a question

[md1]

I have a question for the Teachers. do you guy's teach full time?
if not how do you find the time to teach and work on the things you need to work on? are you married?, with family?.

I recently started teaching and it is very demanding all the time i used to spend on myself is now spent on my students. I also have a family and work full time.

Oh buy the way maoshan and blacktaoist i like the way you guy's don't pull any punches about training and separating the men from the boy's

[EARTH DRAGON]

Good question, hard to answer, ....since I have been teaching I have held down a part time job in the day simply becuse I do not make enough money teaching and running a school to make all ends meet. My wife has a great job but still the expnences roll in. Since I have taken upon myself to teach my personal training has taken a back seat to that of my students growth. I do miss training but trying to juggle all those things at once can be hectic, so I out my students first..

[maoshan]

Peace MD1,
First, thanks for the comment.

Now, The time to train.
It depends on how bad you want it.
I my self realized as a teenager that this was not the 1800's and that we today didn't have the time that the old guys did.
So I trained any and every where at any time. I didn't care about the ridicule from people. I trained on the street, hanging out with friends, waiting for the Bus, train...etc. it did not matter. I was often told that "you shouldn't do that out in the open and don't let anybody know that you know the art". The Hell with that! My life's dream is to master the art. It's never been a hobby for me.
At work, I would do the subtle things. At lunch time I would go hard core. When it comes to students I'm still training, it's like this,
I'm a traditional teacher, That's the way I was taught. Ex: With me every one has to do the Embrace posture for an hour, after checking postures I join them. The same with walking the circle.
Push hands and sparring I'm contiously learning.
As I teach I learn. I don't speed my students through learning anything that's the only way they'll get good. using this method I contiously train.
I'm married and have kids as well. I admit it can get kind of hectic
but it depends on what you want and how bad. In my mind I'm always training. I'm a night owl, so a midnight traing session is common with me.
It depends on you.
Peace

Maoshan

[Bak Mei]

Awesome, I am not a teacher but train the same way -- always. When I can't do it physically, its going on in my noodle, always, constantly.

I need to check this site mor eoften then the external, not much going on there -- there's a surpise.

I'll be aiming to teach full time.


Growing up, I didn't have as balanced a lifestyle as my American counterparts in school - or even my Asian-American nerd classmates.

I was one of those kids that constantly studied and studied and studied to the point where everything else was neglected. I did have some "ordinary" types of growing up experiences, but for the most part it was extremely unbalanced even for a Chinese kid.

So when I train, I train fanatically. For kung fu, this works great even though my sifu (a mainland Chinese, not a Taiwanese American like me) deliberately restrains me from hurting myself with overpractice.

I don't have kung fu students yet, but I do have violin students (I'm a professional violinist, that's what pays most of the bills). I'm probably the only guy who found Juilliard to be RELAXING, so hard did I work as a youngster. When I started teaching violin, I had a tendency to run kids into the ground because I was so used to overworking beyond the point of exhaustion.

After a while, I realized that the overly exhaustive training I was doing to my students was hurting them more than helping them. So I learned to grudgingly cut back on my demands while still expecting quality at every step. Now I build up my students gradually instead of throwing them into pits and expecting them to crawl out on their own.


So when I open my martial arts school, I'll definitely teach at a very relaxed and yet learnable pace. The ability of the students will dictate the teaching method.

I am not ashamed to admit that I don't want to scare anybody away by making the style too difficult. It doesn't matter how "good" I teach if nobody can keep up because I'm too demanding.

There are great sifus that make a living by being tough and weeding people out - more props to them though I'm not one of them and never will be. I'm more interested at nurturing seeds into shoots into trees than trying to find out which trees are "most fit". Different goals.

Yet I'll not compromise the quality of the style. I won't expect people to grasp everything at once, but I will expect them to work toward perfecting their skills.