Masochism and Control

This is one of the chronologically out of sequence ones. It took place while Arol and Tim where still around.

We had gone to Jeff's for the weekly men's meeting. We went to a local school to practice. It was on top of a hill with a wonderful atmosphere. A great view, old buildings with atmosphere, lots of greenery. An invigorating place to work out.

We did our usual warmups, group forms, group walking drills. Then we broke up to work out on our own. The area we worked out in was not that large. All of us were in view of each other. We had to spread out because of the sidewalks criscrossing the area. It was difficult to find uninterrupted level spaces without a sidwalk edge or a depression in the grass.

After awhile I noticed Jeff, George, Tim and it seems like someone else I cannot remember. Must have been Arol. They were over by a building clustered together. George, Tim and Arol had trouble exercising on their own. They did not have the focus or attention or something. Or they were too social. They were unable to work by themselves for very long without drifting over to someone else. Usually Jeff.

By this time I was feeling fairly comfortable with everyone. Comfortable enough to speak out occasionally in spite of the anxiety. I had been their long enough to decide that I felt Jeff and I were alike. Jeff would probably react with horror at this comparison. He would not want to be anything at all like me. ;)

Jeff was a quiet and driven person. Part of it was because he was Asian. He had the usual Asian reticence. He was much more repressed than that though. Jeff was also driven. He had been doing martial arts since he was a child. He attended college and Chinese medical school as well as the Ba Gua classes. I felt a kinship with Jeff.

I was a quiet person who was driven. I had taken martial arts for years. I was not good at them, but I had the drive necessary to practice continually for years. When it came time to practice alone, I was often downright rude about it. I did not want to be interrupted because I felt the practice was serious. I felt these similarities that I felt I had with Jeff gave me some insight into his actions.

I walked over to the cluster of people to see what was going on. Jeff was telling the other guys about some exercise. What you do is squat down at your knees and brace your back straight up against the wall with your head straight. Then you put your hands in front of you and hold them together. The object of the drill is to hold the posture as long as possible.

Jeff was showing them how to do this as I meandered over. I listened to the description and watched the demonstration. Then we decided to have a contest. Everyone was going to do the posture and see who could last the longest. I thought this was a great idea because I had confidence in my ability to do the exercise. I felt I had to be better at it than George, Arol and Tim. Maybe I was as good as Jeff at it.

We all got ready, then started the contest. It did not last long. The posture is very strenous and painful. As I expected. Arol, Tim and George could not handle it. Arol and Tim gave up because they had no mental strength to force themselves to keep going thru the discomfort. George had trouble because he was a large man. He was over 6 feet I believe. He played sports and for some reason or the other he was very stiff because of them. When he did the posture, he hardly squatted at all and had to lean forward off the wall to even do the posture.

Jeff and I were good at it. Jeff because he had done martial arts for years and he was an Asian guy. In the Wing Chun class where I got sick at, we did some stamina and posture training. It was very strenous. It prepared me for this exercise. We both sat there in the posture.

After quitting, Arol, Tim and George were hovering around to watch Jeff and I. After some time, it was apparent we could both go at it for awhile. I was bothered alot by Arol, Tim and George hovering. They were not quiet when they watched as if they were respectful. I recall them laughing and joking etc.

I decided there was no point in continuing so I gave up. Jeff won the contest. After I stood up, Jeff stayed in the posture. Now Arol, Tim, George and I were standing there watching him. Arol, Tim and George were butt kissing and talking about how Jeff was good at this. One of them wondered aloud how Jeff could stand the pain.

I don't think there is any shame in saying I was envious of the butt kissing. I did not want the butt kissing for myself. I can't stand it. There is something about the act of one person butt kissing another that pulls at you. It probably is the sucking energy huh? ;)

I kind of got an attitude and was being a little smart. I said "It's easy isn't it Jeff. It's masochism". Masochism means that people like to hurt themselves. I did not mean the word literally. What I meant was that a masochist could better take the pain of an exercise because they liked it, or could endure it.

Jeff didn't say anything. I had the distinct impression he did not like what I said. At that time in my life, I was something of an unknowing pest. I did not realize that people would purposefully ignore you and refuse to speak. Not an adult man anyways. I repeated my statement. I said "It's easy for masochists, isn't it Jeff?".

I was including myself in the statement. I had done the exercise almost as long as Jeff. I was not saying it in an an accusatory way.

Jeff continued to say nothing.

Even me, being as dense as I was, realized that something was going on now. I figured I must have said something that made him unhappy. I didn't know what. To my way of thinking, if he disagreed with what I said, he only had to say so. I did not understand the silent treatment.

The silent treatment was my first taste of how controlling other people works.

When I said "Masochists can do this exercise easy, huh?", I was asking for Jeff to agree with me. The way that a man like Jeff thinks, I am trying to control him. I am trying to force him to agree with me. In my opinion, that is the craziest thing in the world. We were buddies in the same group. We were standing around talking and I was making an observation. I had not desire to control Jeff.

That did not matter. Jeff believed that what I was doing was controlling. Many people in that situation will do exactly as Jeff did. They will go silent. If a person does not talk to you, there is nothing to work with. If they agree with you, in their mind you are controlling them. If they disagree with you, their might be an argument or something else unpleasant. If they refuse to speak, what can you do? You could resort to abusive language. Then you look very very bad and you will be shunned by people.

I walked away when Jeff gave me the silent treatment because I did not understand any of that control stuff. To my way of thinking, I had tried to be friendly and joking with him by saying "Us masochists can do tough stuff easy". Instead of accepting the comaradery, I felt bad energy coming from him, and he refused to answer me even after I repeated myself.

Of course Arol, Tim and George are all watching this. To my anxiety and embarrassed mind, they were looking at me like I had done something wrong. I will be generous and say that is probably my anxiety filled mind working overtime. I think they were probably as mystified as I was by Jeff's refusal to answer me.

It took me years to understand what had happened. Maybe I am a slow learner. You think?