Are you Learning?

Are you learning anything? I often mention at my workshops that I notice many old disciples of the Grandmaster who spent dozens of years with the Grandmaster without learning a thing.

Why do I say something so harsh? Look at the physical evidence. They continue to look like they are doing wushu, or whatever they used to do. They continue to use force in their push hands. They continue to use tricks in their applications. Their abilities are all external.

Are you one of the above?

One observation that I have consistently made is that most people follow the rules for about 4 months. They gain considerable ability and understanding during these four months. After that they mentally graduate. They won’t “hear” anything any more. The first four months were filled with real learning because they were totally new to the system. After the first four months, they continue to believe that they are learning but in reality, they don’t learn any more. If you tell them, they will have 1 million explanations. They confuse what they do with what learning is. They experiment and are on their own while in their mind they are trying out what they learned.

In real life, a person gets into this frame of mind at the age of about 11 to 13. That’s when you notice that they start believing in themselves. In learning Taiji, this is reduced to about 4 months. Once a person gets into that frame of mind, there is almost no return.

Another scenario is almost the opposite but has the same bad effect. People come to the system but will not learn. There could be a myriad of reasons but they are not learning. If these people can persist, one day they will learn. When that happens, their learning will be in leaps and bounds. That is because by this time, they will have a very good foundation for learning. Their understanding will be based on facts they know.

You need to re-examine your learning process.