Talent vs. Hard Work?
 

Just out of curiosity, do you feel high-level I Liq Chuan skills can be attained through consistent training and hard work, or are these higher-level skills limited to people who are exceptionally talented?

Peter

Desire, persistence, and consistency of hard and smart training will always trump talent at the end of the day.

Well, that certainly sounds poetic and I hope it's true, but I know plenty of people who work hard yet never seem to make any real progress.

My own teaching experience has shown that there are basically three kinds of students: talented, average and clueless.

It's just as tough to have to grade a clueless person who has really worked hard as it is galling to give a good grade to a talented person who hasn't put in any effort at all.

I know there are areas in my life where hard work did not yield the benefits I had hoped for, and yet other areas where hard work led to results far in excess of my expectations.

I guess I am wondering how far an "average" person can get with I Liq Chuan if they really devote themselves to learning the system.

Peter

I-Liq Chuan concepts and principles
 

In answer to your question Peter I will quote one of my favorite Zen sayings by D.T Suzuki.
"Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points."
I feel that our art wakes us up to the potential of what we are at each and every moment. It introduces us to ourselves and is a fascinating and powerful tool for exploring what is within. We have the road map which is the system and structure of I-Liq Chuan and with effort both mental and physical we have the opportunity to understand ourselves and develop equanimity toward all. This is more than enough reason to practice and more than enough promise of becoming an exceptional practitioner of the art.

Fighting in the Right Battlefield
 

Peter, I think that Veggiecook answered your question already, but I will add some thoughts.

The key how to deal with your question can be found in Sifu's I-Liq Chuan book (page 21):
"Having acquired the wisdom sword we now need to be on the right ground to fight the right battle. It is very important at this stage to ask the right questions. First of all, identify who or what is the real problem. When the identification of the problem is not clear, the answer can easily be faulty. We cannot identify the true face of the enemy, and we literally create more enemies for ourselves. As a matter of fact, the ground for battle is within us. This is physical and mental. The body, feeling, mind, nature and law of nature are the ground which we need to penetrate and understand."

[/u]The question you raised, could lead to endless theoretical discussions. Depending on the own experiences or opinions, one can vote for talent, another one for hard and consistent training. Everyone knows a lot of examples when this or that happened only because of talent or hard work... At the end of all discussions, one would accept those opinions which are closer to his feelings. No other benefit.

If we acknowledge, that the right battlefield for almost all our "problems" is within ourselves, we can start to generate the right questions. That could be in our gsneral question Talent vs. Hard work" omething like this:

What do I feel if I say "talent"?
What is a talent?
Is it a real thing or is it rather a mental concept?
What is I-Liq Chuan? Is it a real thing I can master? Or is it rather a concept?
Isn't a martial art style no more than an opinion of someone? Does it exist only because people accepted it as a style? Or would it exist independently too? How do I influence the style with my thoughts and actions?
Can there be a talent for I-Liq Chuan? If yes, where does it come from?
Or is it rather a talent for Martial Arts in general? Where does this come from?
Or is is rather a general talent for movement?
If a talent is a real thing and it is superior to hard work, so what?
Superior in what? What do I look for? What will change when I get it? What will be after that?
Do I look for a point at the end of my road or do I rather look for a perpetual joy while going somewhere?
What is it hard work?
Is is something painful? Exhausting? Grimm duty? Something, we don't like? Is it worth to do it?
Or is the training process satisfactory for its own sake?
Are there really only 3 types of martial art practitioners (talented, average and clueless)? Who put an individual practitioner in one of these categories? A third person? Who has got this authorization? Or did they put themselves to their particular level? If they did, why? For what reasons and for which period of time?
If someone is on a certain level today, where will he be tomorrow?
Is who am I today the same person as I was yesterday?
What was my level of skills in I-Liq Chuan yesterday or one year ago? Is it better now? Do I want to compare my level with the level of other individuals or rather with mine?
What about measuring the level? Does the scale need to have 11 levels like we have it in I-Liq Chuan system? Or is it rather like a rainbow with an infinite range of colors?
What does it mean to "make progress"? Towards what? Towards 1) the inner satisfaction, towards knowledge about the Self? Or towards 2) a stronger self confident ego which wants to dominate other people? How does it help me or other people if I made progress on the way towards 1) or 2)? Questions over questions... It is just a beginning...

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My 2 cents :)
 

Personally I do not completly understand the question. Well, I do understand part of it - I mean - hard work.

What I do not exaclty understand is - talent.
What is talent here? Some physical or mental conditions? Or maybe something else?

