Talent vs. Hard Work?

[Peter]

Just out of curiosity, do you feel high-level I Liq Chuan skills can be attained through consistent training and hard work, or are these higher-level skills limited to people who are exceptionally talented?

Peter

[Marty]

Desire, persistence, and consistency of hard and smart training will always trump talent at the end of the day.

[Peter]

Desire, persistence, and consistency of hard and smart training will always trump talent at the end of the day.

Well, that certainly sounds poetic and I hope it's true, but I know plenty of people who work hard yet never seem to make any real progress.

My own teaching experience has shown that there are basically three kinds of students: talented, average and clueless.

It's just as tough to have to grade a clueless person who has really worked hard as it is galling to give a good grade to a talented person who hasn't put in any effort at all.

I know there are areas in my life where hard work did not yield the benefits I had hoped for, and yet other areas where hard work led to results far in excess of my expectations.

I guess I am wondering how far an "average" person can get with I Liq Chuan if they really devote themselves to learning the system.

Peter

[veggiecook]

In answer to your question Peter I will quote one of my favorite Zen sayings by D.T Suzuki.
"Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points."
I feel that our art wakes us up to the potential of what we are at each and every moment. It introduces us to ourselves and is a fascinating and powerful tool for exploring what is within. We have the road map which is the system and structure of I-Liq Chuan and with effort both mental and physical we have the opportunity to understand ourselves and develop equanimity toward all. This is more than enough reason to practice and more than enough promise of becoming an exceptional practitioner of the art.

Peter, I think that Veggiecook answered your question already, but I will add some thoughts.

The key how to deal with your question can be found in Sifu's I-Liq Chuan book (page 21):
"Having acquired the wisdom sword we now need to be on the right ground to fight the right battle. It is very important at this stage to ask the right questions. First of all, identify who or what is the real problem. When the identification of the problem is not clear, the answer can easily be faulty. We cannot identify the true face of the enemy, and we literally create more enemies for ourselves. As a matter of fact, the ground for battle is within us. This is physical and mental. The body, feeling, mind, nature and law of nature are the ground which we need to penetrate and understand."

[/u]The question you raised, could lead to endless theoretical discussions. Depending on the own experiences or opinions, one can vote for talent, another one for hard and consistent training. Everyone knows a lot of examples when this or that happened only because of talent or hard work... At the end of all discussions, one would accept those opinions which are closer to his feelings. No other benefit.

If we acknowledge, that the right battlefield for almost all our "problems" is within ourselves, we can start to generate the right questions. That could be in our gsneral question Talent vs. Hard work" omething like this:

What do I feel if I say "talent"?
What is a talent?
Is it a real thing or is it rather a mental concept?
What is I-Liq Chuan? Is it a real thing I can master? Or is it rather a concept?
Isn't a martial art style no more than an opinion of someone? Does it exist only because people accepted it as a style? Or would it exist independently too? How do I influence the style with my thoughts and actions?
Can there be a talent for I-Liq Chuan? If yes, where does it come from?
Or is it rather a talent for Martial Arts in general? Where does this come from?
Or is is rather a general talent for movement?
If a talent is a real thing and it is superior to hard work, so what?
Superior in what? What do I look for? What will change when I get it? What will be after that?
Do I look for a point at the end of my road or do I rather look for a perpetual joy while going somewhere?
What is it hard work?
Is is something painful? Exhausting? Grimm duty? Something, we don't like? Is it worth to do it?
Or is the training process satisfactory for its own sake?
Are there really only 3 types of martial art practitioners (talented, average and clueless)? Who put an individual practitioner in one of these categories? A third person? Who has got this authorization? Or did they put themselves to their particular level? If they did, why? For what reasons and for which period of time?
If someone is on a certain level today, where will he be tomorrow?
Is who am I today the same person as I was yesterday?
What was my level of skills in I-Liq Chuan yesterday or one year ago? Is it better now? Do I want to compare my level with the level of other individuals or rather with mine?
What about measuring the level? Does the scale need to have 11 levels like we have it in I-Liq Chuan system? Or is it rather like a rainbow with an infinite range of colors?
What does it mean to "make progress"? Towards what? Towards 1) the inner satisfaction, towards knowledge about the Self? Or towards 2) a stronger self confident ego which wants to dominate other people? How does it help me or other people if I made progress on the way towards 1) or 2)? Questions over questions... It is just a beginning...

--

[VEB]

 Сообщение от Peter

Just out of curiosity, do you feel high-level I Liq Chuan skills can be attained through consistent training and hard work, or are these higher-level skills limited to people who are exceptionally talented?

Peter

Personally I do not completly understand the question. Well, I do understand part of it - I mean - hard work.

What I do not exaclty understand is - talent.
What is talent here? Some physical or mental conditions? Or maybe something else?

