The long term

Practicing the martial arts is an accurate statement. When you stop practicing, you stop being a martial artist. Like any skill, with out use and maintenance it will atrophy. The knowledge you get from being disciplined or skill in any medium begins to fade as time passes. This is not unique to any one action, but is a constant of human make up. But I digress. The point, and yes there is one, is that it is possible to attain a degree of mastery with hard work, but that does not make it a permanent change. Continued time and effort are needed to maintain your prowess. For example, I clearly remember having conversations with my great aunts Erna and Clara. They were my grandfather's sisters and were visiting from Germany. At home we spoke English, German, and French when I was growing up. My grandfather died when I was 6, and the German speaking at home slowly disappeared. After getting out of junior high school, I no longer took French classes and so the practice for that language also stopped. I remember enough to get buy in a pinch, but I am not longer multilingual. For many years I assumed that since both of my grandparents spoke English, my great aunts did as well. It wasn't until literally a few years ago that I found out that they did not then, now, nor ever speak English. When I spoke with them, it was because I spoke German fluently, not the other way around. To this day, I regret that skill has left me. And not just the German, I have also allowed myself to lose French. These losses have closed doors that didn't need to be closed. But that is another story. In a more direct Kung Fu reference, there is the IHC requirement of doing a form 1000 times. This is an excellent tool. However it is only as useful as you allow it to be. If you spend the first half of your IHC journey banging out the requirements to get them ticked off the list, and then never think of them again... What have you gained. The moment you walk away from something it begins to atrophy. The saddest part is that it is a choice we make to allow it to happen. Clearly we are not sitting there thinking ... hmm I'm going to work on this really hard and then let it go to pot... but as we shift our focus - choosing to replace one challenge with another, we are choosing to leave it behind if we do not find a way to maintain what we have achieved. Sound like a lot of work? Yes it absolutely is. Is it worth it? That's up to you to decide. How are you going to find a way to keep it all together? By setting priorities. But they are up to you. No one can force you to choose one way or other. Others can encourage or discourage you, but again you choose what action to take. We always think of the rewards of our actions, but do we think of the consequences of our in-actions? If you practice, you won't progress - this we understand. But that's only half of it. If we don't practice, we don't just stay where were left off... we go backwards, and a lot faster than you would think. I'm not advocating to slow your passion or efforts. Just advocating to maintain what you have achieved. That takes planning and dedication. But anything worth doing does.