Falling into the whirlpool

At some point along the way, it was mentioned that there was a school playground near Mike's house in the rich town. For some reason or the other, there would occasionally be something going on there. Since many of the class lived in the rich town, it was more convenient for them.

One day we went to the school playground. I am not certain why. It may have been because the women had their own thing going on that day. I do know that the men were there by themselves. We might have decided to meet there as a convenience for Mike.

There was a playground with basketball courts. A small enclosed area for tennis. The school was a chids school. For the up to 8th grade level or so. It was a nice school because it was in the rich town.

We went over to the area that was enclosed for tennis. Some people were playing basketball and using the rest of the playground. We did our warmups and forms. The usual stuff.

Since the women were not around, Mike wanted to do something different. He wanted to do some Tai Chi drills. I have said that we practiced Tai Chi and Ba Gua both. We hardly ever did anything Tai Chi oriented. Just the long form as part of the open class and that was it. Looking back, I think Mike was hiding the Tai Chi. He felt it was special so he was keeping it to himself.

That is a striking comment because he spent all his time talking about how Ba Gua was the greatest. If it was better than Tai Chi, why was he hiding the Tai Chi? From hindsight, it was about money. His Tai Chi style is widely known. People teach it everywhere. How could he charge top dollar for lessons?

The Yin Fu Ba Gua though was exceedingly rare. Ba Gua period is a rare style to find properly taught. By focusing on Ba Gua, he knew he would always have students. That is my take on things now.

Mike wanted to do some push hands drills. I found this exciting because to me,this was real martial arts. The forms were necessary of course. I understood that. The applications of the art and the actual training were the meat and potatos.

He practiced with Lonnie or Jeff first. Jeff of course knew the Tai Chi and could do it no problem. Lonnie really wanted the Tai Chi. I think that Jeff worked with him alone on it. I wonder now if Lonnie wanted the Tai Chi because he saw like I did that underneath, where Mike was honest, Mike thought the Tai Chi was better. Lonnie is the kind of guy who would want the best. If he could sense Mike thought Tai Chi was better, Lonnie would want the Tai Chi.

Then came my turn. It was a farce. Really embarrassing. I knew push hands drills. I had done something similar in Wing Chun with Chi Sao drills. I was the finally going to get my chance to gain respect. Except for one small problem. My health.

I was still filled with anxiety. The idea of actually touching hands with Mike and doing the drills made me nervous. That plus everyone hanging around made me kind of lightheaded.

We began to do the push hand drills and right away I felt a dizzy kind of sensation. Part of the wrong training I had recieved that made me sick was to encourage me to push on people. This is exactly what you DO NOT want to do in Chi Sao or push hands. You want a very light touch just so you can contact people.

My health problems always showed themselves during something like Chi Sao or push hands. I didn't know it but the guy that made me sick set it up like that. If you put your energy on someone who knows kung fu, they will suck that energy right out of you. The can literally suck the energy out of you so much you can die. This will make no sense to an untrained person. They cannot envision how this can happen. It can and it does. It is part of kung fu.

I tried to push on Mike like I did in my Chi Sao. Because mike was an expert, he just sucked the power out of me. I got light headed and kind of dizzy. I had real trouble holding my balance because I was also unbalanced as part of being sick. I felt like I was being sucked down into a whirlpool. The circular motions of the pushhands were pulling me in.

The push hands lasted about 2 minutes. I was literally going to pitch forward onto my face because the circular motion was pulling me in so hard. Or I was pushing myself into so hard. Depends on your perspective.

I was really unhappy. There was my chance to prove I was good at kung fu, and I almost fall down on my face. The push hands has to be stopped because I cannot handle the energy.

To top it off, Peter was there and this was one of the first few classes he attended. I felt about 3 inches tall. I was really embarrassed by the whole situation. I resented Peter because he had witnessed the debacle. He shared the knowing looks with the other guys that I could not take it.

It did not matter that Peter could not do the push hands. He was not expected to. He had no kung fu training. But he still shared the knowing looks with the other guys that I could not handle the exercise.