What Did You Miss?
Can you spot 15 differences?
It seems that these days screens rule our lives, although, as you are reading this blog on a screen right now, not in this case, obviously, this is fine (LOL).
What I mean is the constant mindless scrolling down Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and so on, or even playing silly games on your phone, when you could (and should) be outside, enjoying life!
Unfortunately, I too am a little guilty of this, playing a game on my phone that is, one game in particular, Spot-the-difference.
The reason I like this game so much is because of the strange comic like artwork and the beautiful music in the background, but I also like it for its Wing Chun elements, and this is also valid when playing Sudoku.
A strange comment I grant you, so let me explain.
When playing the phone game, it is probably easier for a person to look at the two pictures as a whole, and eliminate the differences on one screen, all differences being either big or small, but what I like to do is to zoom into one quarter, find what I can in that zone, then move along, bit by bit, until the whole image has been covered.
The downside to this is that there is usually one difference still yet to be found, why is this, I went through each piece, one at a time until it was completed, didn’t I?
It is true that when I go back over the thing, I do, inevitably find the missing piece, but why did I not see it the first time?
Yes, I saw the picture, and I looked at each block, one at a time, but I wasn’t truly looking, at least not deep enough at that time, and this is what it is like when students train with us at WingChun.Online
A student will start at lesson one, then work their way through each and every lesson (hopefully viewing that lesson more than just once by the way!) and, through each of the eighteen modules, but what do they do then?
Many do choose to close their account at this point, probably feeling as though they have, done it all, but for those who start looking at lesson 1 again, they notice so much more, clarity on what was meant in those early stages, things they either didn’t initially understand, didn’t properly listen, or didn’t even remember hearing in the first place at all!
Looking without seeing and hearing without listening.
It is the same when people train for a black belt, then stop training once they have reached it.
Don’t get me wrong, I can understand this thinking, you set out a goal to reach a black belt, and you did it, very commendable, but this is when you start learning for real, the journey up to that point was simply an apprenticeship, acquiring your tools as it were.
This is what so many people do, they have not seen everything yet, they have only seen what they wanted to see, what they believe to be enough, just like my, Spot-the-difference game.
It is not until I realise there’s one difference missing, that I must go back and look again.
Earlier I mentioned that this is the same for Sudoku, well how so, because (on the harder levels at least), you may be struggling to find the missing number, you may also be tempted to take a sneaky-peek at the answers, but the truth is, the answer is right in front of your face, you just need to know how to look.
So, do not rush your training, thinking you know it all, just because you were able to copy something once or twice, take the time to fully embrace what is being shown to you, and for goodness’ sake, revisit!
It is not an act of defeat to go back to basics, thinking like that will only serve to give you a ceiling level, a very low ceiling level at that, preventing you from growing, revisiting basics is meant to simplify your Wing Chun, to better understand it and to enable you to master it instead of just getting by with it.
Thank you for reading.
The answers
