Next time you're watching different people do practice their form(s), taste their performances. That's right. Taste 'em. You may find that they all taste pretty much the same. Like chicken - with no seasoning.
Each segment of a given form is often the same. No salt, pepper, garlic, or curry. And each form tends to be the same flavor. And if that's the case, the form is wrong.
Just because you've managed to remember the correct sequence of movements doesn't mean you're doing your form correctly. It just means that you've memorized a sequence of movements. Granted, memorization of movements is the first stage of learning a given form...but it's not really the form.
How many of you ever learned to waltz? Probably not many unless you're a gray-haired as I am (in my case, it's really more of a bare-scalped sort of thing...). Nowadays, people prefer to dance by themselves rather than actually touch each other. A pity. When people held each other as they danced they actually communicated thorugh that sense of touch. But since dancing solo became popular people tend to be more interested in dancing with themselves than anything else. But I digress...
When you first learn to waltz your partner's darned lucky if you don't break his/her toes as you try to remember how the basic steps go. And you dance with all the grace of a wooden soldier. Sure, you've learned to waltz but...something is missing.
Someone who's really good at this kind of dancing can adjust his/her movements to the music and you can really "feel" their spirits as they glide and spin across the floor with their partners. I remember watching television shows many years ago when Fred Astaire used to dance. I mean, people actually enjoyed watching other people dance! That just isn't done anymore.
Why?
Most of you probably never had to listen to the Lawrence Welk Show (you're darned lucky, too) but I did. I still remember his Swedish voice counting off, "A One, and a-Two and a-..." Good old Lawrence.
But that's how a lot of people execute their forms - as if Mr. Welk is counting off the cadence for them, as if their instructor is counting off the movements one at a time. And that's not a form. It's not even a dance. You've got to break free from the "counting cadence" thing that you used when you first learned the set and strive to feel the real spirit of the form and each segment within it (because the spirit of a form changes at certain junctures).
I recall a tournament many years ago when I was sitting on a judging panel for Black Belt Weapons. The senior student of a local (alleged) kung-fu teacher came and up and began running through a broadsword form. At one point, he performed a lower-level blocking technique to the rear and then he looked backward and lifted one foreleg up behind him. Then he hopped down and switched legs. Then he did it again. Darnedest thing I ever saw. I wondered what in the name of heaven he thought he was doing??? Suddenly, he hopped down, turned, and executed a cut.
For the life of me, I'd never seen anything like that but it sure didn't have much martial application- It bugged me for a couple of days because his weird movements looked vaguely familiar but I just couldn't place them. Then one day, it hit me. I have an extensive library - about 2500 books or so and about half are martial arts books. Some are written in Chinese. I went to one bookshelf and pulled down a book on a seven-star praying mantic broadsword set and looked at the drawings...and there it was. The exact sequence of movements the contestant had tried to imitate.
His instructor couldn't read Chinese so he just followed the sequence shown in the drawings...but it wasn't intended to be performed as a series of static 1-2-3 type postures. It was a block followed by a running sequence! The swordsman was supposed to block his enemy's weapon and then run several steps to entice the enemy to pursue him. He'd then surprise his assailant as he quickly switched directions and cut him down. The local kung-fooey teacher had tried to learn the form from a book which he couldn't even read! And he'd just followed the step-by-step drawings, thinking that that was how the form was to be done.
Each form has it's own spirit and the feeling; the flavor of each segment of that form is very distinct. If it isn't - if it all just tastes like chicken, then it's wrong. You're not doing a real form; you're just imitating empty, flavorless, lifeless movements.
Once a form is memorized, it's just memorized. You haven't really learned it yet, you've just memorized it. Like learning to waltz. You can memorize the step alright, but until you feel it and taste it you're not dancing at all. You have to look beyond the surface and into the spirit of the form.
Don't try to change the form's spirit. For instance, you don't do a Taiji form with the same spirit as you would a Shotokan form. A Bagua sequence or form has a wholly different spirit than a form from Hung-Ga or Ryukyu kempo. Each system and each form of that system has its own flavor, its own life and spirit.
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This is really a great secret to learning real martial arts as opposed to what may appear to be martial arts. So many contemporary karate and kung-fu practitioners try to "fluff up" their forms (which are often homemade just for competition) by making really bizarre scowling masks and all kinds of wild noises. If I got into some of those yogic positions I'd scream, too. But it's all just a show. There's no real spirit there.
Look beyond the surface of your forms, beyond the memorized wooden movements. Touch its spirit and let it do you
Philosophy and Opinion 
more of a bare-scalped sort of thing...). Nowadays, people prefer to dance by themselves rather than actually touch each other. A pity. When people held each other as they danced they actually communicated thorugh that sense of touch. But since dancing solo became popular people tend to be more interested in dancing with themselves than anything else. But I digress...
For the life of me, I'd never seen anything like that but it sure didn't have much martial application- It bugged me for a couple of days because his weird movements looked vaguely familiar but I just couldn't place them. Then one day, it hit me. I have an extensive library - about 2500 books or so and about half are martial arts books. Some are written in 
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