Without Right Practice, Evil Enters
Finally learning the lessons from martial arts
In 2000, inspired by The Matrix, I started studying martial arts. The style of martial arts was called Chayon-Ryu, which is a Korean style of martial arts that combines elements from Tae kwon do, Hapkido, Tai Chi, Kung Fu, and other martial arts. I didn’t get very far with martial arts, but I took away a lesson that has stuck with me for the last 24 years.
As part of our training in Chayon-Ryu, we had to memorize a list of Korean words and phrases. One of the phrases meant “Without right practice, evil enters.” I’d tell you it in the original language, but that would probably reveal some kind of ancient secret that you’re not allowed to know unless you’re an yellow belt like me. Also, I don’t remember.
“Without right practice, evil enters” has been popping up in my head a lot lately. During all my years as a teacher I’ve advised students to “try something new, do it poorly, and get better over time.” I still think this is a valid approach to learning about anything that doesn’t involve explosives. It is, after all, how children learn to talk. But, I no longer think it’s the best approach for learning something new as an adult.
Another way to describe this approach might be “failure is your friend.” I used to subscribe to the idea that we learn more through our failures than through our successes until I’d failed so many times that it became apparent that I needed to try a different approach to learning.
Today, the learning strategy that I aim for (and that I resolve to do more of in 2025) goes something like this:
Figure out what’s most important to know about the subject.
Pick a starting point.
Find a teacher (or book, or online class, or series of YouTube videos).
Learn something. As you’re learning it, make notes of other interesting things you discover along the way — but don’t get distracted and go off on tangents.
Practice the new thing (right practice!) and integrate it into the other things you’ve learned.
Repeat.
I’m using this approach to learn guitar. It seems like it’s slower to show results than my previous method, but I’m hopeful that the result will contain less evil.