We get this question often, and the easiest way to answer it is with another question: what does “learn” mean? Because there are two answers and they lie a long way apart.
The sequence: a few weeks
If you mean remembering the order of the movements and performing the form start to finish unaided - for a short form that is three to eight weeks of regular training. Some people manage it faster, others slower, and it says almost nothing about how good either will be in five years.
At this stage a form looks like a form. The movements are in the right places, the order is right, the timing approximate. Many people think at this point that they are done.
What begins afterwards
This is where the learning actually starts. For the next year or two you repeat the same sequence and each time one layer is corrected:
- Structure. Whether the weight is where you think it is. Whether the knee follows the foot. Whether the spine stays upright in the transition, not only in the final posture.
- Transitions. A beginner practises the postures and travels between them; an advanced student practises the transitions, and the postures appear by themselves.
- Breath. When the form runs with the breath rather than against it, fatigue halves.
- Intent. Every movement means something. Once you know what, the shape of the hand corrects itself.
- Rhythm. The last layer. A form is not even - it has fast and slow passages, and only rhythm turns a sequence into a whole.
For the first hundred repetitions you learn the form. For the next thousand the form teaches you.
Why we do not learn many forms
In some schools the number of forms you hold is the measure of progress. Not with us. Ten forms performed superficially are worth less than two you genuinely understand - and the traditional schools knew this: old masters often worked with a handful of shapes their whole lives.
In practice that means we will not begin a new form until the previous one is solid enough that it does not fall apart under fatigue.
When you get your first form
With us, usually within the first year, once the basic stances and strikes are reliable enough to give the form something to stand on. Before that, individual sections are practised - which is already learning the form, only not yet assembled.
How to practise at home
You can practise a form at home, with one caveat: repetition ingrains mistakes too. If you spend a few weeks practising a movement with the knee in the wrong place, unlearning it takes longer than learning it fresh. So at home, go slowly and less often, and bring the corrections to class.
