Learning Martial Arts - Martial Arts Teachers in Modern Time

The following article that I am writing is going to be a rather controversial piece, and could differ slightly from individual reader's experience, background and location.
However, the main objective for this article, is for my personal development, to become whom I want to be.
For trainers, I wish this article will help you in educating your learners.
For learners, I wish this will help you establish the right attitude in training as well as finding a good trainer for yourself.

Titles for Chinese Martial Arts Teacher 

We often hear people calling teachers, whom are master in their craft/arts, in the oriental culture, sifu. We have similar in other culture, but I am going to just address this with regards to the Chinese culture.

Sifu/shifu 师父, literally means teacher+father. Grandmaster = 宗师, Master = 大师, Teacher = 老师, Coach = 教练。Another title that is pronounced exactly the same as sifu is, 师傅, which means Mentor.

There's are titles that Chinese are very familiar with, but could be confusing for people not exposed to the Chinese's culture. Also, there are certain instructors that are very particular about these titles.

Technically speaking, for an individual who has a high level of expertise in his art, the most honorable title one person could give to him would be "Master", "大师”。Titles like Grandmaster 宗师 are of course even more honorable. Not only does it mean that this individual is highly skilled, but it usually means that he also has a huge number of students, and even grand-students. Not many people are able to earn this title, or deserve this title within their lifetime, and those who does are truly commendable. One could address another as master, or grandmaster as a respect for his achievement, but need not necessary a student of this master or grandmaster. Due to the Chinese's virtue of humility, such titles are often conferred, and should never be self-proclaimed.

The title of Sifu 师父, is not a title earned easily. In fact, most Sifu should be 师傅, rather than  师父.
Please understand that, even difference in a single word could have a total different meaning in the Chinese language. Let's break up these 3 syllabus，师，傅，父。

师, generally means specialist in a particular topic, or teacher.
Example, 工程师=Engineer, 医师=Doctor, 设计师=Designer.
老师 is teacher, simply because in ancient times, teacher are usually elders, as 老=Elder, and students do not go to school to study mathematics or science, but simply virtues. Thus, the studied elderly are usually the teachers in the school.

傅，means tutor, or to assist.

父，simply means, father.

Origin of the Title: Sifu 师父

In older times, especially the pre-republican period in China, martial arts is not widely spread and learnt like it is now. Back then, martial arts are only taught in a few situations, I'm not going to talk about every situations here, but only a few pertaining to the topic of this article.

A lot of Master whom made a name for themselves by teaching, or by defeating several opponents on in fights/challenges/ring, were often hired by rich businessmen or officials, to teach martial arts to their sons. The Chinese believe that learning martial arts will instill discipline, perseverance and endurance in their sons, as well as improving their health. Several well known martial artists were actually from wealthy family whom started learning martial arts because of their weak physique when they are young. Very often, such engagement of the master's services was a rather long term, and the Master will be residing within the family's compound, and be paid and have his meals provided by the hirer.

One such example was Grandmaster Liu Yun Qiao whom popularized Ba Ji Quan in Taiwan. As a child, Grandmaster Liu was in very poor health. At the age of five, at the request of his father, he learned Tai Zu Changquan (Emperor's Longfist) from their family bodyguard Zhang Yao Ting in order to help improve his condition. His initial martial arts training was intended to activate improved blood circulation and activate his qi. When Liu was seven, his father hired the Ba Ji Master Li Shu Wen. Well known for his martial arts skills throughout five Northern provinces, he became Liu's personal trainer, living in the Liu estate. For more than ten years Liu was personally trained daily in Li Shu Wen's system of bajiquan, pigua zhang, and liuhe da qiang (six harmony big spear). This provided Liu with a solid foundation in the martial arts which lasted throughout his life.

During the tenure of services, the martial arts master often taught more than just martial arts, and often play an important role in the upbringing of the student, and as the teaching usually begins as a rather young age, it is not uncommon for them to be seen as a fatherly figure in the eyes of the student.

