Proficiency and Mastery in the Martial Arts
The year 2021 marks 20 years of martial arts practice for me. This milestone has felt significant for a variety of astrological and mundane reasons – and I am excited to meet my third decade of training with the same freshness and openness to learn as I felt with the previous two. Of course, on the cusp of any such long term anniversary, there is quite a lot to reflect on. I have now spent more of my life involved in the discipline of martial arts than not, and have also spent equal time in dedicated study of two separate and distinct practices within it – one “external,” one “internal” – and have gotten to understand the mentality and methodology present in both types of training. One topic that feels pretty universal is the one that I felt inspired to write about today, and that is the topic of proficiency and mastery in the martial arts.
The year 2020 has me watching a lot more videos of myself than I would honestly prefer through the endless Zoom recordings and other videos that I am making for the online school website. Watching yourself practice on video can be a useful exercise, and can also be an uncomfortable source of self criticism. Over the years I have accrued a small collection of clips of myself practicing forms dating back to 2013, when I was still quite new at the Tao Institute. I have come across these several times this year when wading through the new file systems I’ve created to manage all of the video files involved with my projects. When I watch them, it is honestly amazing to me how much my movement has changed since that time. My previous training was so different that it took me quite a while to reconfigure everything about how I was moving, and I don’t think I started to lose awkwardness in my movement until at least 5 years into my internal training. After that, my progress jumps dramatically, and by the time I put together the videos for our YouTube channel, recorded in 2019, my movement had transformed considerably, with very few traces of my original ways.
I remember when I posted those 2019 videos, I thought to myself that I had finally reached a place with my movement that I could feel okay putting a video of myself out on the internet and not cringe to death watching it. I considered this a sign that I had finally achieved an acceptable level of proficiency and integration.
Reflecting on this, I attribute my seemingly quickened progress in more recent years to the near constant practice of fundamentals that I did as my teaching duties increased. My hours at the school included countless weekly repetitions of Silk Reeling Spiral Power Qigong, stances, and fundamental forms, as well as the wide variety of more advanced material that I was learning privately or in group training. Practicing so much can be quite demanding, and so my emphasis in training became a consistent effort to keep opening and clearing the pathways to maintain relaxation, connection and energy. In time, this energy work alone began to transform the nature & external appearance of my movement. This is a phenomenon commonly referred to in Internal Martial Arts circles as developing the Tai Chi body.
The work of integrating your energy with your body continuously over time not only clears the channels, but also begins to entrain and shape the body to the appropriate structure for energetic flow. I still have areas where I have a lot of stuck ancestral Qi, but I managed to move enough of the superficial layers that there is not as much obvious external separation as I once had. Observing these differences in myself over the years encourages me to keep going – because on the day to day, it can feel very much like the classic Taoist story of crafting a needle from a piece of stone. The changes can be so subtle that it can seem as if nothing is happening. It is only through the accumulation of the changes that one begins to realize how much has occurred.
There are so many phases and stages to training. As I write this, I am recalling some of my more recent instructions from Sifu. When I actually manage to apply his suggestions correctly, I see the obviousness of what I need to do. But it is still not automatic, and too easy to fall into the same old habits of old training motifs that I have perhaps already outgrown. Digressions, stagnancy, plateaus – these are all too familiar states for anyone who has spent a long enough time involved with a single subject. To keep the mind flexible in the work is to me one of the greatest gifts of the Taoist arts in particular – and this has facilitated numerous breakthroughs in so many areas of my life. But it is the constancy of staying the course – no matter what is happening, no matter how one feels -- that is the true secret to growth.
Observing myself over the last 20 years, with 10 years in two completely distinct periods of training, I have noticed a few things.
It takes about 3-5 years to gain the fundamental basis of a system and about 7 years to begin to embody it.
It takes at least 3 years to gain proficiency in any form.
Earlier this year, I was helping a student in a lesson clear up a sequence that they were confused about in one of their forms. They had known the form for a little while and seemed frustrated with the struggle, so in an attempt to reassure them, I said something to the effect of, “Don’t worry, in time you will gain more proficiency.”
