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.
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.
posted by Happeh at 10:24 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home