Apart from such engagement, martial arts master would either roam the country seeking for people in need of their services, or start a martial arts school in a town to pass on his arts. A master whom have a school in town was often very well respected in the town, and will be the go to guy if there's dispute, robbers or pirates attack. The master will usually observe, and selectively pick his "in-door" disciples, whom he will passed all, or most of his arts to, and usually along with certain medicine prescription that was passed down to him by his own Sifu. Disciples of this caliber, often end up staying with the master, and are taken care of by the master and his family. Thus, to the student, this master became his martial arts father, thus the term, Sifu 师父. When it reached such stage of learning, most teaching were no longer part of a commercial dealing, but simply like a father to son relationship.

Most people continued the traditional of addressing their martial arts mentor, Sifu 师父 today. Personally I am perfectly alright with this, but as much as it could be just a title, the mentor have deserve this title. For the learner, addressing your mentor as sifu shows the respect you have for him, and for the trainer, to earn this title, you have to work hard to earn it.

Undesirable Traits of a Mentor in Chinese Martial Arts

Chinese martial arts is a complex subject to learn, and even more so to teach. As such, there's a few traits that I have observed from several martial arts instructors that I feel should be corrected.

I am your father sifu

As I mentioned in the above passages, the role of the instructor in Chinese Martial Arts have differed from older times, and as such, titles that address the mentor as a second father is no longer deserving anymore. At least in most part of the world. 

There are martial arts teachers out there today that still insist on being address, and even treated as a Sifu/martial arts father. Such individuals often exert their authority by claiming that such respect and authority should be given to them as part of the traditional of Chinese martial arts. However, they do not often treat their students as a son or daughter as part of what the real traditions really mean, and thus, I have my doubt if they should deserve the kind of treatment they desired.

These teachers could be highly competent in their skills, and feel they deserved to be given the fatherly authority and respect due to the commitments they put in to master their skills. Very often, the real reason for them to be holding martial arts classes is not to pass on or spread the arts, but rather to boost their ego and make them feel good about themselves. 

Furthermore, the lines between teachers and students are more clearly drawn nowadays. Often, it's simply a commercial transaction. Modern days students treat learning martial arts no different from attending a cooking class, or a tennis lesson. He will pay a school fees for X number of lessons, and have a desired outcome of that particular subject at the end of the course.

Students are more influenced by the western education system and culture nowadays, where respect are given to individuals whom have proven themselves to the student, unlike oriental culture where one must naturally submit to anyone who is more senior in age or status.

Such mentality in teaching generally backfire, as they make students feel uneasy and getting pushed around for reasons they couldn't understand. In my observation, it is very unfortunate if an individual (especially adult learner) meet such teacher as their first Chinese martial arts class. When they leave the class, they typically when dismiss that all Chinese martial arts instructors are like this, and when likely not learn Chinese martial arts again.

Acting Smart

Pretty often, we will see a Grandmaster featured in a Kung Fu movie, say a short Chinese phrase, or do a simple gestures, and while the rest of the people were confused by what the Grandmaster is doing, the lead actor would be enlightened. This has to do with the Chinese's culture again where they believe, 智者不言，言者不智. "The wise will refrain from speaking, the one speaking is not wise." Conservative and traditional Chinese feels that, there's a lot to be learn from the unspoken, and often think that one should teach by hinting, rather than imparting the knowledge directing.

To a certain degree, I am in agreement. For many crafts and arts to be learned, it is true that many people ask too many questions before attempting and practice, and they end up confusing themselves. Say in drawing, one would have to learn to draw a straight line first. Everyone assume they can draw a straight line, but just take a piece of paper and try to draw a straight line without a ruler, can you do it?

Chinese always say, you got to learn to walk before you can learn to run.

However, some instructors don't truly why their teachers only tell them certain martial arts phrases 口诀 at certain time, or do not fully understand such teaching pedagogy, and perhaps their teachers also didn't understand what their teachers are doing. We have to understand that in the conservative Chinese environment, it is often deem to be a rude behavior to question your senior's action. So, they ended up with, monkey see, monkey do, continuing to teach the new generation of students just like how they were taught; except, students in today's time are no longer the way they used to be.

