The importance of knowing why

On Tuesday evening I received an important reminder about why it is necessary to understand what you are trying to achieve when performing a technique in a form. I was practicing a broadsword form and Sifu Maury entered the training area to observe the students. He was standing right by me and so, being lead by my ego, I tried very hard to impress. At one point in the form you perform a sidekick from a defensive position and follow it with a horizontal cut. So I pull off a beautiful head-high sidekick with a wide-sweeping cut and feel pretty smug that I didn't screw up.

Sifu Maury enters the floor and then educates us with the history of the weapon and tells us about the form being in combat with a staff. It turns out that a high sidekick pushes the opponent backwards, giving them the range advantage of the staff, so the sidekick is actually supposed to be a low one to the knee. This brings the opponent body down and forwards so it is perfectly in range for a quick follow-up cut. So rather than my spectacular sidekick impressing Sifu it just demonstrated my ignorance of the form.

A couple of great lessons here. Putting the controlling my ego lesson aside - something that I fear has a great many years of work ahead of me - it is a great illustration that every move in the form has a purpose and it is critical to understand the meaning in order to perform it
correctly and to help you remember. This enables every move to have an intention which will channel your body's energy into every technique. Back to intention again, I knew it would not be long before I mentioned it again...

Nick
White Sash