Contributing to bad kungfu

[red5angel]

I once had an instructor who made you do a lot of painful and basic training. Your first year was spent doing a lot of monotonous and painful stuff. You got a little taste here and there but for a year you did all the basics over and over and over again. In roughly a year you began to slowly advance. He didn't mislead people by telling them he was teaching them the real deal and not. He didn't alter his teaching for some people and not for others. He made you work very hard on the very basics, long enough that if you weren't serious about it you disappeared, he weeded you out without any deception or misleading or misinstruction.

[SanSoo Student]

Originally posted by Kung Lek
rule of thumb is for every 1000 practitioners, there will be 1 who will continue with kungfu practice for life.

This was true in my old kung fu class, there were about 100 black sashes revolving in 3 advance (mastering) level classes. I hear from masters at that point that only about 5-10 will practice to become masters. They say once you attain the level past basics, its up to the student to try and find truths in the art that were previously hidden.

As for teaching bad kung fu, my teachers had one simple way of fixing this. You do crap and do not work at it, then you won't learn anything new. You don't learn anything new means you won't move rank. This form of humiliation was enough to drive most people, or make them quit.

[FngSaiYuk]

Originally posted by red5angel
I once had an instructor who made you do a lot of painful and basic training. Your first year was spent doing a lot of monotonous and painful stuff. You got a little taste here and there but for a year you did all the basics over and over and over again. In roughly a year you began to slowly advance. He didn't mislead people by telling them he was teaching them the real deal and not. He didn't alter his teaching for some people and not for others. He made you work very hard on the very basics, long enough that if you weren't serious about it you disappeared, he weeded you out without any deception or misleading or misinstruction.

Sounds great, people like that are rare.

[SanSoo Student]

People like that usually teach privately, owning flower shops or some other form of sustenence. They know that dealing with a kwoon is too much work, because Americans are lazy. Sorry, but most old masters I know still have this stereotype.

[Ray Pina]

Here's how I see it. For a while we had someone from Gracie's school coming to train with us. I liked him a lot, still do, and he was a great training partner.

While he was around we worked a lot of basics, structure, wedging, pretty much the core of things. But we were aware that he was going back and forth between schools.

After a while my teacher got tired of it, and said it straight out, you're stupid for presenting your head to me like that. Sometimes this student would force my teacher to hit him, he became unhappy and left.

As soon as he left, we took all those basics and upgrated them with some stratgey and I really learned a lot.

My teacher was smart. He knew he'd take some stuff go there and try it. See what he learned from their counter then come back. Before you know it the two schools are pitted against each other.

There are a lot of reasons. My teacher says, you have to be careful about who hand you put the weapon into.

That's one side of it.

The other side of it is why don't people ask what the hell are we holding horse stance for an hour for? It's killing my knees and we aint doing any real defense training. Why don't any of us own head gear or boxing gloves? Why do we hold our arm out in the air for?

You can say, oh well, the teacher said this is the way to learn. But common sense has to come in at some point.

I know for a fact my teacher is still holding some stuff from me, because from time to time he'll show me something that completely changes my understanding. But I don't get mad about it.

I get what I get when I'm ready for it. I had the hardest time understand the real nature of Tigers Head. For well over a year I was running around covering up like an idiot. I couldn't get more yet.

Only recently am I really starting to understand. But I've had my disagreements with my teacher too. The important thing is is to speak to the teacher. Talk to them. Come right out and say what's on your mind respectfully.

Another thing is, play with the seniors. Ask to anyway. See what they have and compare with what you'r ebeing shown. Put pressure on them and the technique comes out. Most senior students like to show what they have.

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by EvolutionFist
I also blame the students. How many Kung Fu guys truly test themselves? I know so many guys who have "completed" Hung Gar and Wing Chun and will go down the list of forms that they know.

You think it's that easy? They fell for the BS that they were looking for. You can't become a fighter without tasting some blood .... yours or theirs.

So then, how many people really want to train?

While I agree with that, it's not really relevant to this topic. The topic is someone intentionally teaching incorrect techniques. What if the person that was judged and deemed and unworthy actually WANTS to test himself? Now he has to re-learn because he was taught incorrectly. The question though, is how often does this happen? I've heard of a couple of people who do this, however, I had only heard that these people show forms and such incorrectly on video tapes - it was like a check and balance method. If someone says they learned from the guy, yet they are doing the incorrect version of the form, you know where he really learned it.

[red5angel]

holding stuff from you is one thing. Figuring some things out on your own is yet another. Changing what you train your students is on a completely different level in my book.
Most teachers don't hand you everything at once, they can't, it's a ridiculous idea, so of course the longer you stick around the more you get AND the more you show your worth it. That's my point. You can create all sorts of little reasons for not showing someone something. The example of your instructor and the grappler are a bad example in my opinion. Your instructor is making assumptions in a world where people often attend multiple schools. He doesn't really know what's going to happen and so to show the guy the wrong stuff - in this case It sounds like he just didn't show the guy some stuff, so see above - is completely out of line in my opinion.

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by EvolutionFist

The other side of it is why don't people ask what the hell are we holding horse stance for an hour for? It's killing my knees and we aint doing any real defense training. Why don't any of us own head gear or boxing gloves? Why do we hold our arm out in the air for?