Adult learners nowadays are comparatively more inquisitive when learning, and very goal oriented when learning. In fact, that is how modern education system mould them to be like. Learners are not able to learn blindly if they do not understand the intention behind the practice that they are doing, and even if they do so, they would not be able to last too long if their curiosity is not fulfilled. 

The problem with some teachers are, they might have feel that they are smarter than you because he could read out the phrase that you didn't know, or they understand it themselves, so should you. Or, it could be simply the case of, they do not know what it means either. Another problem that we are facing today is, most of these martial arts phrases are written with old Chinese grammar, that sometimes doesn't make sense even if you could read the words.

Teachers have to be a bit more patient with explaining this theories to the learners, and also, only reveal the information at the right time to avoid confusing the learners. Some teachers like to tell all the kung fu phrases to the learners at one go, explain a small part of it, and then dismiss it. I personally do not think it's a right idea, and think it's the teacher's duty and responsibility to understand and explain, verbally or non-verbally any information he would want to disseminate to the students.

Over-Teaching

Another aspect that is often ineffective and harmful to the learners is over-teaching. There are some teachers whom are well versed in various martial arts styles, and seems to be proficient in multiple martial arts forms and style to the unknowing students. As much as one could argue that different martial arts styles share many similarities, but for one to be highly proficient in both theory and martial arts in just a single martial arts style requires a lifelong dedication. 

Example, Grandmaster Yip Man of the Wing Chun Style, Grandmaster Chen Xiao Wang of the Chen Style Tai Chi, Grandmaster Wong Fei Hung of Hung Gar. All of these Grandmasters became a grandmaster, highly skilled, lots of great students, simply because, they spent their lifetime honing a single craft.
The truth is, despite the similarities among various martial arts, each of the martial arts are able to be known as a particular style is due to each of their unique approach in both training and applications. It would be foolish and shallow to undermine the depth of each martial arts style. 

However, it is pretty common for martial arts practitioners to be doing cross training, be it out of curiosity, for complementing what they know, family traditions, or sometimes, just luck of fate. But usually, any highly skilled martial artists are accomplished because of a strong foundations in  just 1 or maybe 2 martial arts style. Once they have acquired a strong fundamentals in one style, it usually become easy for them to learn new styles due to their improved body coordination and body efficiency. But when it comes to natural reflex actions, they will still execute their foundation martial arts instinctively until they practice another martial arts hard enough that it became instinct as well.

The problem of over-teaching comes when the teacher have to teach a complete syllabus of a martial arts style that is not his core subject to a new martial arts learner. Usually when the teacher learns the new style, due to fact that he already have a high level of fundamental skills in another arts, he do not learn from the ground up. As such, unless he spend a lot of time thinking about it, he would more likely find it challenging to teach the subject from ground up. The problem with most Chinese teacher is, "face", or simply put, ego. it would damage their ego to admit that they are not familiar with teach the basics of that style, after basic is easy right? 

Thus, when being put into such situation, they will often try to supplement what they do not know with either more exercises, or with exercises from other styles and try to convince the learners that all of these skills are the same. Simply state, "If you can't convince, confuse."

Such instructors usually overwhelms their students at the beginning with lots of different exercises and applications, and after a short while, seem to run short of specialized subject to teach. Learners will often feel that they are not learning or improving and give up considering that martial arts is too complex for him.

Master Awesome 

Some teachers spend alot of time training talking about the kind of tough exercises they did in their younger days, or how students nowadays are incomparable to those during his time. The subconscious objective of such effort is simply to make themselves feel good by putting his students down. Simply, ego boosting.

Such.types are usually tandem with the "I am your sifu" types as they both seek ego magnification rather than martial arts education.

Such behaviors often discourages students then to motivate them to prove themselves better.

