Specialization...

One of the toughest things about being a teacher is to push within a specific curriculum. This is to make sure basics are ingrained so that have a strong foundation to build off of while being safe during practice but you'll see many students who'll leave due to feeling contained or lose interest. It can be tedious and frustrating to a teacher just as much the student. 

However, once they get to a certain level of basics, you can see them start branching out. They start seeing a certain aspect of training and techniques that they enjoy more. Everyone knows the basics, but now you get to see their own perspective show from the common knowledge that everyone learns together. Depending on their background, their thought processes, experience from other martial arts or the lack of, this all shows in their own expression of technique. They'll start focusing their practice on that certain interest and eventually shows more aptitude in that specific aspect. I believe this is the "art" portion of martial arts. 

When you visit a dojo, you'll always see a specialist of some sort. Usually someone who specializes in kata (or a certain expression of kata), tameshigiri (certain methods of techniques), gekken, and even teaching. It's been a long time since my dojo has had students committed enough who were able to grow to a level that specialization has begun to show. As a teacher, I can use those specializations to use as an example to newer students to make that certain aspect more apparent. It's also interesting to see where the student will go with that specialization. I did my 10%, they're just doing their 90% now. 

From the way I see it, sometimes you can guess what a student could possibly specialize in, and sometimes you can be completely blind sided. It's like planting seeds that all look the same and watering it every day. If you can just have the patience to keep watering daily then they'll sprout and still look the same. However near the end, they grow into completely different plants.