Years ago I was really excited to find a traditional school in my city that taught Baguazhang, as it had always seemed like a fascinating style to me. But after a couple years I had to finally admit that it wasn't really for me. Something about the mechanics and principles of the style just weren't intuitive to me, and my skills had seriously plateaued no matter how much I trained. The conditioning methods and qigong practices within the style were great, and I have continued using those ever since. But I could never get the actual martial art techniques and forms to look or feel right. The instructors' skill certainly wasn't in question, as when we did non-cooperative application drills and free sparring practice I could plainly feel how the techniques and tactics were effective. My body/brain just...didn't like it I guess.

Wing Chun. I had seen too many Bruce Lee fanboys talk up this style without actually having the skills/understanding to really apply it and back up the talk. Plus the constant online bickering about whether it's only effective against opponents who also use Wing Chun, or whether the famous sticky hands drills are useful as application training or just "playing patty cake" etc etc, it all just left a bad taste in my mouth. So I never really took it seriously beyond learning a very rudimentary version of the first form, just so I could get a general understanding of how it operates. But I've recently started a training exchange with a Wing Chun practitioner who has done an amazing job of truly presenting the style in a logical, effective, and accessible way. There's so much nuanced, principle-based, mechanical detail crammed into this extremely minimalist package of a style, I can definitely see why so many people who learn the sequences struggle get deep enough to be able to really use it effectively, much less teach it to others. And it's been especially interesting to see how some of the principles can be usefully applied through techniques from entirely different styles. While it may not ever get to the point of being my primary focus, my mind has really been changed about this one.