The Process of Incremental Progress

The process of incremental progress:
Hmmmm..... We talked about this in our Friday night class and it makes a lot of sense. We talked about being patient with ourselves and (what I heard) trusting the process. Keep on practicing everyday and pushing yourself everyday and you will reap the rewards and you will make progress. I have been reading blogs today and the message in most of them was quite clear; "Do a little bit more and you will move forward, 5 more minutes on the bike, 1 more pushup...." We are learning the process of incremental progress every day. In our practice, in our education and in our careers, and in our families.
I think that sometimes when you are in the middle of something that it is hard to be patient and trust the process. I experience this at least once a day, and then I remind myself not to focus on what I used to be able to do but what I can do. I also remind myself of my goal to train smarter this year, and not push myself so hard that I can't practice or even go to class. I am making progress each and every day that I train and I am not sitting on the couch.
Training this week has been interesting. I have been practicing forms and one in particular has been alluding me at different points. Each day, I recover memory about one part only to lose the memory of another. I am confident that it will all come together with persistence, it is interesting how it is working itself out. I am also learning a new form, it seems like it has been a long time since I have learned a new one and that puts an interesting twist on things. One has to think differently when learning something new, you have to open yourself up and allow the learning to take place. You have to completely trust your instructor and build trust with them as well. There are moments of vulnerability and of confidence and of unsureness and complete and total happiness. I was exhausted by the time the lesson was over, not just from the 90 minutes of physical concentration but from all the emotions that needed to be dealt with in the process. We also engaged in the process of incremental progress, I would learn a new move, practice it and then add on another move. I did not learn the whole form but as part of the process, I will practice what I learned until the opportunity to add more presents itself (or I create the opportunity to learn more of the form).
That's all for this week, I have to go and practice my new and old forms.
Robyn Kichko
Silent River Kung Fu
Stony Plain, AB, Canada