Interview with Sifu – How is Mastery Achieved?
Interview: Thank you for agreeing to this interview sifu. I’d like to discuss mastery if I may, and ask you how you think mastery is achieved?
Sifu: OK. I can discuss as best I can how I attained my level of understanding and skill. I can also reflect on how the level of knowledge and skill of those I have encountered who are masters, was achieved. I wrote an article on it once. I think it’s on the website.
Interviewer: Yes, it is. Sifu, you often say that anyone, given they have a normally fit body and mind, can achieve mastery of Wing Chun. Do I have this correct?
Sifu: Yes, you do. That’s quite correct.
Interviewer: Yet we don’t seem to have an over-supply of masters?
Sifu: (Laughs) Very true! Very, very true! We have absolutely no shortage of those who think they are, who claim to be, or are happy for others to give them that title, though! Everyone submitting a self-promotion article to a martial arts magazine is a master – or worse, “grandmaster” these days! Some people seem to think that everyone who teaches gung fu, no matter how bad, is entitled to the term “master”. (Laughs). It seems to me we would have an interesting graph if we were to graph the notion of mastery on a curve. We’d have a big tail of wanna-bes and pretty poor practitioners and a small opposite tail of genuine, quality masters. By no means all, or even most, of those who accept or use the tag “master” would be amongst the genuine, quality group!
Interviewer: Why is this then? Why are there so few genuine masters?
Sifu: I guess we could say there are a number of reasons. Arrogance, false pride, ignorance are three reasons. Possibly one major reason is that those aspiring to mastery and those who falsely claim it don’t know what they don’t know, as you are aware I am fond of saying. In other words, they do not possess what I refer to as “reference”. They have not seen the best so are unaware of just how good a master can, and must, be. So, settling for a lesser level of skill, satisfied that this is mastery may be one reason. They may simply not be able to see just how poor their skill is. Other than that I think that most martial artists really don’t think very deeply about what constitutes mastery. Some of the Asian masters hold and manifest the ridiculous view that only those of their race/nationality could be eligible to attain mastery. This is the old racist or ethnocentric nonsense. Of course there are also avaricious teachers who hold the view that only those who have paid a certain amount can attain mastery. That is, these guys will sell a grade level or disciple-ship for enough cash, adulation and subservience. Mostly though, I think it is because so few masters in any of the martial arts have any conscious notion of what factors are essential for mastery and how to both transmit this knowledge to their students and to support them through the process. Fortunately, there are some who do! But, they’re rare.
Interviewer: A number of people have commented on the quality of the senior students you produce, sifu. Even some of the students who have left have been known to say that their training was of the highest quality, which intrigues me as I wonder why then they still aren’t training. Is it a conscious process you use to produce the consistent quality that you do?
Sifu: Yes, it is. And I’m constantly researching and refining it.
Interviewer: Is that in itself something that contributes towards mastery?
Sifu: You mean constant research and refinement?
Interviewer: Yes.
Sifu: OK. Yes, I think it is. It has to be when you give it a moment’s thought. Otherwise you are just a functionary or robot, I guess. Yes, that contributes to attaining mastery. I’m always trying to refine my transmission of the art. Trying to refine how I can turn out better students. Trying to understand it more deeply, trying to improve.
Interviewer: You seem to be an unusual mix of being very traditional and being very innovative in training methods, sifu.
Sifu: I think that has to be a balance. I was told, and I pass it on, that to attain skill you have to watch closely what the sifu does, listen carefully to what he says, then, without your re-interpretation, go and objectively and constructively practice and observe your practice to replicate what you saw and heard. Critically self correct and ask your seniors for their input. I think that we have to use every avenue we can to forward our knowledge and skills, within the parameters of our system. Olympic athletes don’t train like they used to at the start of last century. School boys and girls now regularly break what were then Olympic records. And, in some cases, by quite a bit!
