A long, long time ago a master of Tai Chi (not my teacher) told me that if we want to learn something badly enough a guru will appear to teach us what we desire.

I have not been looking to learn anything lately because running a business is a lot of work. One day I am looking at a country’s interest in a particular aspect of public transport and the next I am looking into chemical separation.

However, there has always been some parts of what I know that is missing certain information, knowledge which I could use to round off what I know.

The average master would feed you drills and forms to learn, practice and move you along the learning curve. Rare is the master who would tell you what he really know, the hard won insights that he has acquired, the stuff that in the old days a master would only pass selectively on, in most cases to a son; perhaps an adopted son and in some cases a lucky disciple who has proven himself.

To be offered the inside information from the beginning is like striking lottery, a one in a million chance of winning. Since I don’t gamble I will never win a lottery. But I won the CMA learning sweepstakes.

In learning Chinese martial arts we say that there is always another higher peak to climb up to. This is why learning and practice never ends. The more you think you know, the more you realize that there is still a lot more to learn. The paradox is that in the beginning you need to accumulate knowledge to make progress but at an advance stage you need to discard what is not useful or necessary to make the breakthrough, A case of less is more.

It is not so much how much you know but how well you can apply what you know. The refinement of skill is like sharpening a pencil. You need to shave away what is not necessary to make a pointed tip, a tip that is sharp and can allow you to draw refined lines.

A typical traditional Chinese martial art can have a lot of drills, forms and various learning exercises to go through. At the end of it what really matters is can we use it.

A good skill is like a warm knife cutting through butter. Bang, bang and the opponent is done. There are things I have been told through the years and I am hearing it again, things that are atypical of the Chinese martial culture, things that would not be welcome in today’s more open learning environment, but you can’t access this aspect of the traditional culture if you do not agree with it because like it or not, that’s the way it is.

Today this type of secretive culture is diminishing. But don’t be too happy because it also means that the golden standard that defines the excellence of a style will also diminish in terms of the skills that make it what it is.

Striking a balance is important but in today’s short attention span society, little patience to put in the time required, I fear that for some traditional Chinese martial arts time has already run out. I am glad that I still have the opportunity to get a glimpse and obtain something from this vanishing world.