I am feeding you

Here we are at the office again for the weekly meeting. I settle in and make myself comfortable. The usual small talk ensues.

Then Mike says, "Why do you think we have the Sunday talks before practice?". I thought that was an odd question. It put me immediately on my guard. Mike gave a talk before every class. It would last anywhere up to an hour depending on what was going on. The talk would be about Ba Gua or about what the plans were for the group or about things relating to individuals in the group. He knew that. I knew that. What was his motivation for asking such an obvious question?

I responded what I said above. That I thought it was Mike giving us instructions about Ba Gua or about other things pertinent to learning Ba Gua or the goals of the group.

Mike looks at me and say "I am feeding you".

I felt like I immediatly went hazy. I was filled with anger and rejection. At the time, I was very big on independence. I would never put myself in a position where I would be indebted to someone. I would never take something from a person that I could not return.

At the time my focus was also on making myself a strong and independent person. The health problems I had from Wing Chun had forced me to seek out doctors and other people to help remedy the problems. I did not like that even though a doctors job is to help people. They are supposed to freely and willingly perform this job. As a person with a health problem, it would be normal and expected for me to seek out a doctor.

I resented this. I resented my health problems for forcing me to ask others for assistance. When Mike said "I am feeding you", it felt like there was an unspoken "and you owe me" behind it.

I did not understand what Mike meant when he said he was feeding us. He did not say "OK. On sunday, this is what I am going to do. Is that OK with you? Do you have a problem with that?".

I almost felt like I kicked out at him because my rejection was so strong. That is not an idle observation. Once you begin to understand about energy, you will understand that Mike literally saw me kick out with rejection.

That is important because it shows my honesty. If I was being dishonest and trying to take from Mike, when he made his statement, I might have calmly and verbally denied it. I was a dishonest person so I could continue to be dishonest and make up lies.

When I literally kicked out in rejection at his statement, he knew without a doubt that I either did not know what he was talking about, or that I honestly in my heart was angry at the suggestion that I was somehow taking something from him.


After the emotion got out of the way, what really bothered me was the fact that I was beholden to Mike. If Mike was feeding us energy on Sundays, and that was the reason that we wanted to attend class. Not because we wanted to learn Ba Gua, his actions made no sense.

Mike was secretive about everything. Even though he talked every Sunday, he never really said anything about energy or how it works or how to gain it or anything. Most of the talking was about character or some of the other things previously mentioned.

To me, if Mike was unhappy that people came to him for energy, why didn't he teach them to make their own energy so they would not need to go to him? It seems so obvious. It is the thing I wanted.

I wanted to be independent and not need the help of doctors anymore. Mike seemed to be telling me that I was at Sunday class because I wanted him to feed me energy. I didn't consciously know I was doing that nor did I want to do that. I wanted Mike to teach me how to make energy so I could regain my health and become an independent person.

The rest of the meeting was mostly ruined after that. I was so angry and emotional and resentful I don't think I heard a another word.

Himmler

I am at another one of the early office visits. We have settled in while exchanging small talk and pleasantries.

I have described how during the regular weekly lessons Mike would talk to us for an hour or so. I would write down just about everything he said. I thought I was being diligent at the time. I didn't know I was compulsively writing things down as part of my health problems.

At the office, Mike says something about the fact that I write everything down. I tell him yes I do. I was proud of the fact that I was diligent. I felt it demonstrated my sincerity in learning. While we were in the weekend circles, I would look around and see people who to me seemed to have drifted off into never never land. They were day dreaming about something or the other. I felt my diligence in recording what Mike said demonstrated I was more sincere in learning than these other people.

Mike looks at me and says "You know that Himmler was always writing things down don't you?.

I was totally astounded. I could not believe Mike had said what he just did. If you do not know, Himmler was a Nazi in WWII who was close to Hitler. He was charged with responsibility for many bad things. His personality was also trashed thoroughly. Acccusing him of this and that psychological problems etc.

What Mike had just done was indirectly accuse me of being like a Nazi war criminal. I was utterly speechless. Here is this man who is supposed to be helping me. Disregarding his obligations to me, he was a doctor. How could any doctor justify telling a person with a health problem that they were similar to a Nazi war criminal?

