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.”

By: Elizabeth Nightingale

​On 28th July this year, a large group of us headed off for the Kung Fu Zone club’s first-ever training holiday. We stayed in the pretty village of Pismenovo in Bulgaria, enjoying panoramic views of the surrounding countryside from our private resort. The resort came complete with a pool, much needed given the 5 hours of training we averaged each day! Training alternated between our resort in Pismenovo village and Perla beach in Primorsko. Training included a mixture of running, Kung Fu, and Suang Yang Tai Chi led by our Head instructor, Shkar. As well as training hard, there was also plenty of playtime, meaning we not only came back fitter and more focused, but closer as tiger cranes. 

​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. 

Nobody is born proficient at any skill. We may have a genetic disposition to be better at certain things than other people, but without developing and nurturing these skills, a person’s full potential will never be realised. Any athlete, musician, dancer, performer, etc. will tell you that improving any skill takes time, energy and perseverance. Becoming good at anything is painful and requires making sacrifices.

I started my training in Tiger Crane Combination Kung Fu over 16 years ago. At first, it was just something to do a few times a week, but I very quickly began training in every class my instructor held. I was training two to three hours a day six to seven days a week. I was 16 years old when I started training, and it was all I did. When my friends would go out, I was training. When my family would get together, I was training; I often even missed school and university events because I was training. I found very quickly that I no longer had the friends that I used to have.  It was not their fault, they did try to keep me as part of the group, but I never had the time because I was always training. 

I didn’t always enjoy my training; there were times when I wanted just to relax or I wanted to go out with my friends. There were times when I felt I wasn’t improving and didn’t see a way forward. I had no motivation to train. That’s what this blog post is about, motivation.

As humans, we tend towards comfort and ease, and we try to get far away from anything that takes us away from our comfort zones. It is a common occurrence for my students to talk to me about motivation. Some tell me they are not attending as many classes as before because they lack the motivation to train or that they are currently very motivated to train and that is why they are in most of my classes. It is critical to understand that having the motivation or not having the motivation to do something are both as tricky as each other and if we base our training on this fleeting feeling that may or may not be with us on any given day, we will never reach the heights that are possible.

We need to train ourselves to stop looking for something to motivate us to train or to do our work. We need to develop the discipline to do what needs to get done regardless of motivation. When we have the discipline and the ability to force ourselves to train when we don’t want to, this is what will lead us to mastery. ​