John,

I wanted to share an experience we have with our martial arts instructor.
He teaches several different classes in different forms. One of the things
we can depend on is for him to go over the basics each and every class. He
often goes into sometimes long explanations as to why such-and-such a thing
was done, or how it developed.

He has commented several times that in another class, someone may be two or
two-and-a-half years into study. They suddenly realize how or why something
works, they find themselves *understanding*. Often the student will ask,
"Why didn't you tell us how this worked, its so simple". Our instructor
will often good naturedly replies, "Well, I did tell you that, probably
every session you've attended in the past two years, it was just that you
were not ready to hear it until now. And it is only simple once you know it,
if it is so simple, why didn't you figure this out right when you started".

Sometimes you have to obtain a certain level of understanding before you can
incorporate and make use of some information or training. It doesn't
necessarily have to be "advanced" information either.

Our instructor comments that repetition in practice teaches muscle memory,
and once you can free your mind from having to concentrate on "now move this
foot, now move this arm, etc" you can focus on the centering and spirit with
which the form should be practiced. Just making the right moves in the
proper order is not the goal. Many repeations of a form poorly is not good.
It can take months to overcome the bad habit learned in a week or two of
bad practice.

Ourinstructor is not Japanese, but did receive much of his initial training
there. He is very typically not Japanese in one other, sometimes startling
way. In Japan no student points out that the instructor did something
wrong. Our instructor asks us frequently to call him on it if he says one
thing or does another, or does anything sloppy. Locally he has no peer or
higher ranking companion to help "keep him honest".

Good teachers clearly explain the process beforehand so that
the student
knows why he is doing something over and over. The method
you're
describing. following instructions blindly, only works for Mr.
Miyagi in the
Karate Kid movies. "wax on, wax off"


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