I was dumbfounded. Mike decided I was stupid. He had a habit of doing that. It was funny in a way. Mike always told us to be quiet and listen. I was quiet and never said anything. Then he decided my silence was a result of stupidty, instead of reaction to his recommendations.

Mike looks at me and says "You know who Himmler was right?"

I looked at him and said "Yes I know who Himmler is". What could I do? Shout at him for daring to make such an accusation? Make sarcastic comments about him? Deride his abilities as a health professional?

No matter how I reacted, I would look bad. There would be negative energy between us. Any way that I denied what Mike said, Mike could turn it around and say that I was disobeying him or being disrespectful. He could then use that as a lever to try to push me away. That is how he works.

The only thing I could do was sit there and not say a word. I could not ask Mike why he was so uncomfortable with me writing while he was speaking? I could hardly ask Master Mike if I made him nervous by writing down what he said. I could not remark that nervous people usually struck out at the people who made them nervous.

I had to sit there and simmer. It really made me physically sick when he said that. It was one of the first times I realized that Mike did not know me at all. That he assumed I was stupid or uneducated. That kind of sick where your heart and your stomach hurt.

At that point in time I still believed what Mike said instead of what he did. In the group meetings, he spoke about family style, loyalty, integrity, dignity, rigtheousness and many other positive and admirable ideas. That is what I heard and I believed it in my heart.

So when Mike made comments like this Himmler comment, which in retrospect looks like another attempt to anger me and drive me away, I was incapable of seeing it for what it was. I was not stupid. It was impossible for this man who publically said his system was about family style and loyalty to be making cutting, sarcastic or hurtful remarks to try to drive a family member away. It went against everything he said he stood for.

Mom

Here I am at one of the office visits again. It is one of the first few visits. At this time my health problems are still causing me lots of trouble. I am still desperate to find some kind of relief. I am willing to do just about anything or put up with just about anything.

I also had a stars in my eyes kind of attitude towards kung fu. I had watched lots of kung fu films and I had a strong affinity for the "student obeying the master" kind of idea. I had a tendency towards doing just about anything I was told to do or asked to do because I myself felt it was the right thing to do.

Mike wants to know something about my background. My relationship with my parents, do I have any siblings, what are my relationships with them, etc. I didn't like that kind of stuff because it felt like cut and dried psychiatrist talk out of a college book.

I thought psychology was baloney as I have stated before. I had no urge to visit a psychologist or ask one for help. Dealing with these questions was a situation where I, the student, did what the master, Mike, asked my too. I thought it was stupid.

I tell Mike that I didn't get along too well with my Mom. Mike tells me I need to call her up and tell her I care about her. I am thinking "Oh jeez. This is so trite. I cannot believe I am here for Chi Gung sickness and mike is telling me to tell my mother that I love her".

I really thought it was stupid. It even find it embarrassing to discuss because the situation shows my poor judgement. I knew the suggestion was psychological claptrap. I knew that it would have no affect on my physical ailments. I would still have anxiety and heart trouble, trouble breathing and being around people. I would still be incredibly tense all the time and never comfortable.

Nevertheless, I said I would do it. I go home and make the phone call. It is an out of the blue call to my mother. I am sort of emotional when I say it because I felt that is what Mike wanted. He was acting like some big emotional catharsis would magically make my physcial symptoms go away.

I am sorry to report that it didn't. I called mom. Told her I loved her. The next day I still had the physical symptoms of Chi Gung sickness. I still had them the next week and at the end of the month.

I felt really stupid. I didn't get along so well with my mother. I did not really want to make that phone call but I did on Mike's advice.

Now, looking back at it, I can see Mike was just passing on something he learned in a book. He did not honestly believe it would make any difference in my health. It was just something he could tell me to do so it looked like he was doing something for me.


I will say something from Mike's perspective. Since it is probably him forcing me to do it. ;)

Mike believes that emotions strongly impact the body. I believe that also. He might have told me to tell my mother I loved her from the point of view of removing an emotional blockage or obstruction.

His thinking might have been that once the feelings involved between myself and my mother were removed, then my health problems would resolve themselves. His attitude may have been that the health problems were caused by or exacerbated by the emotional blockage caused by my negative feelings toward my mother.

I understand what Mike was thinking if that was his point of view. I can understand that what he recommended might help some people in some situations. Removal of an emotional blockage can help relieve a physical health problem.

