Varying Styles

[ap Oweyn5]

I'm going to differ on this a little, I think. I do agree that you need a foundation in order to make any sense of new information. A chassis on which to bolt other things on. But that's not necessarily going to be your FIRST style.

I think we often feel obliged in some way to "complete" our first style before moving on. But that seems wrong for two reasons: 1) There is no "finishing" a style. You could spend your whole life in one and never get to the bottom of it. BUT 2) This is a choice. You're doing it because it meets some need you feel you have. Whether that need is for belonging, self-protection, whatever, I think you should be free to explore until you land on the thing you feel is meeting that need. And if your feelings on that every change, you can change directions again.

You can make the argument that you won't know until you've been at it for years. Decades even. But I'm not sure how much I buy that. And what a shame it would be to spend all that time unnecessarily.

I don't think there's anything wrong with taking some time to decide on what your foundation should be. And the best way to decide is through some exposure.

At the end of the day, it's like any other decision. You could spend the rest of your life wondering whether it was the "right" one, but it makes more sense to me to accept that we don't deal in absolute "right" choices. We make them and we support them. And that's all.

 

[windwalker09997]

You can make the argument that you won't know until you've been at it for years. Decades even. But I'm not sure how much I buy that. And what a shame it would be to spend all that time unnecessarily.

Maybe not

It might take a long time before one is able to know what they're really looking for....

Not to drag the current Taiji discussion over here, but there are similarities with cross-training and with training becoming burned in—sometimes to the point where changing it becomes extremely difficult.

Wei Shuren is an interesting example. He had already reached what he considered a high level in Chen Taiji before meeting Wang Yongquan. After experiencing what Wang could do, however, he apparently realized that what he had developed was not what Wang had developed. Already over fifty, he set aside what he had previously learned and began again.

Perhaps sometimes it takes years of knowing something before you begin to understand what you don't know.

 

[Kung Fu Wang98]

Perhaps sometimes it takes years of knowing something before you begin to understand what you don't know.

It's very clear that we have different emphasizes on "you don't know".

It takes me years to understand there is no such thing as "internal" and external. There is only the right way of doing thing and the wrong way of doing thing.

For example, when you apply Taiji "diagonal fly", if you control your opponent's back leg, you are doing right,

otherwise, you are doing wrong (because it's too easy for your opponent to escape out of it).