I was thinking about last week's class and a conversation I had with first one group of students and then another; and it was about the difficulty one or two members of each group had with remembering sequences or, more specifically, the details of some parts of some of the sequences.

I was reading something today in a book entitled The Essence of Tao by Pamela Ball (ISBN 1-84193-189-6) and in the introduction the author is talking about some of the principles of leaning about how to follow Tao and specifically what in the Tao Te Ching are called the 'treasures'. These treasures help us to understand others, except what we cannot change and maintain our equilibrium. She then goes on to suggest that the key to finding these treasures is to stop looking for them; that is to say, stop actively looking for them.

There is no difference in the attitude that you should adopt when trying to learn any aspect of the form. Yes, you do have to try and learn the mechanical movements associated with what it is you're trying to do, but the other stuff, the deeper and meditative aspects will come of their own accord. And they will come when you stop worrying about them. 

But it's not just these aspects for which this is true; worrying about whether or not you have real ward off energy, or proper intent is, generally, counter-productive. Once you know when and how these elements of the form should be employed you will find that they will be once your concentration is more correctly fixed on the more holistic view of what it is you're trying to achieve.

The section of the book I referred to includes the following passage:

The external world is fragile,
and he who meddles with its natural way,
risks causing damage to himself.
He who tries to grasp it,
thereby loses it.

I'm sure you can understand the point being made here, but for those of you of a less poetic bent, it boils down to "Don't sweat the big stuff".