That approach would not work for me because that was not the source of my problems. The source of my problems was incorrect practice of kung fu, chi gung and breathing exercises. I needed some kind of physical relief for my physical symptoms.

I am not a personal trainer

The psychological appointments were turning out just as I expected. I am not certain of the time frame of this one, but it connects perfectly with the previous blog entry about "what makes a teacher a teacher".

I go to the office and we settle in for the visit. There is small talk of this and that. Nothing substantial. During these visits, I took the tack of remaining as silent as possible. A psychologist works by getting you to talk, then dismantling the thoughts behind your words. Because Mike was a martial artist, he was a master at this.

I knew that if I said a word, Mike would find some way to use it against me. The less I said, the fewer weapons he would have to use against me. Basically what Mike and other psychologists do is take over control of your body. They use the methods they have learned to destroy the person you are. How you think of yourself etc. Then they insert their own views of what it good.

The only way to deal with a martial artist or a psychologist is to refuse to speak. You will find this defense mechanism throughout Asia. People will refuse to speak on the most innocuous things because anything can be used as a weapon against them.

Anytime you meet a person who refuses to talk about anything, even simple things, they are probably motivated by this kind of reasoning. Refusing to give out personal information so they can avoid being mentally attacked.


Of course this made things kind of uncomfortable. Mike knew I viewed him in an adversarial way. He understood I did not trust psycholgists and did not really understand why I needed to be there in order to learn Ba Gua or to regain my health. During the initial visits, most of the time was spent with Mike talking and me sitting there nodding my head.

It was not too bad. It is natural for a student to sit and listen while the instructor speaks. The student is not supposed to interrupt and speak out. I felt comfortable with my role of not speaking. I did not feel malicious or troublemaking.


I am sitting there feeling like things are OK. Listening to whatever it was Mike was saying. Then like a voice from the heavens that seemed to come from nowhere, I hear

I AM NOT A PERSON TRAINER!

I looked at Mike like, "What the heck was that". He didn't say anything more. It was more of the psychological games. Say something to see how I reacted.

I didn't understand what was going on. That thought seemed to come out of nowhere. It had the power of some kind o prophetic announcement. I felt like something very important had just been said.

I also felt like it was a trap. I didn't know what Mike meant by "a personal trainer". There was no doubt that he was sneering at them. Whatever it was he meant by personal trainer, it was bad. What could I say? I knew in my heart that if I said the wrong thing, something very very bad was going to happen.

So I kept my mouth shut and said nothing. If Mike wanted to further explain himself, then he could. We both sat there looking at each other saying nothing. Apparently I won because Mike eventually began speaking again about something else.


Looking back on that situation? I just dodged a bullet again. I think that was another attempt by Mike to get rid of me.

By saying he was not a person trainer, it would be natural for me to say "What do you mean Mike?". Mike could then say "Having to tell someone the same thing twice is what a personal trainer does. You have to be told things twice. I am not a personal trainer".

The way that the changes that make a person a superior person work, if Mike had said those words above to me, I would almost have had no choice but to leave. If I was a good person, and Mike told me he had to tell me things twice, and Mike never told things people twice, I would be a bad person if I forced Mike to keep me as a student.

Isn't that crazy? That is how psychologists and martial artists work.

About the only escape route available from that situation was to keep my mouth shut. Me, the unhealthy guy with not very good martial arts training did the only thing that could possibly defend me in that situation. Keeping my mouth shut.

It worked. When I did not fall into the trap, Mike was forced to move on in the conversation.

Mike did score a hit on me that day though. Before I had wondered if he was trying to get rid of me. After that day, I felt certain that Mike was looking for an excuse to ask me to go. Because I was still unhealthy, and because I knew without a doubt that Mike could cure me if he could only be bothered to, I resolved to never say another word if I could get away with it. I would never give Mike a handle with which he could grab me and try to get me to leave.

Was that bad of me? I was a sick person who was desperate. I honestly felt like I was close to death. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Mike could cure me if he wanted to.

Would you voluntarily walk away knowing you might end up dead if this man did not cure you first? Would you be willing to put up with rudeness or being ignored if you thought that in the end you would be paid off and your health problem would be cured?

