Knowledge vs Skill

When training in kung fu, achieving a black belt is difficult, but achieving a high ranking black belt is even more difficult. There are many factors that make achieving a high rank difficult but what I see as holding most people up is their inability to differentiate knowledge from skill. This limitation is evident by how they conduct themselves during class drills and in lower black belt cases, their approach to teaching their students. Students, rather than getting in as many repetitions of a drill as they can, spend too much time discussing the technique with their partner and intellectually analyzing their execution. Some instructors will exasperate this student tendency by spending too much time explaining a technique and not giving the students enough time to practice the application of the technique. I try to address this issue by using the catch phrase “Less yak and more smack”.

Having knowledge of a technique is not the same as having skill with a technique. Understanding how the technique can be applied and the mechanics behind that application goes a long way toward learning an application, but the only way to achieve mastery is through repetitive application of the technique. In a perfect world every student would take what I tell them in class and faithfully apply the lesson during daily practice, getting in thousands of repetitions at home between classes. Unfortunately the common reality for the majority of students tends to be that the full extent of their weekly kung fu practice time is their two hours of weekly classes.

Rule of thumb - if someone is talking, they are not practicing. If the instructor is talking, students are acquiring knowledge but not skill. Skill only comes from consistent application of knowledge.

“We have more information than we have skills to turn it into useful knowledge.” - Mark Rolston