sudents visiting another school

[porquemada]

I've visited a lot of matial arts school lately and spoke to students and instructors alike. I asked the students how they joined their school and I asked the instructors how they feel if their students visited other schools.

Most of students visited a few schools and were convinced by the instructor, or their friends who were already at the schools. Overwhelmingly most of the instructors didn't encourage their students to visit other schools. Some reasons I got were -
1. its disrespectful for my student to not trust what i teach him
2. the other schools will look at it as a challenge
3. the students shoudl work harder before they represent me.

I did find a school where the sifu told his students to visit other schools to find out if he was cheating them. This was unexpected but it made me curious about what is taboo about visiting other schools. My thoughts are if a group of students learned from an instructor then they would interpret things differently and have a slightly different way of expressing a fundamental idea. It would be to the benefit of the student to seek out those sources

But I am curious what you think on this.

thanks

[burnsypoo]

Nice topic,
some thoughts.


Originally posted by porquemada

1. its disrespectful for my student to not trust what i teach him


There is a difference between visiting other schools, and training in other schools. Even the latter has its own debate I'm sure.



2. the other schools will look at it as a challenge


I believe that in 99.3% of the cases, this is the fault of the visitor. We would hope that MA training helps one to be a Gentleman.




3. the students shoudl work harder before they represent me.



This one's not as unreasonable, I believe. But if the student you're letting go out is a gentleman, then he would be upfront about his amount of training, and if you were confident in your teaching method it shouldn't be a problem.

The different interpretations are what make it beautiful. If the sifu has given the WC to their student, then they understand the difference between wing chun and kungfu. You should be able to go to any school and enjoy what they have to offer, Wing Chun or not. Noticing and working out differences, and especially being able to communicate about them, are all signs of a mature martial artist. And considering that many of the generations before us tried their hands in other styles and teachers, I think it's almost your responsibility to see what is out there, or at the very least allow your students to. But never forget where the water flows from.

[kj]

Nice job, Burnsy.
- kj

[Yaksha]

My sigung would always send out his blackbelts to other schools in the city during the other schools' black belt tests to challenge them.

[Vyvial]

well I'll say it, my school is open to anyone who wants to hangout, relax train or have a discussion with hands. Also my students are very encouraged to learn about their kung fu by traveling throughout the kung fu community and testing themselves intellectually and physically while picking up new details.

Any invitations? Our doors are always open.

[Vyvial]

burnsypoo, good answers, nothing else really needs to be said.

[vt guy]

My past school forbid us from going to see what else was out in the world. He wanted me to believe on blind faith that what I was doing was the right and only way. He felt that it was rude to go out and try other systems, even other systems of WC. We weren't even allowed to question what we were doing. How can a person learn if he doesn't question himself in what he is doing.

My current school encourages people to go out and try other things. To find what you are looking for in your training, and grow from your experiences. He has the attitude that if you want to train in WC then he is there. If you want to train something else, then there are people out there to help you. This I found to be the most mature and confident attitude because he believed in the system he was doing and wasn't afraid to let the students experiment with other systems.

All people in the martial arts world are looking to learn and train in using the body. Why are there those who want to restrict learning?

Leung Sheung was teaching another style before Yip Man showed up, after that LS started to learn WC and believed that WC was the style for him. Why can't others do the same?

[russellsherry]

hi guys my first sifu did not olny not want us going to other , schools,he tried to stop us reading magazines my current sifu says be open minded , to other schools if your teacher forbids it he might be worried about hispaycheck at the end of the month
peace russellsherry

[porquemada]

On your Martial art journey, how many of you started at one school/system and switched to another better suited for you?

I had this experience myself. I learned from a student of Ronald Duncan when I was a kid but I was trumped sparring against friends who trained boxing. I learned to appreciate conditioning, timing and endurance. I told my instructor about the matches he started training me a bit like a boxer, but after sometime I moved on. Every few years, I visit his school to say hello because was my hero and I have the world of respect for him .

Whats your experiences?

[Matrix]

Originally posted by porquemada
On your Martial art journey, how many of you started at one school/system and switched to another better suited for you? I have. Several times. While I have few regrets about any past switches, I don't believe that there will be any changes in the future.

Switching schools/systems can be a very good thing, if it's done for the right reason. However, I've seen cases where people seemed to have joined the Martial Art of the month club. They are really just dabblers, collecting belts and uniforms in whatever catches their eye. They are not on a Martial Art journey - but then again.........

What I'm trying to say is that I believe that you need to be careful not to confuse switching to something that is "better suited for you" with switching to something else in search for novelty or because we've suffered some sort of setback. Training the same thing over and over can seem boring if your not careful. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, that's what it takes to refine your skills. So you need to learn to enjoy those times. See the subtle beauty in Lap Da for the 1000th time that day......

