First, let me welcome you to Discover Yi Chuan . I'm glad you are here and hopeful that the materials I am providing to you will have a meaningful impact on your training.
Whether you are new to internal kung fu or a long time practitioner my intent with this course is to give you the tools to train and develop your skill. The tools available to your are:
Teaching Sessions - Clips breaking down concepts, ideas, exercises & practice methods
Practice Sessions - Clips guiding you through a practice session
Riffs - Short clips on specific topics and a rant or two
Articles - Written materials like this
Live Sessions - Opportunities to remotely practice with a live group and ask questions
In-person Seminars - Virtual and in-person opportunities to do a deep dive on a specific topic or topics
You may, as many of my students do, supplement your self study with private or small group practice sessions.
My advice is to treat this course like the exploration it is and follow your curiosity. If you find yourself interested in how the art works start with Teaching Sessions and Articles that speak to that. If you want to jump right in, do your best to follow along with the Practice Sessions.
Here are 3 things I recommend you do to get the most out of this course:
Build your practice habits. Your training should consist of an ever changing blend of formal, freestyle and casual practice. We will talk more about each of these categories elsewhere, the main message here is no practice - no progress. There is a big difference between knowing how something works and doing that said something.
Search for strength. Physically mimicking the exercises and practices presented in this course will get you nowhere. You have to seek out and find the connections and relationships the exercises are designed to help you dis-cover. Repeating is not enough, without seeking you won't find.
Pay attention to how stuff feels. Integrated Strength is different then regular strength and therefore feels different. Becoming aware of connections and being able to consciously control them requires clarity of how different states feel.
Practice, Search and Feel in a nutshell is what this course, and Yi Chuan as a whole, are about. I think the founder sought to simplify the practice method to avoid having the complexity obscure the fundamental.
What good is a 100+ movement form if you can not perform even one transition without breaking? In this course we are going to focus on integration, the integration that is required to capable of performing a gesture with the required strength, Integrated Strength.
Good luck with the course. I will look forward to seeing your questions in the Forum and addressing them in live Zoom sessions.
Steve