Have heard it many times before, but it resonated in a special way last night - do more reps of smaller portions of the routine. The subject was tai ji jian 32, but it could have been anything. It is the best way to learn, whether we are talking muscle memory or language work. And I tell my students the same thing frequently in language/ communication classes - don't listen to the whole CD once; do several reps of 5 minutes' worth of the CD. Don't watch the whole movie for language study - do reps of a 5-minute segment. And on and on - yet I have not applied this to my own practice well. I spend more time running routines from beginning to end than I do on repetitions of chunks. And it really clicked last night, for whatever reason.
Just the first few motions of this sword form, over and over, and I could really feel the difference. Moving the sword with the entire body, not just with the hand. Much more awareness of the joints moving in sequence, all of it. But even so, it is hard to stop midway. Just one more motion, just one more motion. Then the voice comes back in my head, reminding me: more reps, smaller chunks. And the temptation changes slightly - just one more time through this section, just one more rep before the dinner which is already sitting on the table, getting cold.
(picture from a Beijing subway station)
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