There are different ways to look at one's progression within the traditional Chinese martial arts. One way that I like looking at one's progression is based on our Tiger Crane Combination systems teaching on the three battles. I have discussed the three battles before but want to offer a slightly different perspective.

The three stages of development:

The first stage a student must go through is the stage of forms and shapes. A student must learn the specific shapes, movements and physical structures that the particular system they have chosen teaches. They must change the physical body so that the structures and shapes are not forced and can be settled into with ease. Taking them to a stage where the shapes and structures of the system become the intuitive way they move and stand. Thought is no longer needed to align correctly; it’s automatically correct. These shapes can be like external scaffolding that allows the student to now enter inside and do the next stage of work. - This stage can take between 5 to 10 years of training - this depends mainly on the quantity and quality of one's training.

With the body now aligned correctly and holding our structure in place correctly, we move inside and begin the long and challenging process of changing our inside. This process is not about adding anything - it is purely a process of letting go and abandoning all that is unnecessary. We build up a lifetime of bad habits, ways of thinking, emotional states and these all have a direct effect on how our body and energy move and react. The work at this stage is about letting go physically and mentally of all that offers resistance, our first 5 to 10 years of training has given us the scaffolding and structures physically and mentally so that we don't crumble during this process of abandoning the unnecessary. Most martial artists begin this stage but do not leave it. This stage can take between 20 years and a lifetime of training - Again, this depends on the quantity and more importantly here, the quality of your training. This part of training is also challenging to achieve without a good teacher who knows the path through experience, not intellectual understanding.

The third stage is about removing the scaffolding, the structures and shapes you have mastered no longer matter, you have changed your mind and your body to become Kung Fu completely so everything you do and don’t do, think and don’t think, say and don’t say is Kung Fu. Internal and external are no longer separated, and all things are united.

In essence, the journey is about learning how to to do so we can abandon doing.

Here is one of my favourite quotes from Chuang Tzu that embodies this process,

“Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.”

​A man once went for a walk in a lovely garden. He came across a cocoon, it was moving, and he stopped to watch it for a moment. On closer inspection, he noticed a butterfly struggling to get out but was finding it very difficult. The man waited a little longer and started feeling sorry for the butterfly. Maybe the butterfly is stuck, he thought to himself. The man took out his keys and used it to make a hole in the cocoon. The butterfly emerged, but it could not fly, It was deformed, and its wings were withered. The man by helping pry the cocoon open had deprived the butterfly of the struggle it needed to go through to develop itself correctly and be able to fly.

Anyone who turns up to train at my Kung Fu school knows within the first 10 minutes of their first class that they will be pushed to their extremes. It doesn’t matter how fit or unfit, strong or weak they are. They will, within the first 10 minutes come face to face with their character, all lies they tell themselves about who they are every day falls away, and the reality of their true nature stands face to face with them. This metaphorical mirror usually appears around the second set of burpees. 

Why do I take this teaching approach? The answer is straightforward, this is my way of creating a club of students who want to learn. Student’s who try my classes will be pushed in their first class. When they go home after class and feel body pain in the next few days, this is when they either decide, “The classes are too difficult”, and they don’t come back. Or, they decide “The classes are too difficult, this school is exactly what I need!” The first kind of person doesn’t understand that it is through the struggle, pain and hardship that character is developed. They are like the undeveloped and withered butterfly. They don’t want to change to overcome the things they are not comfortable with. They want to shield themselves from everything that challenges them. I don’t need students like this in my school, and my classes effectively weed these people out at their trial class.

People have told me in the past that this approach is not suitable for growing the school, as beginners won’t come back to train and I should make the classes less physically demanding. This slow growth may be the case in the short term, but in the long run, I know that I am developing a group of students who will become true martial artists in character and spirit.  

It doesn’t matter who you are, in every one of my classes you will face struggle because without the hardship, there is no progress and without progress, life leads to nothing. 

Most of us go to school until our late teens or early twenties, and we believe that we are done learning after this stage. We throw ourselves into our careers, and our family lives, leaving less and less time to learn and develop ourselves further. Even when at school, we learn fixed curriculums and our teachers' primary focus is how to pass exam after exam. Our educators seldom address the important questions about the nature of self and consciousness. 
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I have been fortunate to take a path in my life that has helped me understand the value of learning and training oneself. I have been training and learning all of my life, and I am only starting to scratch the surface. I have had some remarkable teachers who have helped me along the path of refinement and growth. Some of these teachers would be proud of the road I have taken and others less so as it can be difficult to watch your students find their path, a path that may diverge from your own. In the end, we all need to be honest with ourselves. We must ask ourselves constantly whether we are making decisions based on attachments to principles that are themselves impermanent. Are we trying hard to hold on to the character or characters we believe we are in our own internal narratives of our lives? The further we develop ourselves spiritually, the more careful and the more mindful we need to become. Our sense of self, our ego is relentlessly trying to co-opt any progression for its own gain.

My Kung Fu training has been the single biggest tool that I have used to grow and learn. The word "grow" in this context can be quite deceptive as it implies adding stuff to make something bigger or larger. Most people will agree with that usage of the word as it is related to adding knowledge and skills to make ourselves better. But real personal growth is not about adding things; real personal growth is about taking things away. Our lives burden us with mental patterns, habits and ways of thinking that do not stand up to scrutiny when dissected and examined. We hold on to ideas that make us happy and push away ideas that make us sad. We lack the training and discernment to ignore the emotional swings and look at the true nature of what happiness and sadness actually are. We get angry, envious or greedy, but we do not detach from the emotions and skilfully look at the nature of our minds during these states. Like a scientist would when observing a natural phenomenon with unbiased attention. 

When a beginner trains in my classes, I can see at first the battle they have with their bodies. Why doesn’t my arm go to where I want to it to go? Why can’t my hips and my legs flex enough to get into the posture I need to get into? At first, students try to force their bodies into the positions and stances that the system requires but over time something changes in the student. They stop striving for the perfect posture or movement, and they accept “as good as I can do.” They tell themselves, "my body won’t do it; I will go to as close as possible, without causing myself too much discomfort." This line of reasoning is, of course, an illusion, this is the mind, the ego wanting to stay within its comfort zone. A lot of students plateau at this level and refuse to push themselves, and this is fine because it is where they are at that current stage. They may end up training on and off and eventually stop training altogether, giving me their reasons for leaving. Reasons that they firmly believe to be true but when probed further is another illusion rooted in staying within their comfort zone. The students that continue to train eventually start to change. They begin training in more classes, repeating movements outside of class and even start dreaming about their training. These students begin to see the difference between what they can achieve with real effort and dedication and what the false limits are that their mind creates for them. This ability to observe the mind that students acquire through training is the most important tool one needs to grow and change.

Like a great sculptor you are trying to chip away at the unneeded excess to find the masterpiece that is the real you. Real refinement of self is about stripping away who you believe you are, eliminating the limits that you have created for yourself and abandoning the excuses your mind creates when going out of your comfort zone. Real maturity begins the moment you understand that the little voice inside your head, constantly talking you out of things is your biggest adversary.