Thursday, January 19, 2006

Lull Period

After the unsuccessful attempt to get rid of me after I went on vacation, and the realization that I really wanted Ba Gua, I guess they decided they were stuck with me. Remember I am writing this years later and attributing what I think must have been their motives. After the vacation incident, I don't remember anything of note for a long time.

At this time there was Steve, George, Jeff, Chris, Me, James, Lonnie. Seems odd. So few people now that I am ennumerating their names. I said there were 35 people in the group. That means about 25 were women and 10 or so were men. It is odd to me because as I have stated before, most women I have seen in kung fu were a joke. It was a social thing, not a kung fu thing.

Steve ingratiated himself with everyone within weeks. He was Mike's best buddy. Following him around, talking, laughing, bullshitting. Steve was a good man and a likable guy. I resented his easy attitude with Mike because I had no relationship with Mike. I resented Steve because he had no martial arts training at all, yet Mike paid more attention to him than he did to me or the other people with martial arts training.

Somewhere in this time period, the following event took place.

For some reason or the other, people got to talking about kung fu brothers. The system of kung fu where there are elder brothers teaching and younger brothers learning. To be honest, in thinking about this event, it may have taken place while Arol and Tim were still there. The event feels like something that would relate to them.

The idea was tossed about and talked about. For some reason or the other, everyone decided that Jeff was going to be the elder brother. Writing this down, I feel like I am talking about kids playing house. ;) That was the feel of the situation. "Ya, Ya! We want Jeff to be our older brother!! Yaaaayy!!!!"

I should point out something here. Jeff, as an Asian man and the most skilled kung fu man was the natural leader or second in command to Mike. Lonnie didn't like this that much. Lonnie had as much experience as Jeff I think. He did not have Jeff's instructors, and Lonnie was white, not Asian. That makes a big difference in learning kung fu.

Whenever people started talking about Jeff as the leader, Lonnie of course smiled and went along. He didn't really like it though. I could see that he thought of himself as a leader. No one else really did though. Of course we all respected him and listened to him. In my mind, I don't recall anyone deferring to him as if he was the leader.

Chris also had this same attitude of thinking he was Jeff's equal, or not going along with the deference to Jeff. I think Chris was arrogant. I did not get to know him much. He kept to himself and never spoke much. I was not inclined to reach out to him because of the slamming incident. I didn't trust him. Especially since he was a 20 year old or so kid. I knew he was of that age where he reacted without thinking.

That is why I think this incident must have happened when Arol and Tim where still around. They would have loved the idea of Jeff as a big brother. This might even have happened before the fateful meeting at Jeff's house.

Whatever was going on, in whatever time sequence, Jeff was decided to be the de facto big brother. I have no idea what this meant. ;) I think what it meant was that Arol and Tim were always going to Jeff for questions or instruction. George too was a go along with it kind of guy in the same vein as Arol and Tim. He probably acted the same way Arol and Tim did. Steve would have been in that group too.

Lonnie and Chris would have avoided Jeff for the reasons noted above. Viewing him as an equal. James would not have even thought about deferring to Jeff. James was his own independent man who happened to be part of the Ba Gua class. He was his own special case.

This big brother stuff went on for a few weeks. I didn't pay it much mind. I was with Lonnie and Chris in thinking that there was no reason to be going to Jeff. It wasn't like he could really do anything. We were shown our forms, then we practiced.

One of my gripes about Ba Gua was that, when asking a question, the answer was invariably, "I don't know" or "Play with it". "I don't know" was an obvious lie. They were the experts in the forms. Of course they knew the reasons why things were done they way they were. The lies were, in my opinion, to enforce the other common answer. "Look into it yourself".

I got so frustrated with this attitude that after a month or so of responses like this, I never bothered asking questions again. Maybe once every 6 months I would forget that I was on my own. I would go ask a question and receive the stock "I don't know", "Figure it out yourself" answer. Then I would go off for another 6 months.

Then one day Jeff came to class and I could tell something was wrong. I didn't know what because I was not close to him. I said hello and maybe some small talk like "how was your week" but that was it. Even knowing Jeff that little, I could tell something was wrong.