As they say it in yoga, there are multple ways to get enlightment (or in our case high-level skills):
1. By birth (maybe an equivalent of talent)
2. By hard and correct practice of yoga (in our case iliqchuan).
3. Taking some drugs (I do not know if there are any to get high skills in Iliq ).
4. something else that I do not remember. Maybe by a mercy of guru or something like this.

And each person can get to the end result by what works for him.

However, as I (with my VERY limited experience in ILiqChuan) feel it, you missed one very important item in your original question - attention.

As I see it, a person with high level of attention/consciousness will need less time to get to higher levels of skills. Some people are gifted by nature with high level of consciousness (talent). As a result they practice little, but get a lot.

A person with low levels of consciousness can spend dozens of years of hard work and get little result.

However, maybe he could spend some time and effort to improve his consciousness, and slightly shift his emphasis on the training – to do the work in such a way that he really feels something, instead of simply doing exercises. I guess it would dramatically shorten the time needed for this person to master the skills.

At least it’s might point of view now, being quite a novice here.

[Marty]

 Сообщение от VEB

Personally I do not completly understand the question. Well, I do understand part of it - I mean - hard work.

What I do not exaclty understand is - talent.
What is talent here? Some physical or mental conditions? Or maybe something else?

As they say it in yoga, there are multple ways to get enlightment (or in our case high-level skills):
1. By birth (maybe an equivalent of talent)
2. By hard and correct practice of yoga (in our case iliqchuan).
3. Taking some drugs (I do not know if there are any to get high skills in Iliq ).
4. something else that I do not remember. Maybe by a mercy of guru or something like this.

And each person can get to the end result by what works for him.

However, as I (with my VERY limited experience in ILiqChuan) feel it, you missed one very important item in your original question - attention.

As I see it, a person with high level of attention/consciousness will need less time to get to higher levels of skills. Some people are gifted by nature with high level of consciousness (talent). As a result they practice little, but get a lot.

A person with low levels of consciousness can spend dozens of years of hard work and get little result.

However, maybe he could spend some time and effort to improve his consciousness, and slightly shift his emphasis on the training – to do the work in such a way that he really feels something, instead of simply doing exercises. I guess it would dramatically shorten the time needed for this person to master the skills.

At least it’s might point of view now, being quite a novice here.

Good post Veb. But I would say that just as the student with initially lower consciousness needs to adjust his training so does the more aware student. As a martial art I Liq Chuan is the unification of the mental with the physical. No matter how readily the more conscious student grasps concepts and principles he still must be able to manifest by action and deliver the goods. Similarly, the more physically 'talented' or naturally athletic student must unify with the mental. It all takes time and consistent practice of solo and partner training. The story of the tortoise and the hare has some relevance here even though this isn't a race and there's no finish line.

[Peter]

However, maybe he could spend some time and effort to improve his consciousness, and slightly shift his emphasis on the training – to do the work in such a way that he really feels something, instead of simply doing exercises.

VEB, that's a very good point. I think that's where I am in my training at the moment - I know the 15 basic exercises, so I am now trying to focus more on feeling the limits, the open/close and absorb/project when I do the movements in the exercises.

Do you train together with Dima? I had a chance to train with him when I attended some ILC seminars in Poland. It was a lot of fun.

Peter

[ashe]

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

anyway, i'd like to jump in here with my $.02;

i think peter's initial question was of a direct nature as opposed to what might be called an indirect nature.

in other words, if i just speak plainly we could say that "what kind of "real", practical skill level can people get?"

my experience so far confirms what peter said in his second post. (people basically fall into one of three basic categories of talented, average and clueless).

for instance i have a student (i won't name) who is very dedicated but makes little progress. (although i don't think many practice outside of class time, so take it with a grain of salt.)

but just because they aren't developing much "on touch" or even with the forms, doesn't mean that the "less talented" aren't benefiting from practice.

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.

[VEB]

 Сообщение от Peter

Do you train together with Dima? I had a chance to train with him when I attended some ILC seminars in Poland. It was a lot of fun.

Not exactly with Dima. Dima visits our city once a week on weekends and teaches us (a small group) ILiqChuan.
We started at the end of this spring, but had too little interested people (in spite of Minsk being the capital of Belarus and being almost 10 times bigger than Grodno).
So the classes stopped this summer and I was training myself with a friend of mine.
Luckily this October we resumed the exercises with Dima. So I have a chance not only to use video and guess some things, but to get some mentoring, which really helps, as Dima is a good teacher.
Now we are trying to build a bigger group in Minsk. Currently there are around a dozen of us, so we barely cover Dima's travel to Minsk and back and he is basically teaching us for free.
On my end I try to sponsor the rent for the space we train each weekend.
Thus, with all the joint efforts it looks like the group is growing and we will soon not only have more people for partner work, but will also make the whole thing at least covering all the expenses.

And yes, I like training with Dima, his level is much higher than mine. Unfortunately, he spends most of the time teach students, so I can spent much time doing the partner work with him.

And, I guess, it's not that interesting for Dima to work with such a novice as I