No forms

[Asmo]

Haha oh man, yeah I can imagine what that must be like and what it can lead to... I'm relieved to be able to say that is not (yet) the case over here...

Their daughter trains with us too!

[juicy couture]

[juicy couture]

[Daifong]

[vaulander]

I have some input that might help. I think I might have mentioned this guy earlier, Tommy, a gangly, all elbows and knees student I met at Sifu Boris' Shaolin class. Well, he wanted to learn to play the guitar, and I love to teach, so he used to come over to my place to learn. Just as he was all elbows and knees in kung fu, he was 10 thumbs on guitar. We spent ages on a small piece I wrote when I first got my guitar, had some basic guitar techniques such as pull off, hammering, etc at a steady pace.
The boy practiced like he was driven by whips, every little section, but he had a hell of a time trying to put them in order in a steady flow. At the end he could pick up the guitar and just improvise off his head with all the techniques and make the guitar so sweet, but trying to make him do the little ditty from step one to the end would always be painful with pauses of trying to remember what came next.

If your boys burn for it, learn the basics, fundamentals, principles, and can 'play the kungfu' but can't follow a set song, then I would keep them.
The opposite would be someone who can pick up 20 forms easily and perfectly, but when it's dinner time they get eaten because they don't know what the moves are for.
There's a saying, and I am probably butchering it, but it goes something like this. "If you forget the forms but still retain the fundamentals and techniques, you will be well in your old age. If you only practice forms, but not fundamentals, when the forms are forgotten you have nothing."

[Daifong]

...and then, I had a student I was teaching Gim, an older woman, it took her like a year to learn the set, teaching her 2-3 times per week (she herself would practice every morning in the park, right after practicing the Tai Chi set that she had learned somewhere)...

She really could not absorb more than two moves in a lesson, including practice review. If I taught her a single new stroke, she could probably absorb just one more stroke on that particular day. More than that, forget it...

If I managed to teach her a third stroke on top of that, the first one would be forgotten, lol...

The only thing that made it difficult for me was that she would insist on trying anyway, "learning something new", for her, I'm convinced was better than Christmas!

I think it's human nature to compare ourselves with others in a learning situation, but it can be potentially anxiety-making, and lead to a lot of negative self-talk, which isn't going to help the process very much...

Acknowledging those feelings and then verbally articulating a more positively realistic self-view can go along way toward dispelling the anxiety, and, as others here have also mentioned, emphasizing "quality over quantity when it comes to Gung Fu" can be the beacon which shines with positive motivation for both beginning and experienced, coordinated, and uncoordinated alike!



Best,

Michael

[Asmo]

You have to give credit to those who stick around despite learning so slow

[PM]

it tooks cca. year, two or three to learn one side of gjffk sparing set properly to an average student in my school. the other side is usually learnt in one or two sessions (one girl form my school has just learnt the othe side just in one session - to her pleasant surprise). same goes for other sets - once you have gjffk, you will learn whatever other set really fast; once you have staff and sabre, you will learn every other weapon really fast.

[vaulander]

I must agree with that. The boys and I started with Arrow Hand, which was confusing, Lau Gar which was a little easier, but Kung Gee was a monster. We had to rewatch the DVD so many times just to remember the sequence of moves, but after that, the other sets came easy, even Fu Hok.
I am thinking that doing memorization that involves both mind and body in some way rewires your brain, which takes far more time than just memorizing a song or a poem. Learning new movement patterns and such. Perhaps new dancers have the same problem, but I have neither the time or interest to investigate that.
You also have to consider body age as a possible factor in this. My mother, an english professor had this book about language learning, can't remember the name or the part of the brain responsible, but in kids up to about 11-12 this brain section is huge, as they are learning to assimilate in the culture they are in. Children of 1st gen immigrants often are bi- and tri-lingual, and in places of pidgin, like in colonies where the spoken language is not complete, will create the missing grammar and complete the language. This function to assimilate languages fades at 11-12, and anyone who's tried to learn a language as adults have to grind, memorize and study hard for it.
One could wonder the difference between kids and adults in learning different martial arts as well, if one discounts that they are still learning body-sense at the same time.

Take Derrick (19 at the time,) when we were learning Lau Gar, he would have serious spurts of initiative and learn several sections in a flash, then stop (lazy,) then kick forward again, while I at 36 had to grind every section several times, do it from the beginning several times, then learn the next section.

Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks, you just need more patience. I am going to force my father to learn KGFFK, either the one I know, or the one I learn in Sweden. Considering the tremendous health benefits I have enjoyed for my knee and my back since starting it, I want him to get in better health as well, since his health is one of the main reasons I am going back there. It doesn't have to be exhibition style perfect.
V.

[Asmo]

Just wanted to say, after the stanceset we do in the beginning of the class I asked the group to keep in horse for as long as they could endure. The male of the couple stood the longest. Maybe their ability to remember the moves of forms is a problem but their will is strong

[Daifong]

If you do most of your basic training as partner work, the students can then motivate and remind each other (along with many other hidden benefits)...

[Asmo]

That's why I stick to them with drills Lots of partner drills, and then let them do them on their own.

[Daifong]

Well, "intelligent people may disagree", but you know, "great minds really do think alike"...

Now look who sounds "creative"!



Best,

Michael

[Asmo]

Kudos to your long arm drills daifong You need to have good creativity for that, aside from a solid understanding of Hung Kuen of course. Creativity like that makes it really a martial art.

I'm just happy I can help two people who hardly did any sports before. They both say they really enjoy the workouts and notice big changes in their bodies. Thats enough for me to continue

[Elmakai]