I obviously thought it was. No way was I going to voluntarily leave. Especially after paying fees for a year or more. By that time I felt like I was owed being cured since I had being paying for so long. I was not going to leave until I recieved what I paid for.

James is wide open

When is a teacher a not a teacher? What makes a teacher a teacher? I was raised with the attitude that a teacher is somebody who tells you how to do things right. They watch you can guide you. They correct you as necessary. If there were problem students in a class, the teacher was supposed to help that problem student repeatedly, even if they had already helped them once.

One of the things about experiencing life is realizing that people can have totally different ideas about life for very good reasons. It is easy to grow up thinking that if someone has a different opinion or attitude towards something, it is for a not very good reason. They are not smart, they are emotional....something like that.

Perhaps it is a cultural attitude I have. As a citizen of the USA I have been raised with the "White technological man knows best" kind of attitude.


The questions are necessary background for this story about James.

As you may recall, James was a british man who was tall. About 6 feet 2 inches or so. He was thin and lanky with a mop of curly hair on top. James was a character. In my experience, Europeans seem to raise boys into men while Americans raise boys into larger boys. There was no doubt James was an independent man.

I wrote earlier about how James has the reputation as the trouble maker in the class. He never really made trouble. It was just that in a group of people who thought of themselves as something like Churchgoers, anyone who did something as innocuous as stepping on the wrong blade of grass was a troublemaker.

James actually questioned Mike. I think James did that because James was a European adult instead of a large American child like the other men. It was always entertaining when this happened because many of the times I agreed with James. I would never speak out on my own because I did not want to become a target for comments about whether or not I belonged.

I always wondered how Mike felt about this. The way that Mike thinks, James was challenging him. James was challenging what was being said. In a way, every conversation in which two people have a difference of opinion is a challenge.

Mike took this as a challenge to his authority. It was kind of like watching a balloon blow up. James would ask his question. Mike would calmly handle it. James would follow up. Mike would deal with that too. James would, quite naturally in my opinion, push his own position. As he did, Mike would slowly start to blow up. He literally looked like he was getting larger.

When I say he was getting larger, I do not mean he doubled in size or something large like that. I mean that his body posture began to open outwards. What was happening was that his reaction to James question was causing Mike to lose his ground. As Mike lost his ground, he began to float upwards. He looked like he was getting bigger and floating away.

At this point Mike would cut James off. And I mean cut him off. The kind of cut off where, no matter what the words were coming out of the mouth, the intent behind it was that of a dog barking "You better shut the hell up".

I always wondered if Mike carried this with him. A low level rejection or dislike of James because James challenged him. It would be a natural thing to do. As a teacher accepting money from a student, he should disregard that kind of feeling. Or he should tell the student he can no longer deal with him because he is angry at him.


I wondered if Mike carried the bad feelings around with him because in my judgement, Mike purposefully allowed James to practice incorrectly. Mike would purposefully not tell James something or answer a question James might have. I thought to myself that those actions must be motivated by Mike having a negative attitude towards James.

Then one day an event occurred that crystallized all of those thoughts. James was sparring with someone. I think it was Brad. James had a lot of previous experience in martial arts. Being raised as an adult European Man, he also had some quality that made him more serious than the large American kids.

I think James had sadistic tendencies. He wanted to hurt people. Or maybe he really wanted to test himmself against people. A person who really wants to fight will seem like a bully to a class of people who say they want to fight, but are really only doing things as a hobby or a status symbol.

I could tell that James wanted someone to challenge him so he could satisfy the urge he had to hit someone very hard. He had a tendency to provoke.

James is sparring with Brad or whoever and Mike is watching. No one trusted James so he was always watched in case he got out of control and started hurting someone. The sparring began to get a little heated and James, for lack of a better word, expanded. His chest began to stick out, his legs got wide, his arms also were spread wide out. This is a natural kind of reaction to fighting.

In Yin Fu Ba Gua, the stance is very low. A person crouches down so that they look like they are almost sitting in a chair. They are supposed to move, attack and defend from this low crouching position.

James was a student when I joined. He had been learning Ba Gua already. This sparring session was taking place maybe a year after I joined. Here is James sparring and he is standing almost straight up with his arms and legs wide open. It literally looked like there were wide open doors under his arms and between his legs.