As they say it in yoga, there are multple ways to get enlightment (or in our case high-level skills):
1. By birth (maybe an equivalent of talent)
2. By hard and correct practice of yoga (in our case iliqchuan).
3. Taking some drugs (I do not know if there are any to get high skills in Iliq :) ).
4. something else that I do not remember. Maybe by a mercy of guru or something like this.

And each person can get to the end result by what works for him.

However, as I (with my VERY limited experience in ILiqChuan) feel it, you missed one very important item in your original question - attention.

As I see it, a person with high level of attention/consciousness will need less time to get to higher levels of skills. Some people are gifted by nature with high level of consciousness (talent). As a result they practice little, but get a lot.

A person with low levels of consciousness can spend dozens of years of hard work and get little result.

However, maybe he could spend some time and effort to improve his consciousness, and slightly shift his emphasis on the training – to do the work in such a way that he really feels something, instead of simply doing exercises. I guess it would dramatically shorten the time needed for this person to master the skills.

At least it’s might point of view now, being quite a novice here.

Good post Veb. But I would say that just as the student with initially lower consciousness needs to adjust his training so does the more aware student. As a martial art I Liq Chuan is the unification of the mental with the physical. No matter how readily the more conscious student grasps concepts and principles he still must be able to manifest by action and deliver the goods. Similarly, the more physically 'talented' or naturally athletic student must unify with the mental. It all takes time and consistent practice of solo and partner training. The story of the tortoise and the hare has some relevance here even though this isn't a race and there's no finish line.

VEB, that's a very good point. I think that's where I am in my training at the moment - I know the 15 basic exercises, so I am now trying to focus more on feeling the limits, the open/close and absorb/project when I do the movements in the exercises.

Do you train together with Dima? I had a chance to train with him when I attended some ILC seminars in Poland. It was a lot of fun.

Peter

wow! things are starting to take off on the ILC forum. it's exciting to see.

anyway, i'd like to jump in here with my $.02;

i think peter's initial question was of a direct nature as opposed to what might be called an indirect nature.

in other words, if i just speak plainly we could say that "what kind of "real", practical skill level can people get?"

my experience so far confirms what peter said in his second post. (people basically fall into one of three basic categories of talented, average and clueless).

for instance i have a student (i won't name) who is very dedicated but makes little progress. (although i don't think many practice outside of class time, so take it with a grain of salt.)

but just because they aren't developing much "on touch" or even with the forms, doesn't mean that the "less talented" aren't benefiting from practice.

however, peter's first post was about "high level skill", and i think that only a few can really "get it all". after all, everything is based on causes and conditions, and i think that for most, the condition just doesn't exist to reach the high, high level of skill.

Not exactly with Dima. Dima visits our city once a week on weekends and teaches us (a small group) ILiqChuan.
We started at the end of this spring, but had too little interested people (in spite of Minsk being the capital of Belarus and being almost 10 times bigger than Grodno).
So the classes stopped this summer and I was training myself with a friend of mine.
Luckily this October we resumed the exercises with Dima. So I have a chance not only to use video and guess some things, but to get some mentoring, which really helps, as Dima is a good teacher.
Now we are trying to build a bigger group in Minsk. Currently there are around a dozen of us, so we barely cover Dima's travel to Minsk and back and he is basically teaching us for free.
On my end I try to sponsor the rent for the space we train each weekend.
Thus, with all the joint efforts it looks like the group is growing and we will soon not only have more people for partner work, but will also make the whole thing at least covering all the expenses.

And yes, I like training with Dima, his level is much higher than mine. Unfortunately, he spends most of the time teach students, so I can spent much time doing the partner work with him.

And, I guess, it's not that interesting for Dima to work with such a novice as I :)

All it takes is just a few talkative (or typative) persons have 10 minutes each day to read some posts and write a small one of theirs. And then it starts growing very fast :).

I do agree that most probably not many will "get it all". However, as I see it, unless we are talking of some seriusly physically or mentally disabled people, most people have a potential to get to the high levels, even inspite of the differences they have.

Basically, there are some musts for gettig to the high levels - physical condition, mental conditions, enough practice, etc.

Every person has his personal limit (bottleneck) that prevents his fast progress in the martial art. Furthermore, this limit is not static, as times goes by this shifts.

E.g. person can initially have too bad physical condition and be unable to simply do any long-enough exrecises. After, e.g. 6 months of some exrecises, he gets stronger and can do more training. But now his limiting factor becomes, e.g. his level of consionsness. If he simply continues paying more attention to the physical part of the training, he will get little progress even in spite of training hard enough.
Anyway, let's imagine that the person found a way to improve his primarily limiting factor now - his consiusness. Now he really needs to do the exercises and he will get fast progress. But...
For some reason or the other he gets lazy. He does not want to anything. And gets little progress again. And now the limiting factor is quite a different thing.