Interviewer: That’s an interesting point, sifu. Do you think that, given Olympic athletes are so enormously better now than a hundred years ago that martial artists are too?
Sifu: Very interesting question. I think the answer may not be simple. Overall, I think that we have a lot more martial artists now – so mass participation, naturally statistically lowers the average level. And, it allows for a larger pool from which a master may be more likely to emerge. Also I think today that with natural variations across generations due to technological and societal changes that young practitioners on the whole don’t train as hard and are not as committed. Modern life is more demanding and there are more distractions. There are also more lower quality schools and more lesser skilled teachers available. Certainly, though, I think that with modern training methods we produce far better athletes and get better results across a range of physical endeavour. This is mostly with the elite, though. With the average practitioner I think the standards have actually dropped! The increased number of overweight kids today is a good simple example of what I’m saying here. With the far greatly increased mass participation we have many more people participating in all activities because we have increased leisure time and increased amounts of discretionary income. So we get more of a range of people with a spread of overall fitness and a spread of the various components of fitness than previously.
Interviewer: An interesting question we’ve discussed before is: “Were the masters of the past equal to, better than or inferior to today’s masters?” What can you say?
Sifu: It is indeed an interesting question! I have seen a lot of martial arts legends in the flesh and, trust me, the legend exceeds the flesh in most cases! Even some very famous names are not as spectacular as the hype makes out! Some are, of course – better than you could imagine. But the latter group is fewer. I’m afraid! Some of the “names” were far worse than one would imagine! I distinctly recall going to see a very famous US based Japanese karate sensei who had authored several books on Okinawan karate weapons perform a sai demonstration. My sensei watched in silence then when it was over snorted and said in his broken English: “Hhmmph! You better than him!” And it was true! I was second dan at the time and the famous demonstrator was fifth dan or so. My sensei, of course, was far, far better than me. Yet this demonstrator was being sold to the martial arts world as the master of weapons!
Interviewer: So, fame is not correlated with genuine skill or expertise?
Sifu: Certainly not! Not positively, anyway! (Laughs) In fact, some of the best martial artists I’ve seen were less well known or unknown! It’s certainly true in Wing Chun!
Interviewer: I can attest that you exceed a lot of the famous so-called masters in skill!
Sifu: Thank you - but that may not be any real yardstick, unfortunately! (Laughs) I think that a lot of myth was spun around the former masters. Just look at the hype surrounding some quite mediocre practitioners today – they are lauded as masters, grandmasters and great grandmasters etc in some cases but are really nothing extraordinary. In some cases they’re very ordinary. Their PR is extraordinary! Their myth making is extraordinary! But they aren’t! When we see old movies of the much touted great masters of the past they often seem very ordinary. On the other hand, there may have been some who were outrageously excellent. They certainly had more time to train with fewer distractions or demands on their time. I do often wonder just how good the old masters may, or may not, have been. The point is we are alive and they are dead. Tall tales or true, they’re simply dead! We have to be the best we can be in our world, now. I was once asked by an apparently troubled gung fu teacher, as to just how good one had to be. I replied that we had to be better than those who might attack us. He was a little shocked by that, I think, but it seems to be the most realistic yardstick to apply. Walking on water, flying, or projecting force across empty space are not things humans can aspire to! (Laughs) It comes down to my hand, my foot, my movement, my skill. There is no magic, just intelligent training of the true art. Mind you that phrase “true art” contains a lot, though! (Laughs) Everyone thinks they have it but few actually do!
Interviewer: Yes, interesting to speculate on. What then do you see as the factors that develop mastery?
Sifu: This is now actually an easy question to answer. There is no mystery, no guesswork. We know. But it requires a lengthy answer.
Interviewer: OK. Can I request you take it a factor at a time?