In your case, where you were "trumped sparring against friends who trained boxing". Was that because boxing is a better "martial art"? Note that there are some who will tell you that boxing is not even a martial art. Or, were they just better at their art than you were at yours? It's sometimes easy to miss the real message in "getting trumped".

Please note that on several levels I have been guilty of similar transgressions myself, so I'm trying not to cast stones here.

Bill

[burnsypoo]

Originally posted by Matrix
Please note that on several levels I have been guilty of similar transgressions myself, so I'm trying not to cast stones here.

Bill

We still love you, gramps.
:)

[Matrix]

Originally posted by burnsypoo
We still love you, gramps.
:) Thanks E. I can feel the love.... :D
.....and no you can't have the keys to the car.

[Sifu Tony]

If what you are teaching is of merit, you don't need to be afraid of your students seeing what others are teaching. I encourage my students to "Respectfully" visit other schools. I think it is good for their Martial Education.

[reneritchie]

When I was learning, my sifu always encouraged us to go out and visit others, WCK or whatever system, and think about what we saw.

He said otherwise how would we know if what he was teaching us was any good or not.

It's easy to be a big fish in a tiny pond. Hard to be a great fish, however, unless you've swum in the sea.

[Vyvial]

rene took the words right out of my mouth

[t_niehoff]

Overwhelmingly most of the instructors didn't encourage their students to visit other schools. Some reasons I got were -
1. its disrespectful for my student to not trust what i teach him

**I tell my students not to trust what I teach them and give them Yip Man's admonition "I may be tricking you, go out and test it for yourself".

2. the other schools will look at it as a challenge

**So, is that a bad thing? You can walk into any BJJ school in the world and go out onto the mats and roll; go to any boxing gym and get into the ring.

3. the students shoudl work harder before they represent me.

**My students don't "represent me" (just as I don't represent those that taught me). We each only have our own WCK (our own individual level of understanding and skill) and that depends mainly on our personal talent and investment.

Regards,

Terence

[Ernie]

The second an instructor tells you.
You don’t need to train with outsiders
You don’t need to spar [share and compare] with other arts
You don’t need some level of conditioning

Then rest assured you are not learning a fighting art

If any of those red flags are popping and your desire is to have some level of fighting skill get out of there as fast as you can

and one more thing if an instructor ever tells you they have all the answers . don't let the forked tongue hit you on the way out


Ps
Terence forgot to tell you a while ago some one was emailing and they great things to say about you, as a teacher and your skill level
Just wanted to pass that on,
:D

[porquemada]

My ramblings. Nothing against your teachers or styles.

A seeker/buyer can easily get exhausted searching for the right product. Eventually the stress of the situation can make a buyer lower his level of scrutiny and lead to a pre-mature or unfavorable agreement. This was the feeling my nephew and I had searching for the right school. In many cases we didn't understand what was being shown and if we didn't press for an explanation we would have accepted it as something profound to be understood later. Luckily we were able to keep a level of focus we were comfortable with. Our basic questions was - :How can the cirriculum of a school enable a person to defend himself in a combat situation?: We didn't have any ideas on how, but as we talked to different instructors and students, we got to a set of criteria we felt made sense.

I feel a student should be encouraged and free to compare the application of his art with other students of different schools and styles. I'm not talking about rumbles or style vs style, but an open platform where participants can gain experience to cultivate their understanding of their respsective art. As you said, why trust what you're learning on face value because it works in a controlled environment?

I wish I wasn't as gullible when I first started learning.
Thanks again.



Originally posted by t_niehoff
Overwhelmingly most of the instructors didn't encourage their students to visit other schools. Some reasons I got were -
1. its disrespectful for my student to not trust what i teach him

**I tell my students not to trust what I teach them and give them Yip Man's admonition "I may be tricking you, go out and test it for yourself".

2. the other schools will look at it as a challenge

**So, is that a bad thing? You can walk into any BJJ school in the world and go out onto the mats and roll; go to any boxing gym and get into the ring.

3. the students shoudl work harder before they represent me.

**My students don't "represent me" (just as I don't represent those that taught me). We each only have our own WCK (our own individual level of understanding and skill) and that depends mainly on our personal talent and investment.

