Eating Bitter

In Chinese martial arts you often hear someone mention the words "Chi Ku." This means eating bitter. To eat your bitter means that you must devote time to long painful practice whether it is holding a particular posture (Zhan Zhuang) for a long time or repeating a particular movement say a kick for hundreds or thousands of times.
Most recently I have been training with my current instructor and he has been drilling me on my stances. Being a tall person I naturally neglected my stances. My newest teacher being a taskmaster instructed me to deepen my stances and improve my legs. I'm 36 years old as I'm writing this and have never really practiced much deep stance work. I am now doing the forms with my thighs nearly parallel to the floor and my muscles are screaming, the joints of my knees have ceased popping and now the stances are becoming more doable. But this has been one of the hardest lessons of my life. The learning to get low in a stance and thus cultivate more energy has improved my martial arts so very much.
I have had to eat my bitter and practice harder. This same teacher also instructed me to practice 250 punches and 250 kicks everyday. I have complied and after a few weeks of doing this my punches hit far harder and my kicks are getting faster and faster.
This kind of practice work... the stances, the basic techniques... this is the good stuff. We always want to get to the advanced stuff and after that more advanced stuff. As I grow older and grow into my art I find myself being brought back to the basics over and over. After 27 years of learning and practice it is always back to the basics! You have to keep your mind open and your spirit humble to embrace the basics again and again.
No matter what you do... strengthen the foundation and the whole building improves. Eat bitter and practice hard!