enjoyed each others company. Mike included. The tension was an unspoken and low level thing that was always there. The kind of feeling you might have if you are in a room with a troublesome person. You are not controlled by that person, but you do feel uncomfortable that they might cause trouble at some point in the evening. You are always a little on edge, a little wary.
I did not realize most of what I wrote until years later. While I was with the class, I did not consciously think and feel the way I describe above. It wasn't until a particular event in my life that I realized how things were in the Ba Gua class.
After I left Ba Gua, I consciously went looking for people that enjoyed life. People who found joy in everything they did. Nothing was too mundane to be considered fun. I didn't know why. I only knew that was what I wanted. I spent a long time with people like this. Years of time that I have fond memories of.
With one of these groups of people, I was in another instructional setting. The instructor was the most admirable man I have ever met in my life. Likable, fun, enjoyable to be around. It is hard to think of a negative thing to say about him.
I arrived for the class early. There were two women there early also. The doors were locked for the room we were to use. The room was in a large building with poor ventilation. The instructor was going to go open some windows to get some air for the lobby area we were in.
One of the women was sitting on the ground. She might have been stretching or just sitting. The other woman was standing up doing something or the other. I was standing also, not really knowing what to do with myself. The lobby was small. The class was open to anyone that came by. I did not know the other two women well enough to speak to them. The situation was uncomfortable for me.
The instructor said something about sitting down to wait. He was going to go open the windows. I sat down and it was like someone pulled a switch. The second my butt hit the ground, the instructor shouted "relax". This was weird because he was 10 or 15 feet away, walking away from me to the windows.
It was obvous who his advice was for. Me. What I had unconsciously done was take the attitude and posture I had in the Ba Gua class. One of tension and hardness. I was not even aware I did that. In that small lobby, with only 3 other people who were strangers mostly to me, they instantly saw and recognized what I was doing.
I wonder if the other people in Ba Gua class were like me. Did they even realize that on some low level, they were tense and repressed? Looking back in my mind's eye right now, I can pick out people whose body language tells me that they were tense and uptight in the same way I was. I wonder if they knew they were like that, or if they were blind to it they way I was.
I was mortified that the instructor was forced to shout "relax" because my tension was making him and the women feel bad. By that time in my life, I had begun to accept the idea of human beings having energy. I could believe that even though many feet seperated all of us, my tension could reach across that space and make those innocent strangers ill.
I was grateful to him though because after he shouted, I sat there and had the epiphany this post is about. That on some subconscious level I was not even aware of, my time in Ba Gua had trained me to be a tense and tight, repressed person. Actions that were so obvious, total strangers could see it in my behavior. All of which was directly against the verbal instructions repeated almost every weekend about Ba Gua being for relaxation and openness.
Words are like noises animals make at each other. It is the subtle body language and unspoken communication that is what human interactions are truly about. I feel that Mike's personal tendency towards tension and control subtly affected all of the students.
I am also open to the idea that Mike attracted students predisposed to that type of behavior. Perhaps all of us were tense and controlling. When we met Mike, we saw ourselves in him, so we signed up for the class.
Whichever it was, I don't think I saw the Ba Gua open and relax any one of the 35 students or the instructor. Of course maybe they were monsters before. What I was seeing in Ba Gua class was the improved version of the people after Ba Gua training.
;)
posted by Happeh at 9:16 AM
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