You'd be surprised how much you can learn through trying to explain ILC principles & basic exercises to new people. It makes you see what you are doing in a completely different light, and helps to deepen your own understanding.

Peter

Good quality partner training is critical and an integral part of this art. Fortunately we have a stong group here in Perth and there are lots of members with different energies and 'feels' to train with. I think that you need to be able to externalise the feeling via the partner and you need that point of contact to really get a sense of feedback to assess your progress.

What is ability?
 

Yes, "most people should be able to develop and fine-tune their ILC skills within the limits of their own ability... " but I think that they stay on the reached level only if they believe in the "real existence" of their limits or abilities.

Because, physical factors like health, fitness, flexibility and endurance can improve thanks the training and they can enable the practitioner's further development. There are of course, some conditions, one can't or don't want to change - like age, physical handicaps, weight, character. But other physical and mental factors - like e.g. relaxation, unification of the body, balance, understanding of principles, and above all the awareness can overweight those negative restrictions.

The previous experience doesn't count so much in I Liq Chuan. It can be an advantage at the beginning but on the other side, it takes a lot of effort to get rid of some habits. Even worse if one doesn't realize them at all.

So, at least the above limits seem not to be real. As VEB said in one of his earlier post, the limits move with the time.

Maybe we should define our own limits not in a restrictive way - that means as things we cannot do.
Maybe should the limits be seen more like a fuzzy field consisting form things one can realize now. But the more relaxed he looks, paradoxically, the better and more he can see:-).

Miro