The Learning Cycle

 

Yat Chi Kuen

(Single thrusting punch)

(Single energy punch)

(One – sun – fist)

 

When we begin our training there is so much to learn, everything is fresh and new and exciting, every day brings a new technique, a new move or even a new form.

 

Now, as exciting it as it is to constantly learn new things, at some point things need to slow down, allowing you to gain experience.

 

To some people this slowing down can seem like a lack of progress, which in turn can be further interpreted as a decline.

 

This slowing down is inevitable and even essential if you are to progress.

 

It may take a person knew to golf, and having a 28-handicap, take them ten years to get down to a 6-handicap, but then it could take another ten years to get from a six-handicap down to a 5-handicap.

 

This is simply because the more advanced we become the less obvious mistakes we make; therefore, mistakes should be embraced, celebrated in fact, you should be happy and grateful that you have once again something that needs work, and not be disappointed that you have not yet reached perfection.

 

What is perfection anyway?

 

This should always be out of reach, because as we grow, aiming to what we think is perfection, these goals, needs and abilities, changes as we get older, like a donkey chasing the dangling carrot.

 

‘The man who claims to know everything is a fool,

for his learning has ceased’

 

The more we learn the more we should enjoy our Wing Chun, and the more we enjoy our Wing Chun the more we are open to learning.

When you were a child, you may have happy memories, but you did not have knowledge, now that you are older, you may have wisdom and experience, but do you have that childhood joy?

 

Probably not.

 

But why can’t these two elements work hand in hand?

 

When we appreciate this and when we are open minded, we can both enjoy and learn as we grow.

 

It is very unlikely that, as a child, would have wisdom, it is also a very likely that as a child you would make mistakes, the difference here is, do we learn from these mistakes?  If so, then the mistakes give us wisdom.

 

Wing Chun is a cycle, we complete all the hand forms and the dummy, and the knives and the pole, but what then?

 

Do we stop training or do we begin again, looking at our first form with possibly less mistakes, but with certainly more wisdom.

 

Just as every 365 days the earth circles the sun, then continues its journey again and again, with each year hopefully having us present less mistakes, but becoming wiser on every rotation.

 

So, enjoy the mistakes, and enjoy learning from the mistakes, because when you are older strangely enough, you will miss them, and because of this, we should be overjoyed when a mistake does present itself to us, as this is giving you the opportunity to rediscover your childhood.

 

Now go play, enjoy yourself, have fun learning.

(I’ll call you when your tea is ready 🙂 ).