See no touch
One of the most common kind of teaching is what I call the see but no touch teaching. What it means it, whatever martial arts that are being taught, are meant to be performed and display as a form, but not meant for any practical applications. I could be offending many teachers or even martial arts practitioners. But this is something all Chinese martial arts practitioners need to change to lift the reputation of Chinese martial arts.

A lot practitioners, teachers or learners alike are doing Chinese martial arts as a dance performers. Thus, in Europe, people are classifying them as Wushu, and those with practical usage as Kung Fu. But in reality, there should be no such differentiation. The real face of Chinese Martial Arts is fighting and self defense. But take the set routine or application out of the equation is like remove a steering wheel from a car, or blade from a samurai sword.

There are teachers whom teach, and probably also learn that Chinese martial arts is a culture, used to build up discipline, health, and perseverance, and because the modern have no longer any need for martial abilities, we do not have to learn it anymore. If such thoughts were to continue and widespread, Chinese martial arts will evolve to be another dance in 20 years time, and we will definitely lose it culturally.

Learning Chinese Martial Arts - Purpose of the Set Routine

David Lines, my Tai Chi buddy brought up the topic of me writing about "Training Tai Chi" several times, so I thought, maybe I should just start writing down my thoughts when it come to my mind.

Common Reasons People Practice Chinese Martial Arts

Probably one of the most common problem I have seen with fellow Chinese Martial Arts (CMA) practitioners among me is, the attitude towards CMA, regardless it's Internal or External forms.

In today's time and day, alot of people never regard training CMA as a way of self defense, or never prioritize their combat effectiveness when deciding to practise CMA. Well, at least from what I seen in Singapore. I believe this could be very different in a place like China where some people are born in a CMA family, or in poor villages, where they would send their children to CMA school since young so they have a chance to be out of poverty.

1. Some people train CMA, because they are inspired by movies. Every time a  CMA movie is screened, like Ip Man, Once Upon a China, there will be a huge following for around 3-6 months. These people don't often do enough research regarding the CMA that's being featured, and didn't realise in today's cinematography, much of what we seen in movie looks really inspiring because of video editing, sound effects, lighting, and of course visual effects. I do not mind such reason, in fact, I don't mind any marketing strategy so long we can promote CMA. My concerns however will be, will they find a teacher that can show that what that CMA is about, or will they end up finding a teacher that teach the subject just because of it's "market value".
2. Some people do CMA because they are intrigued by Chinese cultures. This applies to chinese and non-Chinese. Non-Chinese start learning because curious about the concept of Yin and Yang, and the seemingly health and self defense benefits. Some Chinese do it, because they want to do something that remind them of their roots. I have met training brothers whom do it, because they feel this is what their ancestors did, and thus, as tradition, being Chinese should continue doing this. A pretty noble reason, and I definitely respect that.
3. Some people do CMA because they believe in how doing CMA will train one's chi. This usually applies to many people who decide to internal forms. Many believe in the benefits of chi to health, though alot of people are not able to explain what exactly chi is. People who falls into this category usually spend most of their time doing stationary stance training known as 站庄, doing the patterns, or doing breathing exercises or, gathering chi 采气.

Personally, I do not see wrong in any reason of why one would want to start practising CMA. In fact all of them are legit, except they might be good cause to start, but may not bring one too far if the thinking and approach doesn't change, or get influenced.
Also, there are plenty of CMA instructors out there, whom adopt the same thinking and approach towards CMA. However, I shall reserve my comments regarding their competenc

Moving on here, let's us look at, what is Chinese Martial Arts today?

Chinese Martial Arts as It is Today

The origin of CMA, like any martial arts, is the same. To kill, to defeat, to defend. As much as how many often CMA have been perceive to be dance, or a chereographed gymnastics, it's martial arts! Any martial arts are instructed, to do a simple objective; To defeat your opponent. So, to remove this objective out of CMA, is akin to removing the steering wheel from a car.

So, why do CMA take the form it is today?