And it all goes on and on again, with other limiting factors getting in - family, job, illnesses, etc.

As a result very few will "get it all".

Actually, as I see it, ILiqChuan offers a really great(the best that I know) methodology that shows results in many aspects/bottlenecks.

However, what really is also very beneficial is a good teacher/master/shifu who can see what each studend needs at this time, what is his bottleneck, what blocks his progress. And shifu tries to lead the student the best way for him to get it all.

Thus, I'm glad that I found IliqChuan, I'm glad that it has it's great and proven methodology, I'm glad that it has living masters that you can at least visit sometimes and get their hints on what ones current limiting factor is.

Hey Marty, Ashe, Veggiecook, Miro & VEB,

Thanks for your feedback. My original question, as Ashe noted, was simply "what kind of "real", practical skill level can people get?" if they train ILC on a regular basis.

I think we agree that through careful, regular training, most people should be able to develop and fine-tune their ILC skills within the limits of their own ability, which will differ greatly from person to person due to health, previous experience and any number of other factors.

The above comments made clear to me, however, that there are many other reasons to train, benefits that go beyond achieving a practical skill level .... it can help the practioner to develop self-awareness, and the training process itself can be enjoyable, challenging and sociable, as well as doing much to promote one's general health and sense of well-being.

My hope is to be able to attain a high level of real, practical skill, while also appreciating all the other benefits of training I Liq Chuan.

Peter

More than that
 

Personally I start to feel nowadays that the ILiqChuan principles are quite universal and can be obesrved everywhere in the real world.

E.g., the current economic crisis - world economy "did not feel it limits" and moved in a way "that broke it's structure". It did not absorb where it should, and did not push at some other places.

Very same is true for any business or a person not necessarily in relation to ILC itself - to every aspect of our lives that we have.

I only wish I could easily find other sifus like Chin for other aspects of life. Masters that shows highest level of knowing an aspect of reality, having a proven methodology to pass it to students, and who know/can direct students to what is important for them at each moment in time.

I also wish there were such sifus for things like world economies, environmental problems, etc. :)

VEB,

i agree with your above post completely!

for instance, my own "bottleneck" in the beginning was that I was a distance student, training myself. now it's become not enough time to practice. :(

I share your frustration and I live only 45 minutes from Sifu and 3 minutes from Rich.:(

I guess it's only a matter of time as long as you have the right attitude and access to good instructors to correct your practice from time to time. That is total time spent training as well as the length of your life. It's about personal progress, teaching others can be difficult, and this art is tricky because we tend not to accumulate an endless series of techniques. See Zen ref. In business, success/achievement is often related to 90% hardwork and 10% talent and a good dose of luck, commitment is critical.
We are also working with an art with internal and external aspects and the mind and the body have to be united as part of our progress. I think that the reality is that higher level skills are hard to acheive and for most people unless you can train for hours a day it will be very difficult, but you never know, the possibility is there and for some students this will be easier than for others. Previous experience may or may not be helpful.
Clearly some people will find ILC more attractive than other martial arts, I like it because it's simple, some people I know like to make to make their training complicated, beleiving that makes it more sophisticated and adds depth.

It starts to be interesting
 

It looks from most of the posts above that the most limiting factor for most is available time for parctice.

And there is a filed directed toward solving this problem - time management.

The best books/methods I've studied, unfortunately, are in Russian, so I cannot recomend them.

However, there are some nice English books on that. The best that I've read is Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen.

So if many understand their key problem/bottleneck is time, maybe it's worth addressing this aspect with methods directly devoted to this problem.

My 2cents

My problem isn't a time problem with regard to solo practice - I have plenty of time for that - but with access to partner work and instruction because classes that meshed with my work schedule have been dropped. It is very frustrating with no foreseeable fix in sight. Fortunately, there is much to be gained from solo work.

I see, I guess it's also a very common problem. Even if there are some people to do training with, these people might be of much lower level in skills, so they might provide very few opportunities for being educated by them.

well, again, i think that depends on your own skill level. Sifu often says "don't think that you know. once you think you know you quit (looking into the material). you should be in the state that you are learning all the time."

for myself, i find that i can still get some decent training in as long as the other person is capable of at least spinning smoothly. in fact i find it very good training in that it really requires you to look into the various spins and the energies of "north, east south west etc."

for instance, it really shows you how tough it is to maintain fullness throughout the spin if your opponent isn't giving you the right energy to begin with. in other words, it's tough to maintain fullness from east to south (spinning outside to in) if your partner isn't actively trying to close you.

but if they lack the coordination to even just spin then it's very tough to do much because you have to keep stopping to correct them on even the most basic aspects.

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