Whenever I go on a journey with my small children I am constantly plagued with the questions "Are we there yet?" , "How long will it be till we get there?" and variations thereof. In small children this is an acceptable consequence of the short time they have existed and so for them any delay seems interminable.
Similarly the desire for instant mastery displays psychological immaturity. Many people have come to my classes professing a desire to learn the art that I practise thinking that it looks very easy. They have failed to appreciate that I have spent a great many years and much sweat practising to make it look effortless. When they cannot do it they create excuses such as "You must be naturally gifted" thereby consigning my years of hard toil and dedication to succeed to a mere accident of genetics. Natural ability can be a handicap because when things come too easily people do not have to try too hard to succeed, with the consequence that they can become easily discouraged when things are not so easy. These people never stay long, leaving after only one or two lessons when they discover that they actually have to put in some effort.
If I were a businessman I would exploit their psychological weakness and only teach them effortless, Qi manipulation exercises, which they would only need to do when they came to class. I would convince them that this would be all that they needed to do to enhance their spiritual and physical well-being. Internally they would be harmonising with the Universe, the practise will have left the physical realm and they will not have to work up a sweat. Of course there would be no method to objectively evaluate their progress only my subjective judgement. As long as they didn't need to test their abilities they would believe whatever I told them especially if I claimed that I could trace my lineage to an authentic Chinese Master.
First and foremost I am a Martial Artist. I have to perform business activities in order to pay for room hire, advertising and equipment. I don't make a lot of money teaching, sufficient to cover my costs and prevent my wife from giving me too much grief but I am happy to do it because I have learnt that the process of teaching the complete art has increased my understanding of the art enormously. If I only taught a few simple things then I would not have to challenge my understanding or increase my skill. I am still learning and I understand that I am not there yet and will never be. I am ,however, satisified with what I have achieved and where I am now.
Journeys have destinations , but once arrived at you can either stay or move onto another destination. There is always somewhere else you haven't been. Some places require more than one visit. Teaching has forced me to revisit the absolute fundamentals of the art and I still find new things to learn from the first exercise my teacher taught me.