Mike gave his weekly talk. During the talk, I had this feeling like there was a hole in the circle where Jeff was. We always sat in a circle every week. I could feel the circle and then when I looked at Jeff's area, the circle got......darkish or it was as if it wasn't really there. Nothing hoodoo or anything like that. Just an odd feeling that there was something wrong with that part of the circle.

After the group meeting, the women had their own meeting and the men had there own meeting. Then I was certain there was something wrong. I could look at Jeff and see something was going on. His face looked kind of hard and pockmarked. His posture was hunched over. It was totally unlike the Jeff that I knew.

We sat down and Jeff said he did not want to be the big brother anymore. He said it was making him sick. People, I am thinking Arol, Tim, George and Steve, told him good things. They needed him, he was good, what was wrong, etc etc. We all good naturedly wanted to know what was going on with a member of the group.

Jeff repeated that being big brother was making him sick and that he wanted it to stop. Jeff was a man of few words. He did not tell a big story or anything. He said what he felt and left it at that. In the face of his statements, everybody agreed that he could have what he wanted. No one would treat him like the big brother anymore.

Writing this all down, I wonder what kind of pressure the other guys put on him? Did they call him at home and bug him? Were they talking to him all the time so he could not do his own work? Whatever it was, the effects were astounding. I considered Jeff a very healthy man due to his skill in kung fu, his working to be a doctor of chinese medicine and going to regular college. There was no mistaking he was sick. It wasn't just the look. I could feel how tense and tight and wrapped up he was the day he told us he didn't want to be big brother anymore.

This led to the really interesting part of this story. The above was just an incident that happened like a story about what happened at the bus stop.

After everyone agreed to stop treating Jeff as the big brother, Jeff turned invisible. Really. Or he may as well have really turned invisible.

If you read kung fu literature, you will find stories about people hiding their energy. The idea is that kung fu teaches you to sense another person's energy. Once you attain this skill, you don't need to see your opponent. You can tell where they are and what they are doing.

An even higher level kung fu skill is to mask your energy so that others cannot sense it. This is what Jeff did. I was amazed because I had never seen it in person before. Also because, as I said, Jeff was only 20 something. For him to have that skill was shocking to me. I was envious if not jealous.

I cannot really describe it to you. Jeff was in the class. I could visually see him. He was right over there practicing. But if you were not looking right at him, you would forget he was there. He did this for about a month. Maybe a little longer. Long enough to break the energy connection that had formed between him and the others when he was playing big brother.

I am still impressed right this minute describing what he did. It was truly amazing. Once I caught on to what he was doing, I played with it. I would look at him for a few minutes so I knew I was looking at Jeff and I knew he was there in class with us. Then I went about my training. Sure enough, an hour or so later, I would realize class was over and for the entire one hour, I never thought about Jeff. Even though he was within 30 or so feet of me the entire time.

A few times, when I tried to look at him, I didn't see him. That is how I figured out how it works. Somehow, the skill tricks the brain or eye. I could tell my eye was visually registering the image of Jeff's body. But for some reason, I didn't think he was there. That tells me it must have been tricking my brain somehow. When those instances happened, I would usually catch a glimpse of his body out of the corner of my eye. But if I looked straight on, for some reason my gaze slid right past him. This was all based on a glancing looking around kind of action.

If I stood still and focused completely on looking at Jeff, then I could look right at him and see him. The effect seemed to occur if I was looking around in a general kind of way. Not focusing on him, just looking to see what I could see.

That skill works. I tried to teach myself. I can do it a little tiny bit. Enough to know that it really is a learned skill and that it really does work. And to think that kid Jeff could do it effectively when he was 20 something.

Oh the unfairness of it all. ;)

EDIT: I get lots of skepticism and unfortunately I have taken to responding to some of it lately. ;)

Yes I am certain about the above story. I have verified the skill thru observation of other people who possess it.

1 Comments:

Blogger xingyiquan5 said...

Wow I can see that I've truly disturbed you in asking about the training methods of MJG.

Man, it was just an innocent question, you got me curious about what he's doing.

If I'm offending you or something, I will quit visiting and posting on your site. I thought you'd appreciate some feedback, but that was clearly an error.

Again, I don't want to fight or hurt anyone, and I'm totally cool with gays. I just like Ba Gua.

-xyq

12:04 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home