Today was personally disappointing. After two years of practising Tai Chi 13, I discovered I’d been doing one move incorrectly. How is that possible after two years on the same form?
Either the mistake slipped through by some miracle, or it adds weight to a growing pile of evidence that no one is watching. The thought of that makes me incredibly sad.
The truth is that I’ve had two fun years, and they’ve been far from perfect. This latest discovery made me question the school’s intentions. Do they want to teach practitioners to a level they can be proud of? Or is it a business where students are given an experience that looks and feels like Tai Chi and Kung Fu, but never travels deeper than skin level? I don’t really want to consider the answer, because the truth might disappoint.
I understand that only so much can be taught in a given time. But this has been two years, not two months, and every piece of the form should be technically correct, waiting only for further practice, growth and understanding. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe this is the growth, a stage of refinement every student has to embrace to continue the journey.
I’ve learnt to live with the fact that there are rarely certain answers in this martial world. It always feels like you’re navigating vague concepts until you aren’t, and then you’re fixing mistakes that perhaps should have been found a very long time ago.
If I’m honest, I find the whole situation a little confusing right now. But that can happen when you place a deadline on something that never has had one, and never will.
The lesson seems to be that there is no need to place a human concept, applied to the mystical arts of Tai Chi and Kung Fu.