I was stunned! How could this man who had been training Ba Gua for so long look so bad? James looked like he could fight and take care of himself. He also looked like he had never taken a Ba Gua lesson in his life.

I clearly remember thinking in that wide open naive way of mine "Jesus! He is wide open!". Then of course, after Mike heard me, he tells James verbally, "You are wide open". It was kind of funny because Mike's voice had the disbelieving nuanced tone of my thoughts. ;) My disbelief was so strong he couldn't help himself.

James continued right on with what he was doing. He stayed standing up with his arms and legs spread. After Mike's comment about being open, which I think he only said because he was forced to by my thoughts, he never said another word.

This is where the questions beginnig this column come into play. Mike, as a teacher, told James his stance was incorrect. He told James that he was wide open. After that though, he never said another word to James.

It is valid for a teacher to tell a person something one time, then walk away from them? If a teacher in a public school helped a child only one time, then walked away because the teacher felt their job was done, I think the teacher would be fired.

On a person note, how could someone say they had a student / teacher relationship when their obligation to the student only extened as far as one sentence of correction? To me that seems that act of a person who does not really care if the student progresses or not.

To be fair to Mike, I need to say that James had a stubborn streak. If Mike corrected him, sometimes James would not listen out of nothing but resistance. Maybe after all that time, Mike had just given up on James. I still think that is wrong in my personal opinion. If you give up on someone, how can you say that you care about them? Ba Gua was family style. Would Mike just give up on his own son or daughter?


There is one other aspect of this situation that needs to be addressed. When a person changs through the practice of religion or martial arts or for some other reason, they can change so that they do not want to push people. Pushing a person can be something as innocent as telling James 5 times that he is standing up straight.

When a person has gone through these changes, the feel physically bad if they push themselves no other people. It is not a mental thing. The people truly feel physical discomfort.

When Mike tells James the first time that he is standing up, Mike feels like he is helping James. If James does not change, then Mike must tell him again. The act of telling James again can feel like Mike is forcing himself on James. Mike told James once. Perhaps James did not respond because he did not want to respond. If Mike repeats himself, he is forcing James to do something against his will. The changes that someone like Mike has gone through make this a physically uncomfortable situation.

Instead of Mike not performing his responsibilities and forcing James to perform his Ba Gua correctly, Mike feels like he is doing the right thing by not forcing another person to do something against their will.


That is all good for Mike. He is following what his body is telling him and he remains healthy as a result. It is not so good for James or any other student. After over one year of Ba Gua, James was not getting it. Why is he paying Mike to teach him?

In my opinion, Mike should have walked over and specifically shown James exactly what he was doing and how it was wrong. He should have shown him the proper way to do it. He should have been relaxed enough to converse with James about why one way was rigth and the other was not right.


I would bet $10 that if I met James today and he performed his Ba Gua, it would look just as incorrect as it did back then. Mike was never forceful enough with James about how wrong he was so James felt there was no real reason to change.

The First Office Visit

So I am ready to make the seemingly big step of going to see Mike at his office. I wasn't too thrilled about it actually. I mentioned how the money was a hardship for me. I wondered what was going to happen privately that could not be done in the weekend meetings.

I also do not like Psychologists. I think most psychologists are evil. They purposefully manipulate people for their own purposes. Psychologists also have a propensity for making anything look bad. They can make donating money to a church look bad.

When I was young, I was sent to a child psychologist. He was a big fat disgusting man who looked like a sex pervert. He asked me to draw a man and a woman as part of some obscure psychology test or the other. I did as he asked.

I return the following week and the man says "I want to talk to you about your picture". He says "I noticed you draw the woman's groin as a V shape, while you drew the man's groin with a rounded bulge in it". What did I tell you? Sex pervert.

At school I was enrolled in art class. The art teacher told us "Men do not have a V in the groin. Wink Wink." We all knew what she meant. She could not talk or she would get in trouble. She taught us to draw women with V groins and men with a U shaped bulge in the groin. If we did not draw it that way, we were marked down.

I explained this to the psychologist. His reaction? He says "I would like to talk to that teacher to see what is going on with her". There was nothing going on with her. She was teaching us to draw visually correct human figures. It was that sick in the head sex pervert psychologist that saw the world through his sex obsession. Something he was taught as part of being a psychologist.

