Quality Control and Honesty

[Ian]

How do you ensure that you practice proper, honest quality control within your style?

For example, if you're learning about knives, do you ever randomly attack your instructor with a training knife when he's least expecting it? If he says "stab me like this", do you comply?

Perhaps you'll fast become the black sheep of the class, or wear your instructor's patience thin at times, or even suffer some discomfort at this hands - the opposite and greater than equal response to a realistic, random attack.

But without testing in this manner, how can you trust that what you're learning isn't trash?

Also, when your instructor states that such and such a training method is bunk, or method x is the 'right' way to do things, do you accept his opinion as gospel truth, or do you immediately go and try it for yourself, at least once?

As the old adage goes - there is more than one way to skin a cat. And you don't know them all!! How can you be comfortable with most ideas without trying them out yourself in realistic scenarios? To me this is just intellectual honesty.

[shawnsegler]

You must run through teachers really fast.



S

[Bao]

If you can not use what you learn right from start, should you throw it away?

If your teacher have developed his skill by 30 or 40 years of practice, and you can not do the same things as him, then how can you test those things by yourself without biding your time, having patience? Shouldn't "gongfu" mean anything?

Intellectual honesty, by all means. But some kind of skill takes time to build and to be successful in your practice, sometimes you just need faith.

How can you measure skill without developing it first?

[Ian]

You must run through teachers really fast.



S

Shawn, we've already established that our training approaches differ fundamentally. Did you gain anything by posting that?

FWIW, I've always maintained good relationships with my teachers and I've never been kicked out of a class.

[GrahamB]

There's a danger in the 'try it yourself and see' approach - I tend not to dismiss things that come from legitimate teachers just because I can't get them to work - just because I can't do it doesn't mean there's something wrong with the technique, it just means I suck and maybe with a bit more training I'll be able to do it

[Ian]

If you can not use what you learn right from start, should you throw it away?

If your teacher have developed his skill by 30 or 40 years of practice, and you can not do the same things as him, then how can you test those things by yourself without biding your time, having patience? Shouldn't "gongfu" mean anything?

Intellectual honesty, by all means. But some kind of skill takes time to build and to be successful in your practice, sometimes you just need faith.

How can you measure skill without developing it first?

If your instructor is covering knives, should he or shouldn't he be able to deal with random, unchoreographed attacks? If he can't, then it's all tell and no show.

You can't learn like that. Warning bells should be going off in your head.

If it's a piece of advice like:

-weight training is bad
-elbows should never be higher than the hands
-no high kicks

I still think you should try these things yourself and establish to your own satisfaction whether or not they're true.

There is more than one way to skin a cat, and *your instructor* doesn't know them all. If he says he has all the answer, warning bells should be going off.

IMO even instructors only 'see' a small part of the elephant. If you don't question everything, think for yourself, and ask yourself "what is wrong and how can I make it better?" you're not really moving forward.

[shawnsegler]

Shawn, we've already established that our training approaches differ fundamentally. Did you gain anything by posting that?

Sure it did. Posting a bunch of rhetorical questions like they somehow had intrinsic value based on your intellectual honesty caveat at the end is kind of troll behavior...unless of course you can deal with people saying things about what you said and having a discussion about it without tripping on what they say...which obviously didn't happen.

Oh yeah..and it was a cheap thrill

Best,

S

[Dmitri]

I still think you should try these things yourself and establish to your own satisfaction whether or not they're true.

I'm all for exploration but the same applies to your "trying" as well. E.g. if you go against the "weight training is bad" idea at a certain stage of your development (in taijiquan in particular), you will have just deprived yourself from exploring "what happens if I DON'T train with weights for now?"

There's some advice one should not "test", but just follow. Which is that kind of advice and which isn't is determined by one's wisdom.

If you are attending a school, a certain level of faith in teacher's ability to "show you the door" is implied, otherwise you're likely wasting everyone's time.
Doubting everything is just as bad as doubting nothing.

[middleway]

the problem is that if you chose to do things this way you HAVE to expect to get hurt yourself ... maybe to a level where you will be incapacitated for some time...

Dont you do Systema Ian? Recall the stories of people randomly attacking mikhail ... broken Eye socket, ribs etc anyone...

I think its a mistake to think that if you randomly attack your instructor with decent or real intent ... he will be all nice and will deftly deflect your attack pinning you down and smilingly saying 'nice try'.

Far more likely you will wake up on the floor with a massive headache and possibly something broken ...... I remember really going for my xing yi teacher with a shot once ... thinking ... 'can he really stop this' ... the resulting pi chuan to the kidney nearly knocked me out and i was in pain for about 3 weeks .... i had to have a lye down for quite a while.

There are better equally honest ways to 'test out' your teachers stuff ... but you gotta find that out the hard way ....

cheers
Chris

[C.J.Wang]

Hmm...is sneak attacking your teacher the only way to tell whether he has the goods or not? For a beginner with no martial arts background what so ever, I can see how the inability to distinguish realistic training from one that is useless would be a problem. However, with the majority of us here being fairly experienced practitioners with 5 to 10 years of training under our belts, I am sure we can all come up with better, courteous ways to determine a teacher's skill level than attacking him unannounced. It can also be dangerous for the student too, since an unexpected attack could elicit a spontaneous and overwhelming response from the teacher.

