The kung fu brother videos

One day we are over at Jeff's place for a meeting of something or the other. I wonder if it was a regular Sunday class that was held at Jeff's while the women went off to pursue something else because Mike was at the meeting. Mike never attended any of the men's meetings, so his presence at Jeff's house had to be due to some other event.

The meeting or whatever it was had ended and the group was gathering up things in preparation to leave. At some point in time, Mike and I were left alone in the living room. This was a notable event. Mike and I just were never alone together. As I have said before, I preferred to keep my mouth shut and keep a low profile. Looking back, I think that Mike was probably trying to avoid me most of the time. Between those two attitudes, we were never alone. There was always someone else around to act as a buffer or a diversion.

For that reason, I was on my guard. If Mike and I were alone, he was doing it for a purpose because Mike never did anything by accident. He made certain we were never alone usually, so if we were alone now, something was going to happen.

Mike began telling me about videos that his kung fu brother had created. These videos demonstrated various things that Mike had been teaching in class. Mike said he thought it would be a good idea for me to get them.

Then he takes on a conspiratorial tone and says "They show too much". When he did that, I had this feeling like I should grab the tapes and forget Mike. I could take the tapes and learn from them because they showed more than Mike did.

It was Mike making me feel that way. This was another one of his attempts to get me to leave the group. He told me about the tapes, the mentally, emotionally and energetically manipulated me to think I should grab the tapes and leave Mike.

For long time readers of this blog, you will recognize this must be the 4th or 5th time I have described an incident where it looked like Mike was trying to get rid of me. Even me, being as dense as I was, mind clouded by ideas of loyalty and devotion, could no longer deny that it really looked like Mike wanted me to leave the group.

At that point in time, I became convinced it was all a test. Mike was purposefully being troublesome, purposefully ignoring me, and purposefully pushing me away to test my resolve and loyalty.

Was I the kind of person who, if I got mad at Mike one day, would walk away? Showing that all my protestations of loyalty and desire for Ba Gua were false? Or would I shrug off annoyances and remain loyal?

To my way of thinking at the time, this tape episode was another test. Not only was Mike verbally telling me that this tape offered me more than he did, he actually tried to push me so I would walk away.

If I was only sort of loyal, only a little bit loyal, then his push, his mental manipulation, would have broken the very small loyalty that I had. On the other hand, if I resisted his verbal manipulation, his mental manipulation, his emotional manipulation and his energetic manipulation of me, then that proved that I was loyal to the core. It proved that even in the face of strong provocation, I would remain loyal to both Mike and Ba Gua.

That did not stop me from buying the tapes. ;)

At the time, I did not have such a clear idea of what was happening as I described above. At the time I was susceptible to Mike's manipulation. He advised me to get the tapes so I got the tapes.

But I never watched them. For me that was part of the test. I went ahead and got the tapes as Mike instructed, but because I was loyal to Mike and I trusted him to properly instruct me, there was no need for me to view the tapes. That was part of the test. Would I watch the tapes and start asking Mike about the stuff in them? Or would I continue to trust Mike to watch my progress and tell me what I needed to know when I needed to know it.

Would you believe I never did watch those tapes until almost 10 years later? Yes I still have them Mike. ;) And they are very good tapes as you described. Your kung fu brother did show quite a bit of the system. Enough that a person driven to learn kung fu could perhaps learn some of it on their own.

I am shaking my head over this post and smiling. That poor Mike really wanted to get rid of me. But because I saw so many movies about the master testing the loyalty of the disciple, every time he tried to drive me away, I clung even tighter because I thought it was a test. ;)