Several weeks later, this person revealed to me that they were upset by this statement, as my suggestion implied to them that I was judging them as not proficient and they were discouraged. I was honestly surprised. Sifu regularly emphasizes to all students that it takes at least 20 years to learn the internal martial arts properly – a fact that has always made perfect sense to me – so I just assumed that all students had digested this reality. My response to this student, and to any other student who might feel a similar way is the same: It took me years of consistent practice to gain proficiency in any one of the forms that I am assigned to teach. And of all of the forms I know, there are quite a few I would not consider myself proficient in.
So what, then, is the framework for proficiency?
To me, the process of learning a form is basically this:
Learning framework: This step is not complete until the form can be performed by the student on their own.
Refining the framework: This is practicing to get all of the positions correct, footwork correct, stances correct, and all of the techniques basically correct.
Understanding the form/developing the skill: This stage can take years, as technique is fundamentally tied to energy work, integration, and application.
Embodying the form: This is when you really have a solid and tangible understanding of the form and application and are able to maintain a steady state of continuous awareness and integrated/connected energy throughout.
It is only at this point that one is really proficient, and even at this point, there is always more to learn.
From my experience, receiving continued & repeated instruction from Sifu makes the process much more expedient. Teaching the material is, of course, also helpful as I must integrate and understand the knowledge deeply enough to translate it to others. But most important of all is practicing and applying what is learned with intention and awareness. Proficiency is something that can’t really be rushed – it is something that simply develops over time through consistent effort.
I also want to note here that there is a distinction between proficiency and mastery. I’ve not yet mastered anything in the martial arts, so I can only comment on my glimpses and observations of mastery. Mastery, to me, is the ability to have spontaneity as well as full embodiment. To do this inside a framework is one level, and then there is another level when one is able to play with the framework or even break free from it entirely.
I have no idea if I will ever gain mastery of martial arts in this lifetime. I see myself as a serious practitioner, but I am not yet fully immersed. Too much of my time is occupied with the concerns of mundane life and other aspects of my multidimensional nature. I am not especially gifted in the realm of martial arts either — I actually started off as an extremely slow learner. My first master told my father, “I didn’t know if she would get it” after several months when I finally showed signs of progress. It was like learning a foreign language. In truth, the only reason why I have achieved anything is because I eventually started to understand the workings of the language, and as a practitioner I am consistent and I pay attention. I am the exact opposite of Sifu, who was naturally gifted in all respects, as well as an extremely hard worker. Sifu is someone who has mastery. He can show up, in any situation, and do anything (fighting, form, energy), at any time. He’s completely connected in every way.
My main hope for myself is that I can learn well enough to do things properly and pass it on. Maybe in the end, that might lead to mastery. Maybe not. I have learned to accept that this is a journey, and it is pointless to waste energy on setting a destination. As Sifu would say, the journey and the destination are the same.
As a teacher, I think my learning deficits end up benefitting me, as I am usually quite able to strategize with students and understand their struggles and needs. My real strength, perhaps, is with translating the process — a piece that is quite effortless for me and always fascinating. I am only interested, anyway, in mastering who I am. And so if I can manage that, with martial arts being one facet of who I am, I will be pleased. And all I want for anyone else is the same — to master who they are, exactly as they are meant to be. I share what I know about gaining proficiency in the martial arts to help people open up their internal bodies and integrate their higher self with their physical body. Whether they find it easy and natural, or struggle with everything, doesn’t matter to me at all. If they are making progress in their integration — progress that is suited to them, measured in reference to them — then I am extremely happy.
For me, that purpose supersedes everything else, so there is no reason to worry about where one falls on the scale of learning or to be concerned by any suggestion that one could become more proficient. The reality is that one could always become more proficient. And as long as a person is a student, they will always be in a stage of learning. I’ve been practicing for 20 years and there are many things I learned along the way that I acquired proficiency in, and that have become a part of me. And there are many, many more that I have hardly understood. The absolute truth, however, is that in all of it — I have barely scratched the surface.