1. This first point is an opinion I formed from reading several sources, and honestly, I can't be sure of it's authencticity. I welcome any reader to correct, or provide me any concrete information to affirm or to dispute this point.
   I believe, up to the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), the last empirical dynasty of the "Han Chinese", CMA was commonly practised. In fact, people probably don't call it Chinese Martial Arts since there are no needs to differentiate it's nationality. Martial arts are probably called, Kung Fu 功夫 (which means effort), or Wushu 武术 (which is a more direct translation of Martial Arts). Several martial arts, like Hua Quan, Tang Lang Quan (Pray Mantis) are known to be invented during this era. It's also during this era, that people start to record, and document down martial arts.
   When the Manchurian overthrown the Ming Dynasty, and started the Qing Dynasty, they started movements to wipe out the martial arts fraternity with China as, the Manchurians are actually a minority race of China, and majority of the martial arts fraternity are the "Han Chinese". The Hans always have the ambition to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and return the governing authority back to the Hans. This is when we always heard about the slogan 反清复明 (Rebel the Qing and recover Ming), and of course, during this period, there's also rise of anti-Qing faction like "Hung Men" etc.
   Probably the most "iconic" incident that the Manchurian government did to overthrow the martial arts faction, was the destruction of the Shaolin Monastery.
   I believe that, during this period, many martial artists who have to "repackage" their martial arts, so that instead of appearing as martial arts, they look like exercises, or aerobics practices. This is probably to help them avoid getting into troubles with officials or patrols.
2. Secondly, set routines and patterns that are probably designed to allow teacher to structure their teaching, so that they could do one-to-many teaching within the shortest period of time. I could see how this could be necessary, especially during war times where generals will have to train their recruit to be ready for battles within the fastest time possible.
3. Also, there's a probability during peace time, teacher teaches set forms and routines to a whole group of students, while observing their potentials and attitudes. The teachers would then selectively choose which are the students that are worth their time and effort in further development so that they would bring glory to their martial arts and ancestors. Only upon specially selected by the teacher, would the students then learn the real usage and any underlying purposes and meaning of the taught routine.

So, now we look at the root of routine/set pattern creation, let us analyze how it reached it's "form" today.

Firstly, based on point 3 above, we see that a teacher will be selective in passing down his "secrets" to his students, thus, from that one teacher, we are going to assume, there will be mainly 2 groups of disciples. One, will be a small and selected group of students that learnt the "real" martial arts and acquired the complete knowledge of that particular arts. They will be a second group, that learn the set form, and routine, probably learned some basic functions of the moves and acquired physical conditioning due to practising of the routines.
Sooner or later, all these students will leave the teacher for various reasons, and obviously quite a few of them will return back to their villages and attempt to make a living by teaching martial arts. Back in the village, if one is fortunate, he will meet the teacher whom learn the "real" arts, and of course, they will be others whom ended up learning from the other type of teacher whom appear physically strong and abled to people whom have never done martial arts.

Such effects, will definitely trickle downwards, and as of the time we are today, I doubt I will be paranoid to think that, there are plenty of CMA instructors whom don't completely apprehend the arts that they are teaching and thus, would just focus of the display of the routine sets.

Secondly, the society we are living in this past 20 years are definitely very different from how it was in the past. In the past, many have to take justice into their own hands, personal safety is your personal responsibility as opposed to the law and order we have instilled in the recent decades, especially since we could empower authority with weapons like guns, and banned anyone else from carrying any weapons at all.

Due to such transition of the society, which is definitely a good thing for mankind, more and more people do not see the need for having self defense capability, and even due to lower risks, and in fact, less intimidating risks, CMA which are designed to be lethal and devastating start to lose it's ground.
Most people who want to learn self defense, just want to get themselves out of trouble quickly, and run away. If I were to kill someone in self defense, I would probably be apprehended on the charge of manslaughter. Frankly speaking, this is definitely not what I wished to happen no matter how much I wish I will be competent in CMA.

