People wanted to know what an internal strike felt like, and volunteered to be hit. Using gravity and weight shift, a blow was delivered to the upper chest. Typically, it knocked the student back a few paces.
There was nothing macho about the entire event - people genuinely wanted to know what they were working towards. Joe was struck and stumbled backwards. He then asserted that he hadn't felt anything at all. I explained that I was reluctant to hit him harder and certainly had no plans to use fa jing. All I could offer was to hit him again. Joe thought that this was a good idea and asked me to hit him a second time. This second blow knocked him backwards once more. He once again claimed that the strike was ineffectual.
I got an e-mail from Joe a few days later, explaining how much he had really enjoyed the class but didn't want to continue. He asserted that the strikes had been way too painful for a man of his age to endure and implied that he'd been bullied.
When I mentioned this to the class, they were astonished. "But he asked to be hit twice!" exclaimed a student.
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