​​Practicing martial arts is a lifetime journey.  Along the road, you will run into many details on techniques, practice them countless times and in the end, you may even pick up many valuable lessons which you can apply to life.  One thing is for sure though, you will always be learning. 

Due to globalization, and the rapid growth of Muay Thai and BJJ, many people have shown a new interest to combat sports.  But because of the differences in each of our educational upbringing, frustration easily occurs when East meets West. 

Back in the 90s, it was common to say that Hong Kong students were always engaged in “spoon fed” education or much of a surface approach.  That is to say, traditional Hong Kong education is very exam oriented and has a deep root in culture to being respectful towards the teacher.  

Because grades play a large part of a student’s success, students are taught passively to rely deeply on memorization to reproduce words or diagrams to tackle their exams.  They merely transfer their knowledge to paper, rather than retaining knowledge for future use.

Ultimately, this method set high precedents in examination marks throughout Asia compared to the West but hindered development and creativity. 

On the other hand, western style of education has always encouraged understanding information.  They have been used to been given space to explore their potential and creativity.  Albeit sometimes, too much freedom is given, resulting in the student going off track.  

These educational systems ultimately pave the foundation to your learning habits which carry forward to learning martial arts.  

When learning traditional kung fu in Hong Kong, many gyms opt to show you the fundamentals of their system at a tortoise pace, making sure that you have firmly grasped the basics before slowly moving towards the core.  The same applies to judo, when you often hear senior members tell you how they learnt how to break fall for a full half a year before they learnt their first throw. 

In Thailand, if you were to join any Muay Thai gym, you are handed their full arsenal of skills on day one.  The entire set of motions, free for you to explore, yet you are left confused where to start.  

When learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, classes and seminars are conducted and techniques are demonstrated to step by step, with variations stemming from a core move.  

Thus comes the conflict in learning.  “I never used to learn it this way”.  “I don’t know what to do after this move.”  “You should tell me what to do regularly.”  “This type of training is too simple for me.”  “This type of training is too technical for me.” 

The styles of teaching will always differ.  Ultimately though, the most important thing to learn is to ask “why”.  

By all means, ask your master questions, but if he does not provide you with an answer you fully comprehend, find out why yourself.  

Stop blaming your sensei that he taught you the wrong way because for by a stroke of luck, sometimes our learning patterns are in unison, but for the bulk of the time, we are not.  They are only here to guide you, to inspire you and to teach you the best way they can. 

For the love of God, we live in the motherfucking 21st century, if you don’t understand something, Google it.  If Googling doesn’t work, ask a friend, if asking a friend doesn’t work, ask someone on the net, ask on Facebook, ask on Instagram – the possibilities are endless.  

And sure, you can always wait to be spoon fed and let the perfect opportunity fall on your shoulders, but you will surely go much further if you find out for yourself. 

Understand the technique, understand the physics behind it.  Understand why a certain move is executed a certain way instead of other ways.  Experiment with it whilst shadowing, experiment it on a dummy, try to use in live sparring against a weak partner, try to use it on a strong partner and execute it flawlessly in competition after countless repetition.  

Such is learning, and such is martial arts.  

Surely, learning requires certain input on our part, right?  Remember homework?  Do your homework you lazy fuck. 

“Learning is creation, not consumption.  Knowledge is not something a learner absorbs, but something a learner creates.  Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.”