New age vs traditional training.

[red_fists]

Hi All.

Maybe some of you can help me with this.
A lot of MA talk about modern MA instruction(twice/trhice a week, etc) vs traditional which was "full time".

Now somehow I can't believe in this full-time training, unless the masters of old ran their own school or were professional soldiers.
Even the Masters/Students of old had to earn a living to pay for rent and so on.

I know that the Japanese had the "deshi" system in which a Student lived with his teacher and was bassically a servant to him in exchange for lessons. Even those deshi didn't study full-time as the had to do their daily chores.Yes, they practiced daily, but the teacher might not teach them daily but often only offer corrections when needed.

Even in the Tai Chi History it is mentioned that YLC taught outside the Imperial Court aswell.
At one stage the Bodyguards were reprimanded for their poor Skill, and they said that they had too many other chores to do their daily practices (sounds like modern life).

Even with the Village styles and the Chen Village, someone still had to sow, harvest and prepare the Goods that allowed the villagers to live/trade.
Unless only a selected few studied MA full-time and were supported by the rest of the Village.

Also it need to be remembered that both China & Japan worked 7 days a week, most of the time for longer hours than we do today.So did the average MA of old study full-time, or was their study more similar to the way we do it now.

Exercise/study before/after work and get corrections & lessons a few times a week.
Any Opinions welcome.

[Shooter]

Well, with Tai Chi at least, everything you do is "training"

[red_fists]

Shooter.

Agreed, to a certain degree.
I try to apply our TCC principles to everything I do.

[jon]

red_fists
Im not in a bad position to answer this becouse i do train full time seven days a week.
My theory on this is that its only for a small part of my life (three years full time) then i start to teach and continue the rest of my life. Now that im doing this course im broke constantly and never have any energy left to go out but its only a short period of my life.
The way i see it.
You can train four-six hours a day seven days a week for a few years.
So we have on average say five hours a day 340 days a year to give me a few days off here and there.
Thats 1700 hours a year...
Now go to a normal class of say 2 hours a night 3 nights a week
Average of 300 hours a year.
You can see a pretty obvious path im taking here, basicaly it simply takes me less time to get where im hoping to go(teaching).
It may take me 2 years to do what would take an average student 5.
This of course is pretty open ended and does not always work out this way.
Basicaly im just focussing on my training now so that i can sit back a little later. Plus begin to teach before to long which is my ultimate goal.
As stated the flip side is im totaly skint broke and my girlfriend thinks im more than a little nuts.


Its a great way to live in my opinion, even my ankles and legs are starting to get used to it

Oh and my sifu often sits down and reads the paper while i practice so no they dont stand there correcting you 24\7. THANK GOD!

[jon]

Ps
As to what my sifu does for a living...
He teaches kung fu basicaly, he also has a few good connections politcaly and is often doing some sort of promotional work for the Chinese community and kung fu community.
He is also a VERY good artist and was trained to paint by a painting master in China. He occasionaly sells his works for enourmous amounts of money. There is one going up for auction at a dinner he is hosting on Monday night if anyone is interested
He is living proof in my eyes that you can live your life by doing only the things you love.

[Octavius]

This makes a lot of sense. I'd guess that if the martial artist was a wealthy person (wealthy family?) then they could get away with being a martial arts bum and not work. But let's take a real historical figure of fame and see if we can figure out how he trained. Let's take Wong Fei Hung. OK, so he had kung fu around him all his life and probably simply soaked up a good deal of knowledge from simple osmosis. But He was well read, very well educated in the classics and in chinese medicine, so let's say while gorwing up, he devotes some half a day to his studies. He can then devote some 4-5 hours to physical training and if we assume he also indulged in some child-like behavior (example: playing with friends?) we can knock off a day right there. During his adult years, he was a doctor so he saw patients, and he taught his students, and probably did the "gentleman about town" business of rubbing elbows with various folks. That'd take up a lot of time. But if we say he was a very good time manager, he can still have about 4 hours of solid training (assuming he doesn't sleep 8-10 hours like the modren folk and can get by wit far less sleep). Of course there would be days when his training would be interrupted altogether - while he was traveling, sick, or just plain busy with other things - kinda like us folk of today.

In terms of time, I don't think it's realistic to think that a person could train in the old days ALL day long, everyday. Even professional atheltes and soldiers take breaks and do other activities. It's actually healtheir - a little yin with the yang. I think the main difference would be in terms of attitude. I'd compare it to a weekend painball club training for a tournament versus a Marine Recon platoon training for a mission. Or a community center band versus a professional orchestra. People nowadays see martial arts as a recreational activity, or a hobby, or an interest. The Masters of old, I beileve, probably made everything they did into some sort of training acticity - I'm convinced that after time it became a subconcious activity. I've heard stories that Bruce Lee would squeeze the steering wheel of his car while driving training his grip, since he couldn't really do anythign else driving. Even if this is an urban myth, it still bespeaks of the attitude to training that real masters would bring to their training.
Also, most people nowadays, even if they practice for 4-5 hours, would not be able to sustain the level of focus for all that time. My sifu has always told me that it's better train with focus and intensity for 45 minutes than train half-ass for 2-3 hours. Probably the same story with the Old Masters.

[red_fists]

Hi Jon.

Agreed.

Your calculation of course doesn't take into account that the part-time student might train outside the Kwoon, which is comparable to your training while Sifu reads the newspaper.

Which I think is what most good MA Students will do.

You got my respect for taking that decisions, I would love to do the same, but alas it is too late, got a Family now.

Enough rambling.

[Mr Nunchaku]

Man, Jon. You're really motivated. That's great. I'm still in school right now but whenever I get a week or two week holiday or better yet, summer, I do the over time thing with tae kwon do. Two nights a week I go to tae kwon do at noon, come home, rest, and go back at 7:00 that same night. On Friday night I'd take an afternoon class and on Saturday morning a really long class. However, try as I might to schedule my classes around tae kwon do I am unable to go to as many classes as I want. Anyway, I can't imagine you ever regretting the decision to train like this. It's a great way to become a good teacher.

[joedoe]

I think traditionally a lot of masters also used to be healers, so they earned a living that way.