Humble Enlightenment

     For a weapon form this year I choose to do the school Broadsword form. After initially learning the basic movements of the form I somehow convinced myself that the form was way too easy. I am not completely sure how this thought crept in to my head, but it did. Maybe it was the length of the form. Was it the seemingly simplistic movements? Whatever it was, it did not do me any favours.
     Yesterday however, was different, way different. I would like to start by first thanking Sifu Hayes and Sifu Beckett. With there not being very many people at open training yesterday, I had the opportunity to spend a little over an hour with Sifu Hayes working on my sword form. I had originally asked him to come over because I thought that I had a fairly simple question. To be completely honest I can't even remember what it was. All I do know is that question led to another, which led to another and another and so on. Now I know what you are thinking, so you were at open training and spent an hour standing around talking instead of actually training. It didn't happen exactly like that. With every question came a demonstration followed by my effort to emulate. We went from basic movements to nuances of the form that I had not even thought of up to that point. 
     It all came back to action with purpose. Why are you doing this action? What will the outcome be? From a thousand foot view it all seemed so easy. you have a sword. You are there to cut someone while defending yourself. When you start looking at all of the small details however, things get a little tougher. On the other hand, the closer you look the clearer things become as well. The angle of the blade, the angle of your wrist, using the hand that does not contain the weapon in order to accelerate the weapon. Everything just started to make more sense. 
     I am grateful for the time that was taken Saturday to help me with the form and how helpful everyone at the Kwoon is. It is nice to be able to train somewhere that has such a supportive atmosphere. I guess I will be able to test that theory next Saturday when I am sure to be asking the same or similar questions.