Testing the new guy and Full Body Power
Chronologically, Peter has joined, a few months were skipped, then Brad joined. That made it, Jeff, Mike, Lonnie, George, Me, James, Brad, Peter and Steve.
At the moment, the time between when Peter joined and when Brad joined was uneventful. I am thinking it was very short. Maybe a month or two only. He was shown the basic forms while the class went along as usual. Nothing really eventful I can recall right now.
Then Brad joined and came to class. Mike had some kind of weird relationship going on with Brad. He talked and acted like he did not respect him. But if he was not putting on a show for someone, Mike seemed to feel some kind of deference or the other to Brad. I know Brad came from a money family. I don't know if that was the source of Mike's attitude or not.
The first thing Mike wanted to do of course was to test Brad. For some reason I have this sense of slyness and deceit associated with the memory. Oh. I recall the reason for the sense of slyness. Because it was sly!
There was going to be a meeting that was a setup. Mike was big on planning things ahead of time to set people up. It was going to be planned to have the Ba Gua students do a demonstration. Then Brad would be asked to demonstrate. He would feel the social pressure and feel obligated to demonstrate. When he did, everyone would have the opportunity to judge him.
The reason I remembered it was a setup was because I did not want to demonstrate. I had practiced Wing Chun. The forms are mostly static and unmoving. They were not really suited to demonstration like the moving and traveling Ba Gua and Tai Chi styles. I had also basically vowed to never do the Wing Chun forms again because they had made me ill. Then I had the stage fright. There was no way I was going to demonstrate anything for anyone. I know myself. I do not make a problem for no reason. I don't want to be cajoled or talked into doing things. If I say I cannot do something, I cannot do it. Period.
It was agreed that Jeff, Lonnie and Cris would do a demonstration. This was something of a rare event because of the attendance of Cris. Cris had been missing quite a few of the classes of late. Being a doctor trainee etc, was his excuse I suppose. No one every made a big deal of him missing classes the way they did when they tried to get rid of me.
Cris was there because the presence of Brad interested him. Or the idea of the setup to test Brad was intriguing. I can say that because after the special event, he went back to missing classes. ;)
The weather was going to be bad for one weekend. It was going to rain for most of the day. It was decided that everyone would go to Jeff's for the class. Even though Jeff had a very small place as I described before, because it was an apartment complex, it had a large covered parking area under which 30 people or more could practice.
The women as well as the men came to class. That meant there were 30 or so people for the meeting. It would appear to be a large and respectable group of people for a new person to meet. Somehow everyone crowded into the apartment. There was some short talking as traditional. Not very long though because of the crowd. We then went out to the covered parking lot.
Mike did some more talking. Then it was "casually" suggested that Jeff do a demonstration. He did some forms and some Ba Gua walking I think. Lonnie then did a demonstration of the Tai Chi form since that was his interest. Then it was Cris's turn to demonstrate.
It was the first time I had ever seen full body power.
One of the purpose's of martial arts is to knit the entire body into one unit. Especially the advanced arts of Ba Gua, Tai Chi and Hsing Yi work towards this goal.
I had read about full body power of course. I had practiced some Tai Chi so I had performed movements that were supposed to be done with full body power. I myself could not do it. I had never really seen anyone that could do it. Because Tai Chi is done slowy, the unity of the body can be hidden or covered up. Once a particular level of body unity is reached, there are few further signs of change. A person just gets stronger and stronger and stronger. All you can see is the same smooth movement of a person with maybe a few years of practice.
I felt lucky to see it. It was one of those moments of epiphany. The light bulb went off over my head and I thought "So that is what full body power is". Instantly. Without a doubt. Total certainty.
The reason it was lucky was because cris was a low level kind of student. He was good and could do the forms very well. His body had not knitted together completelty yet though. He was maybe 90% one unit. What this meant is that parts of his body lagged just a little tiny bit. Not enough to be the broken movement of a learning student. Enough for me to realize what was happening.
I can see him doing the movement right this minute. He was moving sideways with his hands held close to his body. He had made a movement sideways to perform an attack. One leg stepped into the attack and the other leg followed. It was this other following leg that provided my lesson that day.
Even thought the parking lot was concrete, there was a slight covering of rocks on the ground. I think there might have been street surfacing going on. The parking cars brought the rocks into the parking lot with them.
When Cris moved sideways into the attack, his following leg hit the rocks. The caused him to lose his footing just enough to threaten to break the one piece unity of his body. I clearly saw him pull his leg back towards him to regain control of the foot. It was the way the leg pulled the foot back that showed me the full body unity. The rest of his body stayed one piece moving into the attack he was performing. It was only that leg that was pulling the errant foot back into position. It really was a significant event in my life. I had probably read that phrase "full body power" for 5 years in various books or heard the phrase in talking to various people.
After that, for me, Brad's display was anticlimactic. He went out and did some of his forms. Brad had learned Ba Gua from a guy named Adam Hsu I think. That style was totally different from Yin Fu Ba Gua. The Stance in Yin Fu is low to the ground in a crouch. Brad's style was standing up in an almost Tai Chi style stance with the back straight and upright.
I did not think much of it. Maybe because I was biased against Brad. Maybe because I was biased for Mike. Maybe because the Yin Fu was prettier. There really is something unique and proud about Yin Fu style Ba Gua. Something about performing the forms makes you feel special. I did not see that in Brad's demonstration.
After the plan was accomplished, to check out Brad's style, a regular class took place. We separated into men's and women's groups. The men might have stood around and talked a little bit. Then we did our practice. With the plan accomplished and the raining weather, we did not practice long. We headed back to Jeff's apartment and everyone eventually drifted off.
