True, but one of my biggest problems with making my art work was that a lot of the techniques simply weren't working against the boxers. Only after a lot of thought and experimentation did I develop the right combinations to make them land. But when they were successful I could see the "HOLY SHIT!" and "WTF!" look in their eyes.
They just can't deal with these powerful attacks from strange angles and completely different combinations. It's only made me more confident in my chosen art. It isn't the only one out there that works, but it works well. If everyone did the same thing it would get old fast..
My master taught me all of these things, but I had to leave before I had a chance to battle-test everything. Thankfully, I had many opportunities to get my arse handed to me by him and watch him spar with others (and he sends me video clips), so it was only a matter of replication and then settling into my own groove. The past three months with the boxers has been exactly what I needed to put an exclamation point on ten years of training in China. I hope to continue until the summer (also still studying a last bit of Tuishou), after which I'll probably be moving to a new region of China, but with my focus finally on adventuring, my goals in martial arts having been accomplished.