Personally, these days I can pretty accurately determine a teacher's level just by casually touching hands with him and let him demo a few techniques on me.

[bruce]

If your instructor is covering knives, should he or shouldn't he be able to deal with random, unchoreographed attacks? If he can't, then it's all tell and no show.

You can't learn like that. Warning bells should be going off in your head.

hi ian,

i am not sure what you are trying to talk about or imply here but if you take as an example Cus D'Amato and Tyson i would think with out question tyson would kick damatos ass. do you think this means that tyson could not be shown anything by damato?

change the names and arts and i think the story is the same. i do not think it is a requirement to be a good teacher to be able to beat up your student.
the teacher is there as a guide to help you. if they have information that will help you improve and they will share it with you even if you can get in a sneak attack on them soooo what.

[bruce]

Doubting everything is just as bad as doubting nothing.

i like it! i am going to steal that quote from you.

[sroberts]

I agree with Bruce. Why randomly attack you're teacher. They're doing you a favor. If you can't use what they give you yourself, then thats another matter. Maybe your fault, maybe theirs. To know that requires good judgement, not random attackery. I know I could punch my teacher in the back of the head and hurt him. But thats the same for everyone. Even people who don't know you. When I went to see Steve Morris, for instance, there is no doubt that I could have twatted him in the head at some point without his being able to defend, but i didn't. What's the moral of that? People don't have eyes in the back of their head and I try not to be a cunt to people.

If you're looking for people who really have the power to defend random attacks, I think you've set yourself an unreasonable task. And if attacks were genuinely random practicing would be fairly useless.

sam

[ashe]

If you are attending a school, a certain level of faith in teacher's ability to "show you the door" is implied, otherwise you're likely wasting everyone's time.
Doubting everything is just as bad as doubting nothing.

oooh... that's good.

which is why it's important for someone teaching to touch hands with students right away, so the student can feel first hand what the person has. that should wash away most doubts.

EDIT- also... it's sort of the wrong idea to think that if you attack someone unexpectedly and their technique fails, that that means it's no good, for several reasons.

a) awareness is key. if the guy is inside his own facility, he's probably not in the kind of mental state he would be outside and thus respond differently. in other words, he's likely to be quite a bit more shocked to be attacked by one of his own students in his own facility, out of the blue.

b) the example given above of gus damato and tyson is a good one.

c) and MOST IMPORTANTLY, there are no guarantee's in martial arts, only OPPORTUNITIES. trying to defend against a knife attack is always a case of trying to make the best out of the worst.

[Interloper]

Sneak attacks? No, not a good idea. However, IMO, with the exception of rank beginners, who should always do as instructed, one should provide at least a reasonable amount of resistance against a training partner or teacher, and never be compliant. Compliance leads to mutual MA masturbation. That is, you learn only to "fight" cooperatively with (not against) a partner (not opponent) with whom you have choreographed your actions. That's no way to prepare for the Real World. We've all seen the YouTube videos of cooperative partners throwing the choreographed, stiff armed punch at the Sifu or Shihan, and him demonstrating the Proper Counter. It's pretty lame. So, why would your teacher expect or want you to do that in the kwoon or dojo if what he's trying to teach is real fighting and martial skill? If a teacher expects a compliant, non-resisting crash-test dummy, that's a warning sign that you won't be learning the fighting skills you need, in that school. If you're not getting what you need, or think you need, then find another teacher.

That said, I strongly believe in certain protocols in a teaching-learning arrangement. There is an (often) unspoken agreement between teacher and student for mutual respect and trust. It's kind of like a marriage that you want to remain strong -- you wouldn't intentionally engage in activities that would hurt, humiliate or betray your "loved one." This goes both ways, for both teachers and students.

In MA training, I'd think that to intentionally defy one's teacher in front of other students, in a way that (whether intentional or not) would humiliate the teacher or show him up, is a severe breach of etiquette and a form of betrayal. What is your motivation? If you really want to test something, think your teacher has a crucial flaw which you have rectified in yourself and want to share with him to help him, or you believe that you have surpassed your teacher in skill and need to prove it to yourself (but hopefully not to the teacher, as that is pure ego and Alpha-ism) as part of moving on and growing, then I'd recommend thinking it over carefully. Teachers have their pride, and I know of very few who have the strength of self to be open to resistance ("disobedience) or even constructive criticism from a student. Most will be highly offended if it's implied that their teaching or skills are somehow wanting.

If it turns out that you're superior to your teacher, do you plan to leave him/her? If so, don't rub his nose in it. Don't be on a mission to force-feed him The Truth. Your only humane approach is to quietly and privately, not in front of others, speak with the teacher and express your concerns, ideas or whatever, and ask to try your discovery with him or her. Treat it like a science experiment, and do so with respect. Your teacher has given you what you have, and even if you surpass him, you would not have reached your level without standing on his shoulders. Always be grateful.