Talent vs. Hard Work?

[VEB]

 Сообщение от ashe

wow! things are starting to take off on the ILC forum. it's exciting to see.

All it takes is just a few talkative (or typative) persons have 10 minutes each day to read some posts and write a small one of theirs. And then it starts growing very fast .

 Сообщение от ashe

however, peter's first post was about "high level skill", and i think that only a few can really "get it all". after all, everything is based on causes and conditions, and i think that for most, the condition just doesn't exist to reach the high, high level of skill.

I do agree that most probably not many will "get it all". However, as I see it, unless we are talking of some seriusly physically or mentally disabled people, most people have a potential to get to the high levels, even inspite of the differences they have.

Basically, there are some musts for gettig to the high levels - physical condition, mental conditions, enough practice, etc.

Every person has his personal limit (bottleneck) that prevents his fast progress in the martial art. Furthermore, this limit is not static, as times goes by this shifts.

E.g. person can initially have too bad physical condition and be unable to simply do any long-enough exrecises. After, e.g. 6 months of some exrecises, he gets stronger and can do more training. But now his limiting factor becomes, e.g. his level of consionsness. If he simply continues paying more attention to the physical part of the training, he will get little progress even in spite of training hard enough.
Anyway, let's imagine that the person found a way to improve his primarily limiting factor now - his consiusness. Now he really needs to do the exercises and he will get fast progress. But...
For some reason or the other he gets lazy. He does not want to anything. And gets little progress again. And now the limiting factor is quite a different thing.

And it all goes on and on again, with other limiting factors getting in - family, job, illnesses, etc.

As a result very few will "get it all".

Actually, as I see it, ILiqChuan offers a really great(the best that I know) methodology that shows results in many aspects/bottlenecks.

However, what really is also very beneficial is a good teacher/master/shifu who can see what each studend needs at this time, what is his bottleneck, what blocks his progress. And shifu tries to lead the student the best way for him to get it all.

Thus, I'm glad that I found IliqChuan, I'm glad that it has it's great and proven methodology, I'm glad that it has living masters that you can at least visit sometimes and get their hints on what ones current limiting factor is.

[Peter]

Hey Marty, Ashe, Veggiecook, Miro & VEB,

Thanks for your feedback. My original question, as Ashe noted, was simply "what kind of "real", practical skill level can people get?" if they train ILC on a regular basis.

I think we agree that through careful, regular training, most people should be able to develop and fine-tune their ILC skills within the limits of their own ability, which will differ greatly from person to person due to health, previous experience and any number of other factors.

The above comments made clear to me, however, that there are many other reasons to train, benefits that go beyond achieving a practical skill level .... it can help the practioner to develop self-awareness, and the training process itself can be enjoyable, challenging and sociable, as well as doing much to promote one's general health and sense of well-being.

My hope is to be able to attain a high level of real, practical skill, while also appreciating all the other benefits of training I Liq Chuan.

Peter

[VEB]

 Сообщение от Peter

The above comments made clear to me, however, that there are many other reasons to train, benefits that go beyond achieving a practical skill level .... it can help the practioner to develop self-awareness, and the training process itself can be enjoyable, challenging and sociable, as well as doing much to promote one's general health and sense of well-being.

Personally I start to feel nowadays that the ILiqChuan principles are quite universal and can be obesrved everywhere in the real world.

E.g., the current economic crisis - world economy "did not feel it limits" and moved in a way "that broke it's structure". It did not absorb where it should, and did not push at some other places.

Very same is true for any business or a person not necessarily in relation to ILC itself - to every aspect of our lives that we have.

I only wish I could easily find other sifus like Chin for other aspects of life. Masters that shows highest level of knowing an aspect of reality, having a proven methodology to pass it to students, and who know/can direct students to what is important for them at each moment in time.

I also wish there were such sifus for things like world economies, environmental problems, etc.

[ashe]

VEB,

i agree with your above post completely!

for instance, my own "bottleneck" in the beginning was that I was a distance student, training myself. now it's become not enough time to practice.

[Marty]

 Сообщение от ashe

VEB,

i agree with your above post completely!

for instance, my own "bottleneck" in the beginning was that I was a distance student, training myself. now it's become not enough time to practice.

I share your frustration and I live only 45 minutes from Sifu and 3 minutes from Rich.

[Chris Newell]

I guess it's only a matter of time as long as you have the right attitude and access to good instructors to correct your practice from time to time. That is total time spent training as well as the length of your life. It's about personal progress, teaching others can be difficult, and this art is tricky because we tend not to accumulate an endless series of techniques. See Zen ref. In business, success/achievement is often related to 90% hardwork and 10% talent and a good dose of luck, commitment is critical.
We are also working with an art with internal and external aspects and the mind and the body have to be united as part of our progress. I think that the reality is that higher level skills are hard to acheive and for most people unless you can train for hours a day it will be very difficult, but you never know, the possibility is there and for some students this will be easier than for others. Previous experience may or may not be helpful.
Clearly some people will find ILC more attractive than other martial arts, I like it because it's simple, some people I know like to make to make their training complicated, beleiving that makes it more sophisticated and adds depth.

[VEB]

It looks from most of the posts above that the most limiting factor for most is available time for parctice.

And there is a filed directed toward solving this problem - time management.

The best books/methods I've studied, unfortunately, are in Russian, so I cannot recomend them.

However, there are some nice English books on that. The best that I've read is Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen.

So if many understand their key problem/bottleneck is time, maybe it's worth addressing this aspect with methods directly devoted to this problem.

My 2cents

[Marty]

My problem isn't a time problem with regard to solo practice - I have plenty of time for that - but with access to partner work and instruction because classes that meshed with my work schedule have been dropped. It is very frustrating with no foreseeable fix in sight. Fortunately, there is much to be gained from solo work.

[VEB]

 Сообщение от Marty

My problem isn't a time problem with regard to solo practice - I have plenty of time for that - but with access to partner work and instruction because classes that meshed with my work schedule have been dropped. It is very frustrating with no foreseeable fix in sight. Fortunately, there is much to be gained from solo work.

I see, I guess it's also a very common problem. Even if there are some people to do training with, these people might be of much lower level in skills, so they might provide very few opportunities for being educated by them.

[ashe]

 Сообщение от VEB

I see, I guess it's also a very common problem. Even if there are some people to do training with, these people might be of much lower level in skills, so they might provide very few opportunities for being educated by them.

well, again, i think that depends on your own skill level. Sifu often says "don't think that you know. once you think you know you quit (looking into the material). you should be in the state that you are learning all the time."

for myself, i find that i can still get some decent training in as long as the other person is capable of at least spinning smoothly. in fact i find it very good training in that it really requires you to look into the various spins and the energies of "north, east south west etc."

for instance, it really shows you how tough it is to maintain fullness throughout the spin if your opponent isn't giving you the right energy to begin with. in other words, it's tough to maintain fullness from east to south (spinning outside to in) if your partner isn't actively trying to close you.

but if they lack the coordination to even just spin then it's very tough to do much because you have to keep stopping to correct them on even the most basic aspects.