Making dumplings

Today was my first attempt at making dumplings. Hopefully there will be many more to come. I know my second try will be tomorrow.
My hostmom is a pro. She managed to seal the top of each dumpling with the most amount of meat and least amount of dough. When I first sat down to help, I received step by step directions on how to fold the dumplings correctly. About a minute after I finished each dumpling Molly picked them back up, discreetly, and made sure everything was correct. She had to take the whole dumpling apart a couple of times. When it was clear I was struggling to follow the original directions they told me it didn't matter how much dough I use to seal the dumplings, just as long as they were sealed. A few minutes later I was told to ignore the directions all together and just fold the dumplings in half. Woops.
In the end though, I couldn't tell the difference between mine and my mom's really. But I'm not an experienced dumpling eater, so who knows what everyone else was thinking.