At the moment, the time between when Peter joined and when Brad joined was uneventful. I am thinking it was very short. Maybe a month or two only. He was shown the basic forms while the class went along as usual. Nothing really eventful I can recall right now.
Then Brad joined and came to class. Mike had some kind of weird relationship going on with Brad. He talked and acted like he did not respect him. But if he was not putting on a show for someone, Mike seemed to feel some kind of deference or the other to Brad. I know Brad came from a money family. I don't know if that was the source of Mike's attitude or not.
The first thing Mike wanted to do of course was to test Brad. For some reason I have this sense of slyness and deceit associated with the memory. Oh. I recall the reason for the sense of slyness. Because it was sly!
There was going to be a meeting that was a setup. Mike was big on planning things ahead of time to set people up. It was going to be planned to have the Ba Gua students do a demonstration. Then Brad would be asked to demonstrate. He would feel the social pressure and feel obligated to demonstrate. When he did, everyone would have the opportunity to judge him.
The reason I remembered it was a setup was because I did not want to demonstrate. I had practiced Wing Chun. The forms are mostly static and unmoving. They were not really suited to demonstration like the moving and traveling Ba Gua and Tai Chi styles. I had also basically vowed to never do the Wing Chun forms again because they had made me ill. Then I had the stage fright. There was no way I was going to demonstrate anything for anyone. I know myself. I do not make a problem for no reason. I don't want to be cajoled or talked into doing things. If I say I cannot do something, I cannot do it. Period.
It was agreed that Jeff, Lonnie and Cris would do a demonstration. This was something of a rare event because of the attendance of Cris. Cris had been missing quite a few of the classes of late. Being a doctor trainee etc, was his excuse I suppose. No one every made a big deal of him missing classes the way they did when they tried to get rid of me.
Cris was there because the presence of Brad interested him. Or the idea of the setup to test Brad was intriguing. I can say that because after the special event, he went back to missing classes. ;)
The weather was going to be bad for one weekend. It was going to rain for most of the day. It was decided that everyone would go to Jeff's for the class. Even though Jeff had a very small place as I described before, because it was an apartment complex, it had a large covered parking area under which 30 people or more could practice.
The women as well as the men came to class. That meant there were 30 or so people for the meeting. It would appear to be a large and respectable group of people for a new person to meet. Somehow everyone crowded into the apartment. There was some short talking as traditional. Not very long though because of the crowd. We then went out to the covered parking lot.
Mike did some more talking. Then it was "casually" suggested that Jeff do a demonstration. He did some forms and some Ba Gua walking I think. Lonnie then did a demonstration of the Tai Chi form since that was his interest. Then it was Cris's turn to demonstrate.
It was the first time I had ever seen full body power.
One of the purpose's of martial arts is to knit the entire body into one unit. Especially the advanced arts of Ba Gua, Tai Chi and Hsing Yi work towards this goal.
I had read about full body power of course. I had practiced some Tai Chi so I had performed movements that were supposed to be done with full body power. I myself could not do it. I had never really seen anyone that could do it. Because Tai Chi is done slowy, the unity of the body can be hidden or covered up. Once a particular level of body unity is reached, there are few further signs of change. A person just gets stronger and stronger and stronger. All you can see is the same smooth movement of a person with maybe a few years of practice.
I felt lucky to see it. It was one of those moments of epiphany. The light bulb went off over my head and I thought "So that is what full body power is". Instantly. Without a doubt. Total certainty.
The reason it was lucky was because cris was a low level kind of student. He was good and could do the forms very well. His body had not knitted together completelty yet though. He was maybe 90% one unit. What this meant is that parts of his body lagged just a little tiny bit. Not enough to be the broken movement of a learning student. Enough for me to realize what was happening.
I can see him doing the movement right this minute. He was moving sideways with his hands held close to his body. He had made a movement sideways to perform an attack. One leg stepped into the attack and the other leg followed. It was this other following leg that provided my lesson that day.
Even thought the parking lot was concrete, there was a slight covering of rocks on the ground. I think there might have been street surfacing going on. The parking cars brought the rocks into the parking lot with them.
When Cris moved sideways into the attack, his following leg hit the rocks. The caused him to lose his footing just enough to threaten to break the one piece unity of his body. I clearly saw him pull his leg back towards him to regain control of the foot. It was the way the leg pulled the foot back that showed me the full body unity. The rest of his body stayed one piece moving into the attack he was performing. It was only that leg that was pulling the errant foot back into position. It really was a significant event in my life. I had probably read that phrase "full body power" for 5 years in various books or heard the phrase in talking to various people.
After that, for me, Brad's display was anticlimactic. He went out and did some of his forms. Brad had learned Ba Gua from a guy named Adam Hsu I think. That style was totally different from Yin Fu Ba Gua. The Stance in Yin Fu is low to the ground in a crouch. Brad's style was standing up in an almost Tai Chi style stance with the back straight and upright.
I did not think much of it. Maybe because I was biased against Brad. Maybe because I was biased for Mike. Maybe because the Yin Fu was prettier. There really is something unique and proud about Yin Fu style Ba Gua. Something about performing the forms makes you feel special. I did not see that in Brad's demonstration.
After the plan was accomplished, to check out Brad's style, a regular class took place. We separated into men's and women's groups. The men might have stood around and talked a little bit. Then we did our practice. With the plan accomplished and the raining weather, we did not practice long. We headed back to Jeff's apartment and everyone eventually drifted off.
posted by Happeh at 10:10 PM
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