Contradictory

During last week's I Ho Chuan class Sifu Rybak said something that was very beautiful and profound about our forms and I wanted to remember it in a blog. The exact wording is long gone now, but the idea is still clear in my mind, she said something along the lines of this

our school forms won't fit you, you didn't make them so they don't take into consideration how your body moves or what strengths or weaknesses you might have, but to completely contradict myself, they should fit you perfectly because they utilize the universal truths of martial arts and the foundations of our style. If you are maximizing power, applying your skelton, using your six harmonies (i.e. DOING kung fu!) then it shouldn't matter. 

And I love this idea so much. The fact that it sounds so conflicting but makes so much sense! How both ideas can be true: the school forms won't fit us because we can only grow to know them, we are always, on some level, imitating someone's way of doing it because there is no other way for us to know it, compared to the intrinsic way we understand the forms we build for ourselves, a second language versus a native one. 

But at the same time, the very nature of kung fu is to maximize your own power and effectiveness whatever that may look like from person to person. We can use our fundamental understanding of kung fu to inform how we should be doing the techniques; That just because we didn't make them doesn't mean we can't make them ours.

	Current Total	Should Be At
Push-ups	8357	11263
Sit-Ups	5218	11263
Hand Form	64	209
Weapon Form	53	209
Other Forms	21	73
Sparring	55	209
AOK	135	209
Steps	586	323
Repair Relationship	1	1
Me and White Supremacy	4	5
12 Applications	0	1
1-on-1's	6	10
Kung Fu Art	0	1