I head over to Mike's office. It is the same place where I went to be interviewed. It was on the second story of a small office building. There were separate entrances to the upper floor. There was a small winding staircase that led up to an equally miniscule lobby. There was room for maybe 3 or 4 chairs and a table in the lobby.

Directly off of the lobby was the door to Mike's office. There was also a short hallway that led back to another office and some bathrooms. The room was dark and stuffy. There was little ventilation. Most of the light came from a small window in the stairwell.

I sat down in one of the chairs. I noticed that there were shoes in front of Mike's door. That was interesting to me because it is a Japanese tradition to take off one's shoes before entering a house or some other special place.

At that time in my life I was obsessed with just about everything Asian in my quest for Kung Fu. I was mostly interested in Japan at that time because that was what was available to me. I had read mostly about Japanese Karate or NinJutsu. I had also been exposed to Korean Tae Kwon Do. That did not appeal to me so much.

The city I lived in had a Japan Town with a Japan Shopping Center. They rented Japanese movies at some stores. There were many Japanese restaurants and small curio and knick knack stores. There was also a huge bookstore. Japanese people are known for being voracious readers. There was also a movie theater that showed Japanese films. I spent a lot of time at the shopping center at the various places soaking up Japanese culture.

When I saw the shoes in front of the door of Mike's office, I felt pleased. He was doing something that was similar to the practices of a culture that I admired.

Eventually the door opened and Mike stuck his head out. He was with someone and would be out shortly he informed me. I sat there for awhile until the other person was done and they left. Then Mike invited me in after having me leave my shoes at the door.

The time was early morning or afternoon. The room was smallish with 4 or 5 large windows on one wall. The office was nice because the view out the window was of a small shopping area with trees and mountains in the background. I remember thinking how beautiful it was with the sun blazing in the windows and the trees outside. The area was a cool area so the sun made the room comfortably warm and cozy instead of baking it so that it was too hot.

There was one wall full of Chinese herbs for Mikes Chinese medicine practice. There was a fold up table on the far side of the room by the door for acupuncture treatment. Opposite the windows and next to the Chinese herbs was a small desk. There was only one chair for the desk.

Mike invited me to sit down. Apparently everyone sat on the floor. At the time this was another one of the things I found pleasing. It is also a Japanese custom to sit on the floor. This will help your health tremoundously over the years. Sitting down on the floor can seem like a nothing kind of thing to do. If you sit on the floor, you have to work harder to get up into a standing position than you do if you are in a chair. If you do this multiple times a day over decades of your life, the cumulative effects are just like exercise. You will become strong in a way that you never expected.

I was nervous and tense. I didn't like psychologists. I didn't know why I had to see Mike privately. At that time, a year or so after joining the Ba Gua class, I still had the majority of the symptoms of illness I had when I joined the class to get relief. Honestly my physical condition had hardly changed at all.

Part of those problems was the difficulty in being in close proximity to people with strong energy. My Wing Chun training had caused me to develop something like a proximity sensor to people with strong energy. When I got close to people with strong energy, I would get tense, it would be hard for me to breathe, I would get heart pressure that made me want to move. I sometimes would also get very angry as if I was an animal that was being threatened.

I had to try to control all of that in Mike's 10 X 20 foot closet like office with him setting 3 feet away from me looking me right in the face. I feel kind of stupid saying all of that. It seems like making a big deal out of nothing. It is hard to explain to someone how it feels when you can sense energy and you are around people with strong energy. It is not something you can ignore like a person's voice. You have no choice but to pay attention to the feelings. That is if you want to develop the ability. I could have shut off what I felt from Mike. That would have eventually affected my ability to sense energy negatively. I would be training myself to ignore my natural feelings.

I cannot tell you what was said in that first meeting it was so long ago. Mostly small talk trying to make me feel at ease. For both of us to become comfortable with each other in the small setting. I think Mike might have asked me to again detail my martial arts experience. That would be a psychological thing to make me feel comfortable. Talking about myself, plus talking about something I was familiar with.

The meetings were for an hour. I recall Mike smiling a lot and trying to be light or humorous. If you know about energy, I was a very heavy and dark kind of person. My presence literally pulled people down. They would feel like something inside of thenm was moving towards the ground.

