I am not going to tell you. You had better remember it.
We had all learned 8 basic forms as part of the Ba Gua. Each form might consist of 8 or 10 moves at least. In the later forms they become longer and more complex.
Each of the movements of the forms had a name. It is traditional in China to name a kung fu movement in such a way as to provide a clue to the practitioner as to what the movement was supposed to do to their body. One I can think of offhand is "Tiger goes to the Mountain". This would evoke images of strength, images of hard work to go up a large mountain or maybe images of a lithe and supple tiger like body.
Sometimes when the forms were practiced, we would recite the names of the movements aloud. As a beginner, along with Arol and Tim at the time, I was focused on what I was doing physically. Where my feet went and where my arms went. I repeated the names if I could remember them. Or I followed Jeff or Lonnie or Mike when they said the names.
It was very difficult for me to remember all of the names for each form. I felt like I was stupid except that neither Arol nor Tim could remember them either. I do not think the other's, except for maybe Jeff or Lonnie, could remember the names either.
I think this because we sat down one day to write down the names. Then we could go home and study them. Or that was the plan. It turned out that among all of us, no one could remember the names. We could remember a few names for different forms, but no one knew all of the names for all of the forms. Unless, as I suspected, Jeff was lying when he said he did not know.
I felt it was the most natural thing in the world to ask Mike if he would tell us the form names so that we could write them down and study them. He refused. He did not outright say no. That is not his style. He might have given some of the names, then changed the subject.
I was flabbergasted. We are supposed to be here learning kung fu, we are paying for lessons, we are demonstrating our desire to learn by asking him about the names of the kung fu movements. Why would he not tell us the names?
He said or indicated it was because we were supposed to remember them ourselves. It was part of our training as "real kung fu men". If we were real kung fu men, when he told us the names of the form movements, we would never forget them. They would be so precious to us we would never let them get away.
I think he was lying. I think he did not want us writing down all the form names. He and the top students, Jeff and Lonnie, probably knew all the form names. At the time, with Mike being so money oriented, those form names to him were money in the bank. If we wrote them down, we could go show them to somebody or......who knows what crazy thoughts Mike had.
That was another thing that was a negative for me in my attitude towards Mike. I was his student for 3 years. I was devoted, I tried to do as instructed, I remained loyal in the face of everything. Yet he would not even provide a list of all of the form names, nor would he verbally recite them while we had pencil and paper so we could record them. He would only say them if we were practicing.
This might seem like complaining. Unless you are aware of various facts. Ba Gua, or any other internal martial art, directly affects your brain. As you perform the movements, your brain is changed.
We would perform the movements of a form. Mike would recite the names of the movements. By the end of the form, our brains were not the same as they were a few minutes earlier. They were changed. The relevant part is that this process would naturally affect your memory.
You would begin the form with your brain in one certain configuration. Mike would say the name of a movement. You would store that name in your memory. Then the remaining movements of the form were completed. Each of those succeeding movements would reach into your brain and twist and change the area of the brain where you had stored the name of the preceeding movement.
It was almost physically impossible to remember the names of the forms while performing them. Mike knew this. He knew that the brain that he told a form movement's name to at the beginning of the form would be completely changed by the end of the form. He knew that it was very hard to remember or think about anything at all while performing the movements.
Knowing that, then refusing to recite the names while we were setting down with a pencil and paper seemed to be nothing more than him refusing to help us.
That incident irks me even more when I see that now, years later, when I am guessing financial times are not so good, he has released books with these form names in them for any joe blow to buy for $20. We were paying him much more than that every single month and he would not recite the form names for us so we had time to record them, nor would he put them down in printed form and hand them out to us.
Each of the movements of the forms had a name. It is traditional in China to name a kung fu movement in such a way as to provide a clue to the practitioner as to what the movement was supposed to do to their body. One I can think of offhand is "Tiger goes to the Mountain". This would evoke images of strength, images of hard work to go up a large mountain or maybe images of a lithe and supple tiger like body.
Sometimes when the forms were practiced, we would recite the names of the movements aloud. As a beginner, along with Arol and Tim at the time, I was focused on what I was doing physically. Where my feet went and where my arms went. I repeated the names if I could remember them. Or I followed Jeff or Lonnie or Mike when they said the names.
It was very difficult for me to remember all of the names for each form. I felt like I was stupid except that neither Arol nor Tim could remember them either. I do not think the other's, except for maybe Jeff or Lonnie, could remember the names either.
I think this because we sat down one day to write down the names. Then we could go home and study them. Or that was the plan. It turned out that among all of us, no one could remember the names. We could remember a few names for different forms, but no one knew all of the names for all of the forms. Unless, as I suspected, Jeff was lying when he said he did not know.
I felt it was the most natural thing in the world to ask Mike if he would tell us the form names so that we could write them down and study them. He refused. He did not outright say no. That is not his style. He might have given some of the names, then changed the subject.
I was flabbergasted. We are supposed to be here learning kung fu, we are paying for lessons, we are demonstrating our desire to learn by asking him about the names of the kung fu movements. Why would he not tell us the names?
He said or indicated it was because we were supposed to remember them ourselves. It was part of our training as "real kung fu men". If we were real kung fu men, when he told us the names of the form movements, we would never forget them. They would be so precious to us we would never let them get away.
I think he was lying. I think he did not want us writing down all the form names. He and the top students, Jeff and Lonnie, probably knew all the form names. At the time, with Mike being so money oriented, those form names to him were money in the bank. If we wrote them down, we could go show them to somebody or......who knows what crazy thoughts Mike had.
That was another thing that was a negative for me in my attitude towards Mike. I was his student for 3 years. I was devoted, I tried to do as instructed, I remained loyal in the face of everything. Yet he would not even provide a list of all of the form names, nor would he verbally recite them while we had pencil and paper so we could record them. He would only say them if we were practicing.
This might seem like complaining. Unless you are aware of various facts. Ba Gua, or any other internal martial art, directly affects your brain. As you perform the movements, your brain is changed.
We would perform the movements of a form. Mike would recite the names of the movements. By the end of the form, our brains were not the same as they were a few minutes earlier. They were changed. The relevant part is that this process would naturally affect your memory.
You would begin the form with your brain in one certain configuration. Mike would say the name of a movement. You would store that name in your memory. Then the remaining movements of the form were completed. Each of those succeeding movements would reach into your brain and twist and change the area of the brain where you had stored the name of the preceeding movement.
It was almost physically impossible to remember the names of the forms while performing them. Mike knew this. He knew that the brain that he told a form movement's name to at the beginning of the form would be completely changed by the end of the form. He knew that it was very hard to remember or think about anything at all while performing the movements.
Knowing that, then refusing to recite the names while we were setting down with a pencil and paper seemed to be nothing more than him refusing to help us.
That incident irks me even more when I see that now, years later, when I am guessing financial times are not so good, he has released books with these form names in them for any joe blow to buy for $20. We were paying him much more than that every single month and he would not recite the form names for us so we had time to record them, nor would he put them down in printed form and hand them out to us.
posted by Happeh at 7:54 PM
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