Taking Comments

An incident at class. An old man (a friend of my teacher) came over to talk to my teacher, and saw us practising. He saw a fellow student, and commented that his moves were too stiff. After the old man left, the student made a rude remark about the old man. My teacher chastised him for not being open to comments.

I know the old man. He is also a practitioner of taiji, and practises daily (except for rainy days). And he probably has been practising taiji even before I was born. I thought about bringing this up to my fellow student, but decided to keep my comments to myself before he thinks I am trying to be smart.

I think that in order for us to improve, we must be open to comments. Not just from our teacher, but from fellow students and even passerbys. When someone makes a comment, we need to reflect to see if that comment is true, because there is no smoke without fire. Usually, an external party can notice things that we would otherwise miss out. We think we are correct, but when someone thinks otherwise, we need to ask ourselves why is it that someone else is perceiving things differently from us.

Be open to comments, because they can only help to improve you. And be thankful that the person giving you a comment actually bothers to spend his time looking at you and telling you what he thinks can help you improve.