Traditional CMA are designed to kill in battlefield, and have plenty of moves that designed to strike eyeballs, hitting at vital points or breaking opponents' limbs, all for a simple reason, we Chinese have smaller physical statures than our neighbors. It would be foolish to try to defeat your opponents with brute forces due to the natural differences in physical strengths. These are very "unfriendly" fighting methods, and thus are unsuitable for sports fighting. However, if we were to remove these techniques from CMA, the CMA will be greatly weakened for it's intended purposes. Honestly, if one were to think that CMA is just a dance and do not have any combat effectiveness; let's ponder, how could it have survived and get passed down after hundreds of years?
In summary to this point, peace time have watered down CMA, so much so, most people stop talking about it's combat usage, and what's left is the set forms and patterns.

Mentality in Training Chinese Martial Arts

We might not have much usage for what CMA is designed for, but for people who want to seek higher grounds and capabilities in CMA; I think it's highly important to analyze it's functionality. I had personally train in set forms and routines for many years, and eventually, I reached a bottleneck and wondered what all these are for?
If it's for physical training, it will be more effective if i do swimming and running. If it's for self defense, I probably learn something really quickly with Arnis or Muay Thai. If it's for chi,why not just do meditation? Doing the set forms without knowing the purpose behind it gets boring very quickly, and one will either give up very quickly, or move on to learning one set after another so he is constantly learning.

Purpose of Practicing a Set Routine

1. Posture correction and Physical Conditioning
2. Building subconscious actions and reactions
3. Improving body mechanics efficiency
4. Continuous movements/ Follow up movements
5. Improving Chi's energy capacity and flow
6. Building space awareness

Posture Correction and Physical Conditioning

One of the most commonly known and important aspect of practicing Set Routine in CMA is actually to attain a correct, or rather "effective" body posture. Effective in a  way that applies to the family of martial arts that one is practicing. Common corrections are, keeping the body upright, relaxing the shoulders, pushing out the knees so it doesn't become a weakness etc.

Also, maintaining the low stances in training, and doing impractical high kicks are all part of physical conditioning and training. Of course, no one will sit that low in an actual combat situation, it's merely to strengthen your thigh. Bruce Lee always perform high kicks in demo, or in movies, but when he is in a real sparring situation, he never kick above waist level. We have to understand, there's no gym or training equipment that we have around us more than 100 years ago, so trainers have to be creative in designing their training to fulfill the training in their core muscles group.

Building subconscious actions and reactions

Although alot of CMA have similar stances and moves, they could differ mechanically. Thus, every CMA family would have their own unique set routines which are designed for the trainees to practise so that they will get familiar with utilizing the moves in a combat situation. The fastest way to react to an opponent, is but reflex action, rather than intended reactions. The only way we could do to hone our relax action, is to repeat the same actions repeatedly.It is also importantly for the trainee to be thinking about the intended usage while practicing the set routine so that he could react subconsiously during the situation. 

Almost all highly skilled opponents I have met, usually counterstrike first, before being able to explain what they did. In fact, those whom have lesser experience in teaching, are able to explain precisely what they will do in any preassumed situation as their subconscious reaction will differ with even a slight change in opponent's move.

However, most CMA practitioners don't often have the patience and the vision to be commit themselves to constant practising of the same set routine over and over again. I believe one of the reason is because most of them practice their set routine to perform rather than to fight. Thus, instead of training til it became subconsicious, they are more interested in achieving a appealing posture which can be achieve considerably alot faster than implanting the moves into the subconscious minds.

Improving body mechanics efficiency

When a trainee repeats the same moves repeatedly, another outcome than one could achieve is body mechanics efficiency. Body mechanics efficiency could apply in throwing punches, evading moves, warding punches etc. Body mechanics efficiency is particularly important in CMA due to the philosophy of using weaker effort against strength. Chinese reverred the Water aspect in nature, and believe that "Water" though appear to obliging and compromising, can be strong and powerful. For water to be strong and powerful, the flow will have to be smooth and efficient. In fact, alot of CMA refer to water as the way to move, continuously, minimum effort yet very powerful; and those these can only be achieved by being efficient in body mechanics.

