Coward!

This is a continuation of the previous post.

Here I am with a bad attitude. Ashamed, loss of respect, embarrassed, not happy at all about the way the push hands turned out. Not happy that Peter saw what happened and included himself in with the other skilled people, even though he could not do kung fu at all.

After the push hands, we were going to do some sensitivity trainging. This was almost exactly like Chi Sao from Wing Chun. Two people placing their hands on each other, then putting pressure and trying to handle the reactions.

As I said, I was encouraged by my previous instructor to put a lot of pressure on my opponent. I had also been taught to make my hands springy so that whatever happened, if there was an opening, I hit the guy in the face.

It had to be Karma. There can be no other reason. Or maybe because Mike felt we both equally sucked. I was paired up with Peter to do the drills. I felt like now was my chance to earn respect. I could show Peter I did know what I was doing. The push hands drill was an anomaly.

We placed our arms on each other and started the drill. I don't recall if we rolled arms or not. I was placing my usual pressure on my opponent with my arms. I could tell I could plough right thru Peter without trouble. Because I had some pride, I pressed on his arms very strongly to prove to both of us that I was better than he was.

Peter's arm slipped out of position from the pressure. Just like I was trained to do, I hit him in the face. ;)

Not really though. Not hard like a fist or something. It was an open handed hit. His arms faltered under my pressure. Without thinking about it, my arm jumped out and smacked him in the face. I think I hit him on the upper lip. It might have been hard enough to draw blood.

We were not supposed to be hitting each other.

It was an accident from my perspective. I take responsibility for pushing on him hard and hitting him. I overestimated his ability to defend himself. I fully expected him to stop my hand before I hit him in the face.

I was shocked when I hit him because I knew I had done something wrong. Literally shocked. I stepped back about a foot and my jaw dropped. I did not know these people that well. There had never been any real violence in class. I also stepped back because I did not know if Peter would lose his cool and attack me.

He stood there and played with his lip. I think it was bleeding. Everyone else turned around to see what had happened. It is hard to understand. It felt like this big eye turned and looked at me. The big eye was all the eyes of the other people. It felt like one big aggregate eye looking at me. And there was no doubt of the censure in the look. They felt I was wrong for hitting Peter.

This frightened me. I was in the class becuase these people were my superiors. I held no illusions that I could out fight any of them. When they put that attitude of censure on me, I turned and headed straight for the gate in the tennis court. I went all the way to the gate, then stopped and turned around to watch them.

I seriously thought that they might run after me to start a fight. I was seriously ready to run like hell if that happened. I had never seen anyone be really violent so I had no idea how the would react.

They all hovered around Peter and looked at him. When it became apparent no one was going to be violent, I slowly walked back onto the court. I went over to the fence and sat down on the ground. Sitting on the ground and making myself small as a way of looking non threatening.

I had a look on my face though. I still did not trust a one of them. I was still ready to start running the second anyone made a hard move at me.

They all milled around for a bit in the center of the court. Then Mike turns and looks at me and says "ARE YOU ALL RIGHT". It felt just like a shout. It was probably a slam now that I think about it. I was so emotional with ready flight response and everything else I did not even recognized the slam.

I said I was fine and stood up. I took his question to mean that everything was all right and no one was angry. Then the bullshit started.

I say bullshit because I hate deception. It makes me sick. I would rather people just be honest and get things over with.

Suddenly it is my turn to be paired with Jeff. The entire point was to put me in my place. That was unnecessary. I did not need to be shown they could beat me. I knew it. Hitting Peter was an accident. Not an act of aggression I needed to be warned would be punished if it happened again.

I went limp. We were supposed to do drills and I refused to do them. I knew Jeff was supposed to teach me a lesson. Why should I play along? I felt it was demeaning. Why not just look me in the face and say "don't do that again"? I think they must have believed I was going to be aggressive with Jeff. Then he could legitimately punch me and put me in my place.

When it was obvious I would not play with Jeff, then it was Lonnie's turn. I knew he was going to try to do something to me so I played limp again. We started to do the drills and Lonnie clamped both of my wrists. It was not part of the drill. I did not know what to do so I stood there.

What was happening was Lonnie was challenging me. Because they all thought I was being aggressive and needed a lesson, Lonnie was presenting a challenge he thought I would get agressive about and resist. He was wrong in his assumptions about my motivations. I just stood there and looked at him.

I seriously think he expected me to begin to struggle like a fish with a hook caught in it's mouth. From my point of view, he had both my hands, sure. So what? What could he do now? He can't hit me because both of his hands are holding mine. He couldn't kick me either.

Part of the Tai Chi training is the ability to "Lock yourself to the ground". Lonnie was very proud of his ability to do this. When he grabbed my wrists, he locked himself to the ground. He was preparing to hold on to me because he thought I was going to flail and struggle. Because his feet were locked to the ground, I knew he could not use them to kick me.

We basically just stood there looking at each other. After a few minutes with me just standing there, we stopped. I suppose they decided the lesson had been taught to me.