Want to Move On? Demonstrate the Technique.

I thought I would share a discussion I had with an old traditional kung fu practitioner. We were discussing the attitudes we encounter here in Canada from eager students who want to progress through the ranks. This particular person spoke about the school where he trained in Asia. In traditional schools, it was not acceptable to demand progression from your instructors. It is understood that when you are ready to move on, you will move on. In the school we discussed, the students were taught at a slow pace to ensure that each technique or combination was correct before being allowed to move on. If a student every had the nerve to state that they were ready to learn more, the instructor would put them up on a stage with one of the senior students. The test was to show that you can execute the techniques you learned so far in a fighting situation. If you failed, the consequence was to start your training over from the beginning of the form. Of course it was almost impossible to be good enough to win with a short seriese of techniques so this was a very discouraging proposition. Although this may be the extreme, I do believe the basic lesson is correct. Your instructors are the judge of when you are "ready" to move ahead. It is great to have passion towards your training and natural to want to progress quickly but kung fu has no short cuts.