I was watching the videos on making bodies with the curve tube brush but when Ryan deselects the tubes he is still able to play with each one individually and when I try to do this I cant. They arent meshed together yet, when in poly frame mode they are all different groups. Am I missing a step?

You can edit the tubes until you re-mesh, subdivid or delete the curve in the stroke menu. Close ZBrush and re-open it. Go through the process again and make sure you're not doing any other steps.