Sifu: Sure. Let’s cast out an overview or list of the factors involved then deconstruct them, eh? I draw on both Eastern and Western experience here. Both traditions maintain that talent is not a sole necessary pre-requisite. Earlier I think there was thinking that people had talent or they didn’t. Nowadays those who know are thinking a little differently. I certainly think there are some people who lack any talent for martial art. Some people have motor coordination, fine and or gross motor control difficulties or low muscle tone that may not have been recognised or diagnosed. Some are lazy, either mentally or physically or both. Some just don’t seem to be able to hear and/or see and copy. Or they can’t self evaluate. Some have serious psychological problems – which they usually don’t recognise. These are really stumbling blocks and preclude some people from mastery. After choosing the right school and right sifu, the single biggest factor in mastery that we can control is how much of what has been termed “deliberate practice” we put in.
Interviewer: So you mean how many classes a student takes or how much solo practice they do?
Sifu: Both. Both are essential. The key ingredient is that whatever training a student undertakes must be done mindfully with certain factors involved. Simply practising without an awareness of the factors that must apply will get you nowhere in terms of mastery. You’ll improve but not achieve that significant status of mastery. You will not enter the zone of mastery – it is a zone and you can enter it or leave it. It isn’t a magical permanent state.
Interviewer: So training hard is not enough?
Sifu: Sadly, true! You’ve heard the common expression to train smarter? Some also add “not harder” but I’m afraid the correct expression is “train harder and smarter!” Deliberate practice also has to focus on weaknesses. And it has to entail not just practice but perfect practice. This is what my shakuhachi master, Riley Lee, tells me. For optimal practice, you need feedback from a sifu who knows how to evaluate what you’re doing correctly and what you’re not and tell you why and what you need to do to correct errors. Incorrect practice simply practises error! And, perhaps that is the single most significant factor explaining why we see so much really poor martial art, so much poor Wing Chun. The sifu who, wandering around his class muttering to everyone, regardless of their skill, application, or correctness: “good, good” is lying to the students to retain them for their fees! That’s not feedback. That’s dishonest commercial chicanery! My advice is to put as much distance between yourself and that sifu as you can, as quickly as you can!
Interviewer: You’ve said before that we have top practice a form or technique ten thousand times to perfect it. This is significant too I take it?
Sifu: Yes! That’s very interesting you know. Recent research is finding that to be expert at anything that ten thousand hours of practice is mandatory. Not just any practice but deliberate and focused practice. I’ll explain that in a moment. The figure ten thousand is interesting though because we say we have to do a spiritual practice mindfully that number of times to get any result in Tibetan Buddhism. Also, when I was young my teachers would say: “one form, ten times a day, three years to master”. Now that gives you about ten thousand repetitions – a bit over actually. So, old wisdom and new research are aligned! The Tibetan Buddhist meditation masters used to enter a retreat for three years, three months, three weeks and three days. That gave them enough time to do ten thousand repetitions or more of their spiritual practices.
Interviewer: OK, then what is deliberate and focused practice?
Sifu: Practice undertaken specifically to improve performance. In true gung fu that comes down to being able to apply a technique against an uncooperative attacker going at combat speed and power – not a training partner feeding you easy attacks with no true speed or intensity.
Interviewer: You mentioned that deliberate practice entails specific characteristics. So far I have that it is undertaken mindfully, focused on weaknesses, done correctly, done ten thousand times, and targeted specifically at improvement. Is there more?
Sifu: Very good! You listened with focus! (Laughs) Yes, there are a few more features. Getting objective, expert and correct, constructive feedback is important – vital. You get this from a fully qualified sifu. Your opinion isn’t relevant here. It is the sifu’s judgment that counts. The onus is on the sifu to tell you exactly what to do to improve and explain why doing what they recommend will improve your performance. If they can’t do that and what they recommend is actually done by you but doesn’t produce results – get a real sifu! (Laughs)
Interviewer: It sounds like the intensive and long practice required might be seen as a lot of hard work by some practitioners, sifu?
