mastering form:
it has been my experience that you cannot fully master a form until you have been able to apply your applications in a free fighting format. You may learn the form and the movements, but until you can comprehend a majority of the applications and their relationship to free figthing, and how to apply them, you have not mastered your form.
I have learned a form, but then after being taught the applications and having taken time to learn to to apply those applications, the form took on 'new life' for each and every fully understood application i attained.
of course this is not to mention applications that cannot be applied in a freefighting format.
a lot of chin na applications wont be worked in free fighting, especially at the early stages of training, because chance for injury is too great.
thus we develop drills, which work toward the goal of understanding more complex applications that beginners should not try in actual sparring.
For whoso comes amongst many shall one day find that no one man is by so far the mightiest of all.