Also, as brought up earlier, for hundreds of years, chinese have be fighting opponents from Russia, Mongols, whom are larger and stronger physically and have thus develop their techniques to be more efficient so as to counter the strength their opponents' possessed.

Continuous movements/ Follow up movements

As mentioned, being like water, means having moves their are being executed consecutively and seamlessly like water flowing. Most traditional CMA set routines are designed making assumption of all the possible scenarios in a combat situations. Having that said, some designed to face an opponents using a saber, long weapon, on horseback etc. It's often good to study the root of that particular routine set when practising. Having said, most of the moves are designed to be executed one after another, and are not often singular in usage as it will be overconfident to assume one can knock out an opponent with a single blow. Thus, by practising the routine set, with understanding of the movements, along with subconscious actions, trainee also acquire abilities/knowledge in following up attacks or defense.

Improving Chi's energy capacity and flow

In this article, I do not intend to talk alot about this mystical topic of Chi. In my opinion, chi is a sensation of body mechanics efficiency within the bloodflow. It's my personal opinion that, when the body learn to be relax in execution of the move with it is efficiency. Body relax = Increased sensitivity, efficiency = more blood flow in the vessels, and all these, are called, "Chi"

Building space awareness

Most, if not all traditional CMA set routines are not designed assuming enemies will only come from the front. As such, they are planned so the practitioners will be familiar with turn around to face opponents, are moving in different directions so they develop their sense of space and direction. Most set routines usually begin with the practitioner starting in a particular position, facing a certain direction, and ends with the practitioner ending facing the same direction, and around the same area.

With sufficient practices, the practitioners learn to more familiar with where they are in relevance to where they started which could be very important when they are fighting in a formation, or fighting in a rather enclosed space which they could use it to their advantage.

Also, there are certain CMA which focus on throws that actually make the practitioners throw and flips themselves intentionally so they to deal with the change in space in the event they get thrown in a fight.

Correct Attitude in Practicing Set Routine

In conclusion to this article, I would want to emphasize the importance of practicing set routine, and the mentality one carries with him/her when practicing it.

By learning CMA via it's set routine with just the purpose of performing, one will be nothing more than a dancer or a stage performer, and could not consider one as a martial artists. In fact, the practitioner will lose faith in training sooner or later, and be frustrated and confused regarding his/her progress.

When a person learning CMA without sufficient practice of the set routine, and attempt to use it in combat situation, he/her will very quickly find him/herself in a situation where he/her start utilizing brute force, and run out of moves very quickly, or, end up revert to other moves.

By learning multiple CMA at one go, without having a priority or focus on anyone of it, one will never be good or competent. Very simple, multitasking when never allow one to be accomplished in a particular task. As the saying goes, Jack of all, master of none.  

In my opinion, for one to be accomplished in CMA training, one of be diligent in practising in the set routine designed for that art. Do it everyday, 3-5 times, even 10 times a day. I understand it's not easy in today's hectic work/life routine, but we should not not do it just because we can't. Meanwhile, one have to study the combat usage of the art. I'm not encouraging anyone to be aggressive, or challenging, but to spend time to study about the purpose of every single movements that you practice in your set routine. All of them are there for a reason, and they are follow up with the next moves with a reason too.

In today's world, the needs of one to be highly skilled in martial arts is diminishing, however, if anyone were to have interest in Chinese martial arts, I encourage you to be diligent and intelligent in training. The learning curve is steep, but once you start to understand what you are doing, you will achieve a mental accomplishment that will spur you on in learning. Learning Chinese martial arts is a lifelong pursuit, and I would hate to see martial arts fade off with time. In fact, sometimes I am afraid, in another 50 years, Chinese martial arts will be nothing more than a dance.

I will be devoting my time in learning this art, and hope that we, together will keep this art true intention in time to come.