Okay, so I recognize that ancient monks practiced shaolin kungfu without the need for language. But I'm neither ancient nor a monk (nor am I really able to do much of anything without talking about it), and I have an unfortunately heavy reliance on words to learn things. Or maybe I just think I do. At any rate, it's kind of challenging to learn even physical skills without being able to ask questions or understand the answers even if I could ask them.
On the other hand, maybe it would do me some good to stop overanalyzing everything and just do as I'm told, make the mistakes, and learn from them that way. It might also dissolve some of my ever-present attitude. "Really? This is called a palm? Because it looks like a knife hand to me."
Also, it's probably a really excellent experience for an educator to have to learn something without being able to communicate effectively. This is like ESL kung fu. Kung Fu as a second martial art. Or third or fourth depending on how you look at it. KFSMA. KFTMA. KFFMA. That doesn't have quite the same ring to it. And actually, it's not a very good metaphor anyway. Mei shi.
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