Bait and Switch

Every other class, it seems to oscillate between friendly and jealous.  I wonder if Teacher's story about his jealous TJ brothers had anything to do with this.  I don't know what the jealousy is about since her TJ is way better at this point, she works very hard, is a very skilled learner and a very skilled teacher.  Her teaching skills are even better than Teacher's although Teacher's TJ is of course better.  She is somehow able to learn from someone whose teaching skills are not always that good and then translate it and teach it better.  That is an exquisite skill and pretty rare.  On the other hand, going up a level, Teacher's teaching skills are probably ultimately better because of his interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence, even if he sometimes can't explain the TJ itself.

This evening, at one point, I went over to ask her a question about a move which has a whipping action and she demonstrated the whipping concept using my arm like a whip.  She did it pretty hard and I said, "Ow", although it didn't hurt that much, so with a laugh, but it did hurt a little.

When Teacher came over to work with the second group, she asked if I wanted to do PH, and yes I did so we went off, but then she decided to do XJ.  This was quite likely unintentional but annoying nonetheless.  We had just had a discussion not too long ago about how I wanted to relearn the LJ first form and she had advised me to stand in the back when Teacher is teaching the more beginner groups to relearn those parts.

I started trying out the MV class on Tuesday evenings.  Two weeks ago, I went but didn't realize the class started an hour earlier as the beginning and intermediate classes are actually combined in practice. Somehow I felt that she didn't look too happy again when she saw me.  Although she said with a smile on her face, "You made it!" and "Are you going to start coming to this class now?", it felt like something else underneath.

Last week, I got to push with another more experienced female student in the class.  Totally different "energy" coming across.  Self-confident and generous with her joy to have a new female student to push with and share what she knows.  Tiger is generous with her teaching as well but it feels like a duty.  Teacher was sitting on the side and said, "She's going to be a PH champion," sort of teasing and serious at the same time.  I was thinking in my head, actually, that would be pretty cool, something I'd like to do.  K/C? responded, "She's a natural."  No jealousy at all.  How refreshing!  Delight at working with another student who is good, maybe even better than herself, relative to experience levels.  I hope that's how I would be, if or when one day, a younger female student shows up and learns even faster and better than I do.