Storm wrote:Hello Mr. Szymanski,
thank you for the explanation. It made me reconsider my perspective on my training. I can very much understand your arguments. If our teachers invested so much in us it would be indeed dishonorable to forget all their efforts.
What I find hard is to excel in one style because I train more than one, so sometimes this feels also like I am not putting enough effort in each.
taiwandeutscher wrote:
The old question: One style only or cross-training in several.
Surely no problem for Jarek and others, with a decent basic foundation in one style. Later on, one can and might want to look into other styles.
Generally there is a saying in CMA: 人过三师武艺高 - one needs to study under three teachers before developing high skills. Its not only a matter of the system itself, but also personal preferences, character, each teacher has different understanding, body type, mental disposition. Through the practice of different styles under various teachers you not only develop skills, but also discover your own "MA personality".
edededed wrote:"Xiao" as in small? Is Wu Maogui short? I forget who told me - but I heard that he had few students originally, did not have much of a livelihood; later, when some "demand" for tongbei appeared, things took a better turn for him! Which was good.
Always a shame when great masters are not appreciated!
Jarek wrote:Bao,
I've been in China for over 28 years now - and in all this time met many teachers, and learnt from those I had most respect for. They are all gone now, all of them. My Bagua teacher was the oldest of all, and he was the one I learnt first from; next one was XYLHQ teacher, so studying Bagua and Xinyi overlapped, however one was in southern Jiangsu, and I could only study when either I travelled there or when he came over to stay with me in Shanghai. On the weekly basis I would study XYLHQ, because the teacher was in Shanghai, and he became like a second father to me. Then I was lucky to meet and learn from a Tongbei teacher - but it took only a couple of years before he passed away. I left TJQ as the last system to study as the teacher was the youngest of all of them - but he passed away last year... So some choices were mine, some were just destiny and life. I did not want to miss the opportunities to learn from great teachers, but I agree that focusing on one system under one teacher, patiently digging into the deeper layers of skill and not starting from scratch - which is necessity when you begin with a new style - is more efficient.
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