Etiquette in the Martial Arts

[ShaolinTiger00]

E fist summed it up. its merely ettiquete and it dictates the senior student is sihing. talent or skill is no matter.

[Godzilla]

I agree with Water Dragon.

Godzilla

[EARTH DRAGON]

Sishung/Sihing, senoir student for reason of senoirity not rank
Shrfu/Sifu, teacher/ father
Sijo, female student kungfu sister
Sigung , equal kung fu brother
Si yi, sifu's sifu
Tudi, student to a sifu

[DelicateSound]

I respect all of my fellow students. Even the weakest beginner has something he can teach you, if you are willing to learn.

[Fu-Pow]

I think that you guys may have missed my point to some degree.

What I'm getting at is not necessarily the time that one has been affiliated with a school, but the time that one has devoted to training at the school.

I think the traditional way is that if you don't make a commitment to training then you aren't invited into the "family." So there is no conflict. (You've probably heard the story of the Hung Gar students doing horse stance for 3 hrs a day for a year before they ever learned in forms.) But there are people that haven't made a commitment take long periods off and then return.

Here's an example of what I mean. There is a guy at my school who has trained for maybe a year more than me. He often doesn't train with the class, dissappears for long periods of time without training and generally knows less form than I do and quite frankly does them worse.

His behavior as a student is fair at best. I find it doubtful that if we had the Bai Si ceremony he would ever be in invited.

On the other hand I am an " instructor " at the school, train/teach consistently 2-3 nights a week for the last 2-3 years. Plus I do Taiji 2 hrs a week on the side.

Is this guy still my SiHing?

[Wongsifu]

this is the same problem i had at one point , from what i actually understand fully is that sihing actually means nothing but older brother, in the sense that as you said if he was invited in through the ceremony and then he brought you to the master you would call him sihing if you became closed door because he is your older brother.

My sifu regularly calls his training buddies brothers as there were like 4 of them and they were the only students of his sifu. Also ive heard other sifu's refer to my teacher as my father. So its all quite inceestiously confusing

nowadays though some people take the word sihing and make it mean instructor... we used to have our teacher at wc called sifu and the 3 instructors as sihing.

Also technically in the good ole days if some guy trained for 1 year longer than you you would call him sihing because he could kick your ass , there is no way back then that the sifu would let his top students waste away like nowadays were they come to class once a week.

Lastly i still call my 1st instructor sihing , even though i may be better than him now , out of pure respect because he introduced me to martial arts , he was a sihing in the real sense of the word.

[ShaolinTiger00]

fu pow,

Yes he is still your sihing. this is pretty simple. sihing doesn't mean one who is more skilled than the beginner. its just someone who is in the family longer.

I'm sure there are many people who have a worthless older brother, but the fact is he is still your older brother and part of the family. yeah you call him sihing (a "title" but not very significant) but he knows you can put it to him and so does your sifu.

[Fu-Pow]

Also technically in the good ole days if some guy trained for 1 year longer than you you would call him sihing because he could kick your ass , there is no way back then that the sifu would let his top students waste away like nowadays were they come to class once a week.

Finally, someone who gets my point!!!

Yes, this problem is largely the fault of Sifu for not riding lazy students. But don't get me wrong I'm not trashing my Sifu. It is just that sometimes I think our school might be better (ie more efficient) if it was a bit more traditional.

There are things that I like about breaking with tradition and having a laid back Sifu but you don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak!!!!

Some rules are there for a reason and it just causes confusion if you get rid of them altogether. Why reinvent the wheel?

[Nexus]

Fu-Pow, just because he is your sihing, does not mean that you should for any reason pretend you are lesser than him while he is around. You have the absolute right to be as brilliant as you wish, and in his presence you need not hide that brilliance. If he is not as commited as you are, and perhaps not as brilliant in his training, than that's his loss, but you do not need to lower yourself to his level when your around him to make him feel as if he deserves to be your equal. Show him your brilliance and greatness in your commitment to training and it may have the affect of inspiring him to become more involved.

- Nexus

[JasBourne]

The whole tradition came out of a much different society than the one we live in now. We no longer know (or are related to) everyone in our village, 99 times out of a hundred we don't even know the names of our neighbors. The majority of MA practicioners do not (usually simply because they cannot) structure their entire lives around their training halls and training time, and do not make the others in their training hall their sole social circle. So the idea of 'family' in the kwoon is not what it used to be.

The concept of 'elder' is likewise not real popular in our society, nor does it conform to the earlier standards. At one time, the idea of revering one's elders for the knowledge they possessed could mean quite literally the difference between life and death ("grandpa! The frost killed all the cows and the crop is a total loss! What do we do??" "Don't worry, I remember the frost of '34..." etc). Now, our attitude is that the only thing old age does is make you more of the same (i.e. if you are a jerk, age will only make you an old jerk).

