JIG SAW OR LEGO? YOUR CALL.

 Even when we think we have discovered something amazing we should tear it down and rebuild it.

Wing Chun Forms are not Kata, they are not Shadow Boxing Sets, they are not anything concrete but instead are a kind of shifting puzzle.

At first, they appear as a Jig Saw, here are the pieces here is the picture, make it. 

But later they become much more like a Lego set, here are the bricks build it, once we have completed the picture on that box we can take it apart and make another shape, instead of Big Ben we can make a train engine, very different model but the same bricks.

No matter how challenging or interesting a Jig Saw is, once it has been done, it has been done, and there is a considerable drop off in the involvement with that puzzle from that point on.

 Lego on the other hand can be reutilised, can be added to, there is even the chance to work without plans to come up with something original, or at the very least something new for ourselves.

Repeating the same Form the same way is the cornerstone of some schools,  the idea that to truly know something you must repeat it 10,000 times is set deep and hard into their ideology.

 This is a very Eastern way of thinking, in the West it has long been held that if you always do the same thing, you will always get the same result and to think otherwise is madness.

Thinking that we can grow by performing the same set of movements in the same way, for many hours a week, over many years, is hope, not training. 

The only thing we can hope to get from repetition is a repeat of what has already been done, already been learned, to move forwards we need to change, we need to approach the work from a different perspective, we need to do something different.

 This is called evolving.

Wing Chun is clearly defined by its principles, not its Forms, as long as we adhere to these principles we should allow ourselves to tear down the old and rebuild it, just like Lego, not just once but constantly.

 Even when we think we have discovered something amazing we should tear it down and rebuild it.  

In lateral thinking Dr Edward De Bono advises to find the best answer that you can come up with, he calls this the “First Best Answer”, and then discard it and begin again.

 The first best answer only looks like the best answer because it ticks all the present boxes, it does nothing that could tick the boxes of the future, solve the problems that we will certainly be presented with.

Learn the form, but seek the formless.

Learn it all, then forget it all.

Learn The Way, then find your own way. “THE SILENT MONK“