Partner Training

Class training is an opportunity for everyone to learn.  The atmosphere and people should foster an environment of helping each other's progress, at the individual's pace, while increasing the difficulty gradually.  At the same time, partners are to train to reach a mutual goal - that goal being determined by the intent of the drill. 

What I've noticed that in some cases, the partner may not (intentionally or not) follow the intent of a drill.  This is either due to an ego issue (doesn't want to get hit), an insecurity issue (if I get hit, then I'm "losing"), or a selfish issue (hitting me doesn't help ME in anyway). 

This is rather annoying. 

I make an effort to cater a difficulty level to my partner. Some partners are faster, stronger and better than me so I try my best to keep up.  In some cases where I'm faster, stronger or better than my partner, I tone it down to let him/her figure the drill out, recommending particular suggestions, but at the end of the day, letting him/her play with the drill so that some kind of discovery can made.

As such, I would expect the same. BUT MAN, some people ignore the drill so that they can focus on aspects that they want to focus on regardless of who's turn it is to practice the drill - deviating from the drill to such an extent that the partner doesn't really get to experiment nor absorb the lesson/intent of the drill. 

It leads to two things - the person doesn't get to the specific aspect of the drill and now both partners are not following any prescribed set. At this point, why not just spar? 

BECAUSE, the class is an opportunity to learn - to help each other learn and to bring each other one notch higher than when we walked into the school 3 hours earlier. 

Of course some recommend, during these times, to remind the partner "hey, could you please slow it down a little or just give me such-and-such attack so I can work on this?"

What happens? 2 things: 

1) He/she does and you are working as partners again OR

2) He/she runs off to another partner that feeds their ego/selfish/insecurity issues

We should take the time to analyze ourselves and ask, "How am i helping my fellow colleague?" "Am i making it too hard, or too easy?" "Is s/he struggling ? Am I? Why?" And then adjust accordingly. 

I see regular group class as a study group - drills, chi-sao is like the students explaining the concepts to each other, helping each other memorize the notes, etc.  Then there are quizzes - where it's each person to themselves but not so serious. This is like those aggressive drills during seminars, or during grade testing. Finally, there are exams - anything goes and let's see what you know! - this is pretty much the free fighting/sparring scenario. 

Each part has its purpose but mixing them up renders them useless. Can you imagine the one student that doesn't want to share his notes during a study group, in fear of him scoring lower on the exams? This is not conducive to progress.  And is practically a complete waste of time. 

Let's extend this thinking to partner training.

Until then.