Mike's small talk, smiling and humor were all attempts to dispel this natural tendency I had. I didn't realize it at the time, but I can see now that even those simple acts were designed to alleviate my condition. Part of my health problems was that I always had that downward feeling about me. His trying to bring me up or lighten me would counteract that natural tendency.

Theses are not mental or psychological terms. These terms apply to energy or the physical body. It is possible for one human being to make another human being feel various sensations without physically touching them. When people were around me then, they would literally feel physically that they wanted to move downwards. It was the my energy that made their physical body want to move down.

One thing that stuck with me from that first meeting was the end. After the visit was over, I needed to pay Mike. I reached out to give him the money and he motioned over to the chair. I did not understand what he was doing so I said "This is your money for the office visit". He refused to take it. He wanted me to put it on the chair.

It was more psychological manipulation. If you give money to someone, you feel like you should receive something in return. If Mike never physically took the money in your sight, mentally you could not honestly tell yourself that he took your money. If you were unsatistfied about something, it was hard to become angry or unhappy because of that slight small detail that you never actually gave HIM the money.

Mike took the money. He spent it or cashed the check. But he never took it from you. He took the money from the third party of the chair. It seems foolish that a psychological manipulation like this would work but it does.

Mike also had this policy because of energy. Human beings have energy and they can infuse inanimate objects with their energy. If a person was in Mike's office and they had bad feelings for some reason, they would infuse the money with their bad energy. When they handed the money to Mike, they would actually be handing him bad energy.

By putting the money on the chair, the person could not give their bad energy to Mike directly. After the person was gone, Mike could perform some ritual that would remove the bad energy from the money.

It really doesn't matter if you believe in some kind of actual energy being passed from people to other people. It is true, but if you do not want to believe that, you can. Even if there is no physical energy being passed around, what matters is that people and situation behave as if that is what is happening.

Even if there is no real physical bad energy on the money, Mike would psychologically feel like there was. His belief would affect his body and his health. Even if the ritual causes no physical change in Mike or the money, Mike feels or believes that he has cleansed the money. His mental and physical health will be fine regardless of whether it is real energy being changed or if it is just his mental beliefs and convictions that are being changed.

Don't let that make you forget. Human beings do have energy and they can pass it to other human beings or inanimate objects. Whether you want to believe it or not.

Big Time Manipulation kicks in

We had reached the point where Chris had disappeared and Brad had joined the class and been in attendence for some time. The bad behavior of Brad has been discussed. My dismay at his being asked to join has been discussed.

All of this time Brad had his tongue so far up Mike's butt that he must have been tickling Mike's heart. I am completley serious. That Brad could lie and bullshit anyone for hours. I wonder if that is why Mike asked him to join. He saw a fellow soul. They both had the same talent for bullshitting people for hours.

This really annoyed me. I detailed how Mike and the group had discussed Brad's failings before he was even invited to join. Then he joined and acted just as badly as everyone said he would. In spite of that, there he was, tonuge up Mike's butt, Mike grinning like it was the best feeling in the world.

I got jealous. Very very jealous.

I had been a student for a year. I had done everything Mike asked of me. I had listened to everything he had to say. I wrote down his every word. I could have qualified as his secretary because of all the stuff he said that I wrote down.

After I did all that, Mike would actively try to avoid me. We never made small talk or really had anything to do with each other. On my part it was because of the physical problems I had dealing with his energy that I have described before. I still feel like he should have tried to reach out to me more.

To watch him grinning as Brad stroked his anus made me furious. Mike used this against me to lay a trap.

I was watching Brad furiously tonguing Mike's butt. I was mad. Really mad. I felt it was so wrong that Mike would give Brad 30 minutes of his time for butt cleaning, and would not give me the time of day for instruction that I was paying for.

Mike read my mind. Or maybe he read my body language or even facial expression. I am certain there was a big sign over my head that said "I am so jealous I am turning purple".

Right about this time Brad walked away to go get a drink of water. I am guessing the taste of Mike's shit in his mouth was getting strong. Brad was....100 yards or more away at least. A long ways. Mike looked right at me. Or more likely he grabbed my attention. He practically ran after Brad yelling "Brad, Brad" like a love sick guy going after his girl.

That was it. I blew a fuse. I could see Mike chasing this scumbag Brad down to teach him. Here I was, a year long student and Mike basically completely ignored me. I swore to myself there was no way I was going to let that happen.

