Yesterday, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Probably because I had to get up early for the demo of my teacher’s teacher. The demo was at 11:30 a.m. and that’s when I usually get up or am feeding my cat while doing my morning routine.
Side note: My cat has gotten very picky about food since he was sick in November of 2022. I tihnk his sense of smell has been blunted because when he actually starts eating, he’ll eat plenty. Or rather, he will eat about a fourth of a small can and then suddenly stop. Unless he really likes the food (and this differs every day), then he’ll eat half. Once in a great while, he’ll eat close to the whole thing. That’s very rare, though. By the end of the meal (which can be up to forty-five minutes later), we may have gone through as many as 6 cans of food (not necessarily new ones).
I can almost consistently get him to eat some of some kind of Fancy Feast, which makes sense. It’s the McDonald’s of cat food and perfectly calibrated to make cats want to eat it. What I’m saying is that it’s not the most nutritious, but at this point, whatever he’ll eat is good. I’ve given him some of the higher-quality food, and he does not care for that.
Anyway, watching the demo for my teacher’s teacher’s school has left me feeling some kind of way. Why? Because there were weapon forms being done that I want to learn. A two-person sword form was one as was another sword form. Both of them were done by my teacher’s colleague, who I really admire. She (the colleauge/classmate) is a weapons admirer as well, and it’s clear that she has such joy when she does them. In addition, it was seeing her do the Double Sable Form at the demo in 2020 that made me want to learn it myself.
Here’s the thing. My teacher does not care for the weapons. She does them because that’s what her teacher wants her to do, but she does not keep up with them. Nor does she learn the more advanced ones. She focuses on the solo stuff plus Bagua. She did the Swimming Dragon Form for the demo and it was amazing.
Unfortunately, I feel if I want to continue with my weapon forms, I am going to have to find another teacher. My teacher’s teacher is amazing with weapons. His forms are beyond compare. He truly is a master when it comes to the forms. The thing is, though, I don’t feel comfortable with him as a person.
If I could, I would separate the two. The master and the man, I mean. Because the master is someone I would want to learn from. But I am not comfortable with the man he is. I can’t do that, though. Separate the two parts of him, I mean. It’s not in my nature to be able to do that. It’s really hard for me to look at just one part of someone. And, yes, no one is perfect, but when the negatives pile up, it’s hard for me to ignore that.
I honestly don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing. I’m being purposely vague here, but let me just say that if he was not a master of Taiji, I would not have anything to do with him.
In general, I want to say that I wish there were more regulations when it came to groups like this. Anyone can call themselves a master in America. In fact, my teacher has a story about that. I think it was the grandmaster of Liuhebafa who heard of another man calling himself the grandmaster. So the actual grandmaster went to confront the imposter. The imposter said that anyone could call themselves the grandmaster in America, which caused the true grandmaster to challenge the imposter to combat. The imposter declined and the grandmaster told him to quit saying that.
Anyway, in my teacher’s lineage, there are only men. That’s not unusual. And they were sexist. Also not unusual. And handsy. Sadly, still not unusual. But the fact that the two teachers directly above my teacher (there was a very nasty ‘break up’ between the two teachers) were both sexist with neither of them calling out sexual harrassment in class, well, that did not make me at all eager to take classes from either of them.
Now, with the two schools split up, my teacher went with her teacher, obviously. There are things she’s told me about him as a person that make me question his fitness as a leader of a school. I have told my teacher that she probably should not allow him a platform on her own website (when she gets it fully functional) with his questionable views. In other words, make him stick to martial arts.
I’m old. I’m tired. i’ve lived through death twice. i am done with sexism, casual, thoughtless, unconscious, or otherwise. I may not identify as a woman any longer, but that doesn’t stop other people from doing so. And someone who wants to treat me differently because I have big boobs, hips, and a pussy, well, they can pound sand.
I have never understood it, and I still don’t. This is another reason why gender does not make sense to me. People allow their preconceived notions of gender to get in the way of how they view actual people. My mother has this problem, not just with gender. She gets an idea in her head about who you are, and she will not be moved. Not even by you!
For example. We went to visit NYC when I was in my late twenties. I love Broadway musicals, so she got it in her head that we had to stand in line in Times Square to get tickets immediately after getting off the bus (from Phily). It was a hundred degrees, and I was hot and tired. I asked that we be allowed to go to her friend’s house to freshen up and rest. Nope. She insisted we had to stand in line for the tickets–which she was convinced I wanted. No matter how much I protested.
Would I have wanted to see a musical? Yes. With my parents? No. And not by standing in line for hours in 100+ weather. To make matters worse, we did not get the tickets. We had to call the box office later to get them. But that’s my mother. It did not matter what I said, how much I protested, and what I actually wanted. She was convinced that I wanted nothing more than to see a musical while we were in NYC, and that was that.
Side note: My mother is an unstable narrator. I read an article about the things a narcissist carefully doesn’t say. I can’t find it (and it’s driving me crazy), but it has stuck with me for a long time. It’s someone who monitors websites of pparents who are estranged from their children and claim not to understand why.
The author of the post, let’s call them Jude for no reason said that if you delved more deeply (this was in the reddit forum for parents of estranged children), more info came out that made it perfectly clear the children were in the right.
That’s how I feel about my mother. She will tell me that all these members of my father’s family will no longer talk to them, and she has no idea why. Now. I will say that it could be because of his dementia. It’s seen as a moral failing in Taiwan, not a devestating medical diagnosis. But. It may also be something they are actually doing. For example, my mother is incredibly finicky about how she wants things done. She thinks it’s normal, but it is not. And she will make a fuss until you do things her way. And she will make you feel like shit if you don’t.
So I could see some of my cousins avoiding her/my father because they are being too demanding. There’s something doubly aggravating about someone being so demanding and acting like the victim at the same time.
With my last therapist, I was talking about how frustrating my ex-SIL was. And how unrelentingly negative she was with my mother. My therapist pointed out that I had so many issues with my mother, and I had grown up with her. So imagine someone walking into that madness and how she might feel about it.
Wow. I went wandering all over the place. I’m done for today. Will add more tomorrow.