Less Is More
Whoop! Whoop!
Yeah Bills.
This morning I received yet another bill for my school, hooray!
Don’t get me wrong, of course I know we all have to pay rent and rates, oh and water and electricity bills, and let’s not forget payment insurance and buildings insurance, but when we get additional bills for roof maintenance, alarm testing, light switch tests and so on, it does tend to grate, but todays latest was for a Bin Store invoice!
First of all I would like to say,
I DO NOT HAVE A BIN!
Secondly, who charges £1,488 to put a fence around a bin?
Luckily I am only ‘liable’ to a portion of this (£260).
Although to be fair, they are secure now (should anyone wish to steal them?), as they have a solid padlock fitted to the gate.
A padlock to which,
I HAVE NO KEY!
Anyway, rant over for the moment, my point is this, as costs rise, it is the easiest thing to lose sight of what is important, Quality.
Shops seem to offer, ‘Buy one, get one free’ on so many things, but we do not necessarily need two, buying the one a little cheaper yes, thank you, but giving you more than you need, only serves to cheapen the thing.
A common first world problem these days is obesity, something you never seemed to have in the seventies, and even in the eighties, but as costs rise discount becomes harder to find, so instead of discount, we are offered more of what we don’t need.
And I might add, usually wrapped in plastic, which only ends up in landfills or the sea!
The more we are offered, the lesser the quality, ‘Buy cheap, pay twice’, that seems to be the acceptable motto these days.
Where have standards gone?
Have you ever had something for a long time but then finally had to replace it?
If not, when you do you’ll be sorely disappointed with the comparison.
When I trained in Hong Kong in the early nineties I was very lucky, because at that time everyone was preparing for the 1997 handover from British to Chinese rule, which meant that no parent wanted their family members ‘Wasting time playing Kung Fu’, instead wanting them to work hard and earn money to secure there place for the future (ideally in the UK).
The affect of this for me was that classes were empty and so my time training with Sifu Ip Chun was awesome, training at the VTAA, at his class in Shatin and the private classes every day at Sifu’s house.
I learned more than double in those first five months in Hong Kong than I had in the previous five years in the U.K.
Less class students, more quality Chi Sau time for me!
As Ip man said:
“Anyone can add on to a system, the secret is to take away, while still keeping it pure”
While the looming handover of 1997 took students away, I got the benefit of pure Wing Chun.
Now the difference here is, standards must not drop.
If your school is successful, well done, but make sure you keep an eye on standards, otherwise what you worked so hard to achieve, then finally share with others, will one day become worthless.
I like to think that in my classes we offer sirloin steak at burger van prices, NOT the other way round as I seem to see so often these days.
Always remember the passion you had when you started training, and the passion you had when you decided to teach, to the passion you showed through teaching your very first student.
Do not sell out.
Keep your classes affordable,
Your goals achievable,
And your standards exceptional