Sifu: Yes. I recall in the old days that some styles of gung fu and karate, like us in Wing Chun, had only a few forms. The famous Okinawan Uechi-ryu karate, for example originally only had three forms but over the years they added another five (redundant) forms. Goju-ryu had eight forms but they expanded that too under the pressure of mass participation and commercialisation. Nowadays some karate systems have over fifty forms. When I trained karate I had learnt and could perform over fifty forms. A great deal of redundancy was involved and I often thought it was a wasteful way to train and felt someone ought to compact the forms into a small handful. Of course that’d fly in the face of cultural traditions. Some gung fu systems have large numbers of forms, too. How can anyone, in the modern world, attain mastery of so much? It’s not too realistic, I think. You’ve hit on another essential feature of deliberate practice, though. This is that the lengthy period of repetition is not meant to be enjoyable per se. We have to focus on what we’re not good at not simply rehearse what we are good at. What I see as the true master mindset, however, does enjoy, paradoxically, the hardship of such training. Perhaps not so much in itself but knowing that they are moving towards their goal of mastery.
Interviewer: That type of practice requires a lot of determination.
Sifu: Indeed. And that’s another feature of deliberate practice – it is demanding in terms of concentration and determination. It takes real, unusual, commitment. But, I think that such commitment is really just someone saying to themselves they will learn this art, completely, and not just be good at it but be as good as they can imagine. Just train day after day with no thought of ever giving up!
Interviewer: I’m beginning to see why there are so few genuine masters, sifu!
Sifu: Theoretically, potentially, given you have no physical disability that precludes it nor a psychological flaw that does likewise, any normally fit person can aspire to mastery. Many folk would believe that all it takes is hard work. That’s not completely correct, as we see all around us. A lot of people work very hard but don’t succeed in all sorts of fields. Success, mastery, requires we practice as I’ve outlined. It also requires some luck.
Interviewer: Please explain that, sifu.
Sifu: Logical, really. Once you are aware of it. Many people say we make our own luck. I think that flies in the face of statistical reality. Some of us are simply luckier than others in different ways. There is sometimes something you can do to change your luck – to take charge of chance. Sometimes there is not. You can see this by observing the world. Malcolm Gladwell, author of three fantastically interesting books – The Tipping Point, Outliers, and Blink – validates, convincingly, in Outliers that being the right person, with the right background preparation, in the right place at the right time and encountering the right opportunities explains a great deal of most success, if not all of it. Certainly, I think most of really outstanding success is attributable to chance, unfortunately.
Interviewer: By citing this author, having read his books and applied the ideas to Wing Chun, you’re exemplifying your earlier comment that you engage in research to refine your understanding, sifu.
Sifu: Yes, true. I think a lot about my art. I read a vast number of books on all sorts of topics. Some relate to gung fu. Some I relate to gung fu. (Laughs). The question that has to be asked is not why would a martial artist read books on any related aspects of the art they study but: why not? Yes, I guess so. Once you attain a certain level of physical mastery of your art I believe you then need to explore the intellectual, psychological and teaching aspects. You see there are master practitioners, master teachers and master practitioner teachers. Which do you think we should aspire to?
Interviewer: (Laughs) I thought I was asking the questions!
Sifu: (Laughs) And so you are! But I always question and ask myself lots of questions. Makes things more interesting! And, sometimes, depending on the question in a martial art context, more frustrating! (Laughs) Well, to answer my own question, I think a true sifu ought aspire not only to continue improving his own skill and knowledge but also his capacity to teach others.
Interviewer: Indeed. Thank you, sifu, for a most interesting and informative interview!
Sifu: Thank you - I’m but a pipeline passing on ideas in many ways. I have to say I thank Malcolm Gladwell and Geoff Colvin, author of another very informative book that spins off Gladwell’s Outliers, Talent is Overrated, for some fantastic insights. I’ll certainly be applying their ideas consciously in my life. I’m glad I had the luck – chance favoured me – to encounter these ideas! (Laughs).