Regards,

Terence

[t_niehoff]

Thanks for passing on the kind words, Ernie. :)

Regards,

Terence

[vt guy]

Is it worth checking out a instructor who hasn't completed his training. I use to practice with a instructor that didn't complete his training and it showed. He couldn't answer all my questions, he had to ask his sifu to see to get the answers. I ask, should this person be teaching even though he hasn't finished his training. I have to add to that even in the forms he was questioning himself. Shouldn't a person who is teaching know everything up to his training. He was only a level 8 in a 10 level system and he didn't really show it. His chi sao was terrible, there wasn't any sensitivity at all in the system. Just block with Wc techniques and use a lot of force. So I ask, should people be teaching when they themselves don't have answers for students?

[Matrix]

Originally posted by vt guy
Is it worth checking out a instructor who hasn't completed his training............. His chi sao was terrible, there wasn't any sensitivity at all in the system. Just block with Wc techniques and use a lot of force. So I ask, should people be teaching when they themselves don't have answers for students? I can't see any value in it, so my answer would be "No".

Bill

[sihing]

In the school I belong to, my Sifu has no problem with students checking out other systems and schools, as a matter of fact I myself have been doing that for 15yrs now. I've always had a curiosity for other styles of Wing Chun and non-WC systems, and I enjoy a good conversation/comparison of systems with others outside of the school. As always it’s non confrontational and is used as an exchange of technique and concepts only. Beside that, an instructor cannot control what any of his/her students do in their spare time so it should not even matter what anyone thinks about their own curiosity of other systems and styles. I believe it is a healthy thing to be curious and to explore other avenues, for me it has strengthened my belief in the system I study and allows me insight to how I can apply my tools to other ways of fighting.

Sihing

[porquemada]

I feel that confidence born of realistic measures is one way to look at it. A student should have confidence in his skill and this confidence should come from 'sensible' realistic training. The confidence in your instructor should be based on realistic measures instead of cult of personality syndrome.

If we accept our nature to be easily fooled by ourselves and modify instrospection to be more critical and honest then we would have a basis for evaluating our skill level AND we'd be in a better perch to identify if someone else is fooling us.

Vt guy, no one can know the depth of another's knowledge. We could inquire at large, but IMHO, the only objective way to know is to ask the individual. A teacher must be able to give you knowledge that you can apply. If you feel you're learning something that doesn't working for you then how can you build your confidence? Why continue?

Personally, I don't put stock in belts or grades because I had a black belt as a kid and knew that was meaningless. I've worked long enough to know that a new graduate with a spiffy degree is generally useless when they first start working in their field. They'd have potential, but the real education starts in the workforce.

Just m thoughts


Originally posted by vt guy
Is it worth checking out a instructor who hasn't completed his training. I use to practice with a instructor that didn't complete his training and it showed. He couldn't answer all my questions, he had to ask his sifu to see to get the answers. I ask, should this person be teaching even though he hasn't finished his training. I have to add to that even in the forms he was questioning himself. Shouldn't a person who is teaching know everything up to his training. He was only a level 8 in a 10 level system and he didn't really show it. His chi sao was terrible, there wasn't any sensitivity at all in the system. Just block with Wc techniques and use a lot of force. So I ask, should people be teaching when they themselves don't have answers for students?

[kj]

Originally posted by vt guy
Is it worth checking out a instructor who hasn't completed his training.

IMHO, it's not how many sets or drills a person knows that matters the most. Richness of understanding and internalization is far more important (to me). Unfortunately, significant depth of understanding is far more uncommon than many of us might prefer to think or confess.

FWIW, short of death, I cannot fathom what it really means to "complete" the system.


I use to practice with a instructor that didn't complete his training and it showed.

I don't doubt it; seen some of that myself.

Conversely, I've encountered plenty who have purportedly "completed" (sic) the system, yet demonstrated significantly lower knowledge and understanding of Wing Chun than others I've met who have barely advanced beyond their initial Siu Nim Tau training.

I've also encountered quite a few skillful people in their own right who can't teach or pass along their understanding worth a whit.

Of course we could all find someone who had assimilated both breadth and depth of Wing Chun, in addition to some ability to teach (an entirely separate skill set), and they are accessible - things would be quite peachy.

On another thread, some folks were musing who they'd want to learn Wing Chun from. For me, the ideal teacher is a humble yet worthy student of Wing Chun, such that our learning might be reciprocal, perpetual, and sincere.

Regards,
- Kathy Jo

[Matrix]

Originally posted by kj
I've also encountered quite a few skillful people in their own right who can't teach or pass along their understanding worth a whit. Kathy Jo,
I've seen this many times myself, and find it to be quite an interesting and important point. For this reason, when selecting an instructor, I often recommend to people that they look at the students rather than focusing strictly on the skills of the sifu. As you've so astutely pointed out, just because someone has a given skill, it does not automatically follow that they can transfer that knowledge/skill to a student.

Bill