How do you define the results you're looking for from wing chun training? How do you track your progress?
Also, I ask this to your teacher or your school's teaching system, or its philosophy. I'm curious to know if their definition or expectations fit yours.
Some schools teach for the purpose of self-defense. For others, it's about the work-out, while some schools may choose to provide students with health benefits or shed light to the more eclectic side of kung fu/martial arts. Some just want trophies and competitive recognition, and others want to kick ass.
What do you want?
How do you know you're getting exactly that?
Sure you may be progressing fairly well in class, but are you progressing, ultimately in the direction you WANT to go? are you progressing at the proper rate - maybe it's too fast? maybe not fast enough.
How does your instructor help you achieve this? How do you make him/her accountable if at all?
It's interesting...i think with the mindset of the kwoon, or dojo, or training hall, much respect is given to the master and rightfully so. At the same time, it is a business..and that school is selling a product. Are you getting a product that you're happy with?
As the consumer, there is some level of expectation that we can command of our kung fu school. Do we encourage this is a healthy, professional and respectful way? or do we just sit idly by and see what awaits next class?
Does the instructor really assess their students to see what they want and tailor their instruction to that? Perhaps this isn't realistic.
Just some food for thought.
Until then.
1 comment:
I want pretty much the same as what your school teaches: self-defence. After that, I want to have good time. But I find the first more important than the second: if sometimes things are frustrating, painful or difficult, I see this as necessary if it allows me to gain the skills needed to defend myself more effectively.
I'm with the EWTO, and I think a lot of this is present within the curriculum and my teacher, as someone who was a bouncer for several years, brings a certain practical aspect to the lessons. On the other hand, I sometimes feel people lose themselves to much in the purely technicaly aspect and forget to emphasize the fight-spirit/adrenaline rush and risk of losing motor functions aspect of real combat. My teacher definitely has a lot of zeal in his fighting, but I feel his way of teaching, which is very technical sometimes (which is in itself a good thing) instills in a lot of his students a "going through the motions"-mentality, where the attacks aren't practice with enough intent, lacking that pressure-fighter mentality you've described yourself.
To compensate for this, I try to get together with some friends who have started training WingTsun too, and do a bit more free fighting, sparring besides the technical stuff, so that one can find out if he can actually use his stuff against a resisting opponent. I've ordered two full-contact protection helmets and intend to use these to be able to do some heavier sparring too, get the adrenaline running and see which parts of my wingtsun survive.
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