You can say, oh well, the teacher said this is the way to learn. But common sense has to come in at some point.

It's not really just common sense to all people. that's the thing. If it were, McSchools wouldn't be so prominent.

1. Not eveyont does MA in order to learn to fight

2. of those who do, not all of them know what to look for - they figure their teacher will guide them in the right direction.

[SanSoo Student]

Bottom Line, I think is that some schools do this take in more student just to keep the school open. Changing the traditional way of learning the art or making it easier helps progress students at a faster rate. Some parents bug the masters why Jimmy or Billy isn't advancing when his friend did. They do sell out, because they are partially afraid that these half-assed students will quit once it gets hard. Thats the problem, I think to correct this an instructor should always start beginners with the same intensity and training as the advanced people. Not watering it down and having them quit once the more strenuous activites show up.

[Ray Pina]

This won't be too popular but anyone why trains under a Chinese teacher will understand ... you have to earn the right to be tought the good stuff.

You have to understand how many years, how much time and money these masters have put into their training. Do you really expect to walk up a few flight of stairs and walk through the door with an American smile and dimple and be shown everything right off the bat?

Red, I understand what you are saying and in day-to-day principle you are right. But this is the martial art world. For better or for worse it's different.

Mr. Ross's post is a good look into the way it is. It's not strip mall training. What he's talking about is something else. It's very serious. It's rare. When you find it you take the good with the bad. Luckily for me it's been all good. The bad times have been from me being angry at not getting support to go fight but now I see my master is smart and kind and that I'm really not ready. I'm still fighting. He just wants me to go out and beat somebody.

Anyway, in the end it's only martial arts. It doesn't matter much these days except if you like that sort of thing.

[red5angel]

Changing the traditional way of learning the art or making it easier helps progress students at a faster rate.

This isn't about changing of methods of training to help students along who may need it, or are lazy. This is about altering the art itself, the techniques, the basics, the advanced stuff, the forms, whatever, so that you're not really getting the authentic stuff because you're not a closed door student.



I understand what you're saying efist I just dont' agree that it has to be different. It's like saying that as a car dealer, if you don't appear to be serious, or fit my criteria for a truck person, I might try to sell you something that's not quite what you're looking for, because you may not know any better. I understad all the hard work and determination that these guys have put into it, but at the sametime, why open a school if you know you're going to have to decieve 80% of the people who walk through the door?

[FngSaiYuk]

Originally posted by red5angel
I understad all the hard work and determination that these guys have put into it, but at the sametime, why open a school if you know you're going to have to decieve 80% of the people who walk through the door?

Let's put it this way... after all the time and resources put into martial arts, how much room is there for some other marketable skill in the US? Oft times the school is opened for survival. Finding the few students willing and able to learn are bonuses.

Yah, it's selling out, but hey, that's life...

[Ray Pina]

Red, I really understand what you're saying. I'm not saying this is right, I'm just saying its the way it is but I can understand than side of it too.

It's not like my master is advertising for students, he's not in the yellow pages. In fact, while the guy who was going to introduce me bled me for as many dinners as he could get out of me first, I tried all I could to find master Bond Chan. I asked at all the MA stores, the parks, walked into a few shadey places that I had a feeling about. It wasn't easy.

Pretty much all of his students came to him from hearing baout him or after getting beat by one of his students. It's a very traditional school. When I started 3 or 4 years ago there were two non-Chinese students including me. Now there are more. Now it's about 50/50.

Here's another one: my teacher won't teach Japanese. When we get the stuff, we can. But my master's father was killed by the Japanese and his Hsing-I master, grandmaster Sou, made him promise to never teach the Japanese before he would instruct him.

These are Chinese arts. I'm learning from an older Chinese man. I have to do it their way. And I have to say, I kind of like it and relate to it. (this is not to say that some of my Non-Asian teachers didn't teach me a lot. They did.)

[Ford Prefect]

I think it's BS now-a-days and being mired in useless tradition will only bring down the traditional arts. This is modern day America. You're life will not be threatenned by teaching the wrong person the genuine thing. If somebody pays to learn something, they deserve to get what they pay for. BJJ schools don't do this. As far as I know wrestling teams don't do this. Boxing clubs don't do this. Using E-fists example, baseball, football, and basketball programs don't do this.

They teach everybody the same things and the cream rises to the top. They don't teach crap to this guy because he doesn't seem motivated or this guy because he isn't praticipating in only that activity. Everybody is taught the same. The difference is made in natural talent and dedication. Obviously the more time training, the more you'll learn.

[Ray Pina]

Just read your post about showing wrong technique on video. Yes, I know some people that do this too. I know of a Hung Gar teacher who teaches different generations of students different versions of the same form. You should see the problems that come up when they're all in the same room ... quite funny .... and not a fighter among them.

I also understand showing less than the best on video. Hell, if I bought a Gracie video I'd expect to see the basic, the general idea, but I'd be sure that they have some special training, some special leverage that only more advanced students (say brown and up) get. I'd go even further and think there's stuff that hasn't left the family. They should keep some stuff for themselves.