Where you swear what you saw was real but you couldn't have been more wrong than if you invited Larry the Cable Guy to talk at your Church's Annual Picnic.
That happened to my wife a bit ago.
It was my fault. For the first year we were married I was on my best behavior.
No being messy. No walking around the house nekked. Always sharing the remote.
Dutifully suffering through the television shows she liked while I taped my manly shows.
Hanging out together with her friends, who are loud and talk at one hundred miles an hour...with gusts up to one hundred and twenty.
Then, after about a year, we were lying in bed one night and I looked at her, held out my hand and said...
"Bau Bei, pull my finger."
Bau Bei means precious in Chinese, and I'm sure you know what "pull my finger" meant.
My beautiful wife, who is amazingly smart, had no idea what was about to happen and went ahead and pulled my finger.
After I stopped laughing and my wife stopped beating me with the pillow, she looked at me and said, "I guess the honeymoon is officially over."
Fast forward to a little while ago where my wife and I are at a concert.
It was a symphony that my wife wanted to attend and with me being a former classical musician and now struggling beginner guitar player, I agreed to go.
In the middle of the show, the music was making communication tough so rather than try to talk with my wife and get her attention about what I saw down at the front of the stage, I grabbed her shoulder with one hand and pointed at the stage with the other.
At which point she grabbed my finger and started pulling.
I was laughing so hysterically that I kicked over my adult beverage and attracted the attention of three other couples that were around us. My wife just sat there staring at me until she realized what was up and then she was laughing right along with me.
After the show, she and I couldn't believe what we had both done. Me with the "pull my finger" bit and my wife with getting used to it and then reacting naturally to it, regardless of the setting.
We had both gotten complacent and used to the same trick. She was just used to playing along with that trick every time I did it.
I'm getting ready for my trip to China and the Shaolin Temple at the end of this month. I've stepped up the training as I know I will at one point have an audience with Professor Charles Mattera, a Disciple of the Shaolin Temple, and the Head Abbot of the Shaolin Temple.
One tends to not want to look like a bag of trash when performing in front of these two gentlemen.
(If you want to find out how Professor Mattera became a Disciple and how it's possible that we are given the honor of an audience with the Head Abbot, go to http://www.shaolinsecrets.com and read all about it.)
During my training, one of my Master Instructors has been drilling into my head to change up my drills constantly.
Right handed, left handed, have them kick first, then attack with the hands. Have them attack with hands only, then legs only. Have them start with the hands and then shoot on your legs.
If you practice the same thing the same way all the time, you get stale. Predictable. Slow. Complacent.
But if you mix it up, change angles, change the timing, train with taller and heavier or shorter and faster opponents, you keep your instincts and reactions sharp and become more well rounded.
Just like the Warrior Monks of the Shaolin Temple, you want to train yourself from all different angles for all different scenarios. You want to stay sharp and on top of your game...
That way you'll never fall for the dreaded, "Hey...pull my finger" technique.
Best,
William Huff
P.S. - For more ways to train and to learn how the Warrior Monks of the Shaolin Temple varied their training, go to http://www.shaolinsecrets.com. You'll be blown away at the quality and depth of the information presented in Secrets of the Shaolin Temple Volume I.