Hiding Aspiration
One of the things I noticed, especially in my early days, was what I call the “hiding of aspiration”. When starting internal arts, one aspires to something. It may be ability, confidence, spiritual development, etc. Then we get into the details of learning.
Stances, footwork, arm positions, power generation, and most significantly, mental attitude. All these and more dominate the learning process and for good reason. They are all foundational to attaining…what? Probably that initial ideal to which one originally aspired.
Yet the aspiration, ideal, goal, etc. can be obscured by the dominance of those details. We can worry about each of them, fuss over the execution of an exact technique, and lament the difficulty of remembering the next move in the form. One’s aspiration can be hidden in the noise of all this and the dreaded discouragement can creep in.
One thing that became clear to me over the years was that every technical detail was subject to improvement. And this is a never-ending quest.
That quest was and is fuelled by one’s aspirations. I found it helpful to always look back at where I started (no skill) and compare it to where I was at a later point. And the measure of progress was always the ideal to which I aspired.
Technique is important. But without checking on how it informs one’s ideal, technique is empty. So don’t let it hide your aspirations.
As Robert Browning said: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, ‘else what’s a heaven for?”