Many people train the way they were taught — and in many schools, repetition was the only method. But training smarter doesn’t mean you’re being less traditional or less dedicated. It just means you’re actually getting better. There’s a time and place for going through the whole form. But if that’s all you ever do, it’s like playing the same song on an instrument without ever practicing the notes. You’ll never become a master musician that way.

So I began experimenting. I broke down the forms. Studied them piece by piece. I made tons of tones, several notebookes filled with scribbling in three languages and lots of pictures, too. I started using tools from modern sports: resistance bands, video analysis, slow-motion breakdowns.

Unlike Brazilian jiu-jitsu or Muay Thai, where you get tapped out or kicked in the liver regularly enough to know what works, kung fu often dances in a different realm. One without much testing. We don’t spar every class. Sometimes not even every month. So how do we know what’s “good”?