A Joke... Or An Insult?

The opening move in taiji is a very simple movement, yet very difficult to master. From the opening move, one can see if a practitioner is able to achieve all the requirements of taiji, such as the body moving as a whole, relaxing the body, not using brute strength, moving continuously, etc.

During one of our classes, a senior student of my teacher was sharing with another student (quite new to taiji, but he has practised Japanese martial arts for decades) that we have been practising the opening move for about 3 years now (though it is more like 30 years for the senior student...) Hearing that, the new student declared that he would master the opening move in 3 months.

I don't know how to treat this statement. Should I take it as a joke? Or an insult? If a person thinks he can master something that we have been practising for 3 (or 30) years, is he belittling our effort, or belittling the difficulty of what we are trying to learn? Or is he so full of himself that he thinks he can do in months what others takes years to do?

I, for one, would think that he should know the importance of training. That as a practitioner of martial arts himself, he should know that there is no short cut. To be good at something, you need to put in effort to train in it. So I was quite shock at his statement. And if he knows the importance of training, would he then make his statement in jest? Or did he mean more than what he said?