RE: TCMA and certain behaviour.
When I started HK a few years ago with my current Sifu, it was as a private student.
The "ba si" ceremony was mentioned, by me, and he said:
"I know that you are a Christian and from my nephew I understand that you are a good person and I recall from when we first met, many years ago, that you were young and brash but always good and never got yourself into too much trouble".
He continued:
" If you want to, we can discuss it, but I don't think it's for you".
I voiced my concerns about how I would be treated and looked upon by the other students and he said, " Since you cna kick their ass, why do you care?".
After laughing WITH him, I explained my feelings and we agreed that, indeed, it wasn't for me but that Me and his students woudl train and MA brothers if not "hung brothers".
He never kept anything from me.
His brother, the SPM guy, was even more liberal, focusing only on how much I could give to the training, as well as take from it.
The point being that, not everyone that is old school is totally old school ( They were from Macao so maybe that mattered).
Psalms 144:1
Praise be my Lord my Rock,
He trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle !