"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."

[elu296]

Has anyone ever actually had this experience? If so, please share your stories.

[rett]

I actually had a guy who is now teaching me basic boxing show up at my door and ring my doorbell. He has also done Southern Shaolin, trained in Beijing and other interesting stuff.

I don't know if I'd "become ready," but he did just appear. I live a bit far from everything and have a long trip into the city to train with a group once a week. Having someone just arrive out of nowhere to be able to do applications with and stuff was pretty amazing.

It turns out he and his wife were in the process of moving to our town and were short-term renting a house in my neighbourhood. The neighbours found out about his Kung Fu interest and pointed him toward me.

[David Jamieson]

Yes.
This is how I started.

[YouKnowWho]

My senior SC brother David C. K. Lin defeated a 3rd degree black belt Judo instructor in Taiwan. He was 17 with only 1 year of SC training from his senior SC brothers. After someone told my teacher, my teacher said, "Do I have a student like him? Bring him to me." David then spent 15 more years studying directly under him and became his best student.

[EarthDragon]

I was Goju Ryu BB and had no intertest in TMCA only JMA. I was talked into attending a seminar with shyun Kwan Long, I was used as an elample on how to use mantis to beat other styles as I was one of the only people wearing a japanese Gi.

He threw me around from one end of the school to the other with such efforltess energy and totally beat my defenses and countered my attacks so well I bowed afterwards and asked him to teach me what I did not know ..he said no he was too busy but to call him next year............. this went on for 5 years before he execepted me and then adobted me into his lineage. So do I beleive when I was read he came? ABSOLUTLY.

[taai gihk yahn]

sure, in the sense that wherever you are "at", the person who has what you need to know at a given moment will be that teacher; this really could be for any given moment in your life, of course - you just need to be open and receptive, ready to learn from anyone; they can even teach you without knowing they did...

in my personal experience, when I met my taiji teacher 17 years ago, I was definitely ready, and the circumstances were such that I became very close to him very quickly, and stayed that way for most of my time with him; in the last several years, we grew apart in a natural way, and recently we concluded out association; this notion is more commonly known by the concept of "medicine becomes poison" - meaning that, what he had to offer was appropriate for me at a given point in my development, and nurtured me greatly; after a certain point, as things evolved naturally and I became more my own person, it was no longer the right fit, I began disagreeing with too much of what he said, and had I stayed, it would not have been being true to who I was nor respectful to him;

so I would also add that, "when the student is ready, the teacher disappears";

[MasterKiller]

Yes. I was 16, she was 32...

[MightyB]

Whilst partaking in some mild Hashish near a corn field, a wandering daoist appeared and sent me on a dwarven quest to recover gold.

[taai gihk yahn]

Whilst partaking in some mild Hashish near a corn field, a wandering daoist appeared and sent me on a dwarven quest to recover gold.

yet all you found was a midget bison...

[MightyB]

yet all you found was a midget bison...

but that's only part of the story...

[Syn7]

Must be magic!!!!!!!!

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

The opposite is also true. When the TEACHER is ready, the students will come.

Saw this happen with a friend of mine this year. After years of "Talking" about expanding his small group, one day all the pieces just fell in place and it happened.

[Lucas]

This was somewhat my experience with my first gong fu teacher. I had spent roughly two years doing personal research into the various martial arts and finally came to the conclusion I wanted to study Chinese Martial arts. When I finally decided to act I went to the internet and phone book to find all my local cma teachers. I called and called and called to see what the best hours for stopping by were, and no one answered any of my calls. Then by happenstance the topic of martial arts came up in conversation with a random stranger, and they refered me to a number. I called and my teacher answered the phone and set up a time for me to come meet. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So it really depends on how you look at it. By the chance of circumstances in everyones life involved it just so happens that I ended up in the right place. Had any of those other individuals answered, I may have ended up training with them instead. Not inherantly a bad thing, but I was and am still pleased with my foundational introduction and advancement in Chinese martial arts under the teacher that I did end up connecting with.

[Syn7]

If you built it, they will come!!!


This is one of those silly convos like how your last relationship, assuming it lasts, will always be the most successful one. Duh!

If you know Kung Fu, if you are good at it, I must assume you were ready and so was your teacher. If you are taken by a fraud, like SD, then clearly you weren't ready. Kind of a silly thing to talk about.

But yes, we all seem to have a decent grasp of the obvious. Yaaaay Team KFM!!!

[Kellen Bassette]

The force is strong with those who walk the path of TCMA, we know without knowing..