So maybe it IS time to revisit these "relational labels". I am not going to automatically give respect to someone who trains maybe once a week and is way behind me in skill, just because s/he took up the style before I did.

Something my granny taught me: respect is earned, every time. Perhaps we should stop supporting "entitlement" and start supporting "skill earned through hard work over time".

[Fu-Pow]

Hmmm...you bring up some interesting points JasBourne.

So lets take a look at today and yesterday.....

On one hand we have tradtional martial arts which were developed over 1000's of years primarily for the battlefield or for the goal of self-preservation. Many times the training was kept with in a village or a literal family. The attitude of the practitioners was very serious because it was literally a matter of life and death. Before a teacher would show you any real technique you spend long hours doing seemingly dull and painful excercises over and over again. This served two purposes 1) To make sure you were of good character and were not going to go around using your kung fu on innocent victims (or your teacher) and 2) to build the rudimentary strength and stamina to excel in MA's. At the end of the trial period you were accepted into the "family" where you would be shown actual techniques to use in combat.

Although this sounds cliched it has been repeated over and over again in so many stories, movies and books there must be some validity to it. Some teachers still train this way.


Fast forward to modern day MA's.

With the advent of the gun Kung Fu has little real street value. Although you might know 100 forms the chance that you'll ever get to apply any of the knowledge in battle is very low.
Aside from the occasional bar fight, the main "battlefield" of kung fu is now sparring matches with rules that prevent the practitioners from becoming maimed or killed. It is rarely now a "life and death" situation. With the rare occasion teachers are much more lenient in how they instruct because 1) they don't want their students to quit 2) because it is not a life or death situation. Students can simply show up when they want (as their schedule dictates) because they no longer depend on MA's to defend themselves. If the student goes out and kills somebody they go to jail and if the instructor wants to defend himself from his student he can go down to walmart and by a .22. The Bai Si ceremony where you have to be accepted to the family goes to the wayside because the atmosphere is so much more lacksidasical.

So let me ask you a question which atmosphere breeds better kung fu?

These are, of course, extreme views but you see where I'm going here.

[Nexus]

Where you are going with it, is simply to prove a point to make your own situation seem more comforting to yourself. That of course has nothing to do with the spirit of martial arts, which resides on the individual, and not on the mainstream society. Ask yourself what it is you are trying to bring forth, you already know the answers, you don't have questions, you have confusions.

Frustration is key in progressing in any art form, as we want to work through frustration rather than alleviate it. A thread like this which is formed to prove a point is an attempt to alleviate ones frustration, rather than work through it, and so one then misses the Aha experience that they receive when they go with the flow and work through the difficult and frustrating times.

Of course if this was clear and and such, and you already were applying this in mind and were simply curious then feel free to discard it.

- Nexus

[Fu-Pow]

Nexus-

I think you might have missed where I'm coming from. To my knowledge my school does NOT have the Bai Si ceremony. So I'm not putting down anyone else I'm just airing my concern.

[JasBourne]

Back from practice (it was GOOD tonight!), some interesting ideas on this thread now...

Fu-pow, I can dig it where you're coming from, but I don't think you are going to solve a societal ill by insiting on the observance of a ritual that is not supported by that same society...

Not saying don't observe the old traditions if that's what floats your boat, but how does kissing some guy's butt that you don't actually respect, simply because he started studying your style before you did, make for better kungfu? I would think forcing people to be hypocrites through this kind of peer pressure only leads to further disfunctionality in an already highly disfunctional world.

Wouldn't a person be better served by being free to give respect to those they truly respect? And would not that same structure force others to get better in order to earn respect, instead of having it given to them through no real merit of their own?

In either case, the issue does nothing to address the lack of 'life or death urgency' you cite as being necessary to good kungfu. Again, that is a function of our society - we are, quite simply, a much safer and calmer world than we used to be.

[Jimbo]

Not to get too far off topic, but...

A student coming into the school to train only once a week by itself does not necessarily mean he/she is a lazy student, IF that student trains daily or a lot during the week on his/her own. This would really only apply to a student who has been doing kung fu for a long time already, before his schedule caused him to only attend his school once a week.

There are some students who go to every class but just go through the motions in a lax and undisciplined manner. They may keep up with the class because they learn to cheat on the movements. So even though such students are always at the school, sometimes you see them year after year and hardly notice any improvement at all. You get out of training what you put in, and if you're not investing your best efforts it becomes the principle of "garbage in, garbage out."

I remember in the school I trained at in Taiwan, if a person started a day earlier or years earlier he was always you senior, because there was no grading system, so the old way was followed, even if you exceeded his level.

In the States, where many schools have testing and gradings, it seems who started earlier is less relevant, and someone coming in later can become the sihing if he surpasses the grade of the earlier student.

Jim