A lot of people imitate moves within a traditional form and practice that over and over again for many years but when they look back, they wonder why they have not been improving much for a while. Repetition yield results only to a certain point. Being able to think outside the box and realizing what you need is essential to improvements.
There are also people that critique others and say “This is not how my sifu taught me” or “I have never seen anyone do it like that….it is all wrong”. Well, the only right way can be unique to a person based on what is needed for that person. For someone that is too weak, a strengthening program is essential but for someone who is too strong and stiff, spending time on sensitivity exercises may yield better results.
There are people who struggle so much memorizing the form or that they feel they are not doing it correctly and therefore stop trying all together. In my mind, giving up is the only sure way of failure. Going from zero (doing nothing) to one (doing something) is the most important first step.
There is never enough time for everyone. You make time when it is high enough priority. I live in the “world of no regrets”, everything I care about, I give it 100%. Furthermore, I try my best to multi-leaf training into my daily life so that I can still improve after 50 years of training. I had went through periods where I had to work 14 hour days and 7 days a week and yet I still manage to participate in a triathalon.
Setting goals to improve is important, it doesn’t just happen. If you want to jump higher, you have to practice it the right way. Just jumping all over the playground everyday will get your cardio better but you will not become a high jumper.
Our form can be practiced for different purposes. As an example, the form can be used as a tie back to the lineage and history. If that is the goal, you try to stay as loyal to the original as possible. However, that is just one of the many possible purpose of the form.
Exercise
Last Tuesday, we said there are eight purposes of the form and therefore 8 different training methods – lineage is the first one. Complete the other purposes.