I waited until after class and went to speak to Mike. I asked him about the psychologist appointments he made with people. I think I talked about this before. Mike would see us on the weekend for physical instruction. Then during the week, people would go to his psychiatrist office to visit.

I didn't know why they went to the office to visit. I just know that everyone besides me seemed to go. I couldn't go because I was broke. All of the students were upper class yuppies. Who else could make Mike a millionaire? They could and did pay Mike anything he asked.

It was kind of funny. He would force the older students to pay more for the exact same class that everyone else took. He told them to their face it was a test of loyalty. I think it was to accelerate the rate at which his bank account was growing.

I was so jealous of Brad and Mike's relationship that I resolved to go, no matter what it took. If I only went one week out of 4 in the month, that is what I would do. There was no way I was going to idly stand by while Mike gave his teaching to some evil, lying user scumbag, when I was exactly the student Mike said he wanted. Honest, dedicated, helpful, moral, and with integrity.

Mike agreed to set up a meeting with me. He told me to call him up so he could look at his calender and make an appointment with him. I said yes of course. I was thinking to myself I would do anything to be treated as a real student. To feel like Mike was interested in my progress the way he doted and fawned over Brad.

I did exactly what it was that Mike had set me up to do. Signed up for office visit's at $70 a week. Not bad for talking to a person you see every weekend, is it?

Wow! This is a surprise

I still enjoy watching martial arts movies and looking into things related to martial arts. I was looking at some kung fu tapes the other day. There was a whole section of Shaolin tapes. It looks like there is some corporation pushing Shaolin or something. They had a whole lineup of nice looking videos.

Anyways, I cam across one called "Ba Dua Jin". I was shocked to discover that the tape showed what appeared to be one of the sets of exercises that Mike taught us. The warmups we did every week before class.

Honestly? I cannot recall of Mike said "These are special Ba Gua only exercises that you are learning from me, the Ba Gua master". I cannot swear to that.

I know that I had the impression they were Ba Gua exercises. Something he had learned from Gong Bao Zhai.

It added to the sense of disillusionment that has been growing within me as I write this book. The more and more I critically examine the class and what occurred there, the more and more it appears to be a bunch of baloney for a young man to make a million dollars before he is 40.

He was never shy about that. He always told us he wanted to be a young millionaire. I don't know if any of us thought it was on our backs, our montly tuition an personal visits. He didn't come right out and say that.


This fits right in with something else we were taught. At some point in time Mike taught us some long pole exercises. Again, I do not recall him saying "these are Ba Gua exercises". I just assumed it since he was teaching us Ba Gua.

Honestly I don't really care if the staff was Ba Gua or not. It was a lot of fun to practice it. I enjoyed that immensely. What bugs me is that if I knew it was some ordinary Shaolin or other style form that was common, I could have gone and bought a video tape to help me practice.

Mike was a real hard case about teaching things. It was part of maintaining his dominance over us. He would teach us something once or twice and then refuse to talk about it. His point was that it was teaching us to think. I understand that and I agree with it.

I also think he refused to talk because he purposefully was not teaching. He showed us the form to give us something to do so we would feel like we were progressing and would still be willing to continue paying monthly fees. If he talked to us about how the form was properly done, soon he would have to come up with something else new to teach us.

By telling us it was for our own good to figure it out ourselves, we might be satisfied for another year of monthly payments.

It really hurts to speak and think like this. Really. I can feel it in my heart and stomach. A literal physical pain. I.....loved is too strong a word. Respect doesn't seem strong enough.

I was totally committed to the ideals that Mike spoke about in class. Helping the world to be a better place. He said that was what he wanted so I felt that same total commitment to him.

To realize now that he was playing people to become a millionaire off of their monthly payments.......It hurts not only because I feel taken advantage of, but because the dirtiness of his actions spreads to the act of helping the world.

He contaminated the goodness of the idea of helping the world with his crass misuse of the idea in order to obtain money.

Score: Mike 1 Happeh 0

As you can see, Mike has been winning the battle of wills. That is what happens when someone can erase your memories and insert thoughts into your head. Or take control of you against your will.

He will get bored soon. He cannot watch me forever. Hang tight and this story will start right back up.