Instructor metric

[Niall Keane]

Regarding point 5. I find that combat sport such as stand-up wrestling (tui shou) and Sanda are excellent vehicles for enhancing skills common in martial arts, perhaps, most critically, the primary ones of timing, range and angle without which everything else will fall apart.

Now you won't find strategy for multiple opponents or weapons being enacted in competition, but nothing prevents people sparring against such at home in the gym, many of my students do.

Re. start – squaring up etc. - this is a mere instant of time, once combat is engaged kicks, punches, knees, elbows, and throws will all be present in ways designed to knock you out of smash you down, not hugely different from the street? (save the quality and power of your opponent is “Streets ahead” of da stretz)

Now another great thing about competition is that you face DIFFERENT opponents all the time. Let's face it, sparing your mates isn't at the same intensity as an opponent going for a title by knocking you out? Also we get used to our training partners and their habits, no harm at all in being exposed to different approaches!

So sure training SOLELY for sport will leave a lot of gaps, (though at least you will be able to deliver something for your opponent to worry about) but using sport as a “vehicle” to develop martial attributes can only be good, as long as we are not talking point fighting etc. For the sport fighter one can polish him up for self defence, for the lad who shies away from a spar, the ore has yet to be extracted!

As for any BS about protection gear, combat sports are not without risk:

[neijia_boxer]

i am glad the flow charts I made have led to discussion.

#5. def sticks out, on flow cart v2: i grouped "reality based" fighting with developing fighters for competition and champions. Why? i feel when you train for sport: conditioning, cardio, pressure testing with sparring in and outside your school and comfort zone, you are honing skills for real street self defense. of course it is better to have awareness to avoid confrontation and have conflict resolution first, but you also have to have a no non-sense, quick and fast approach to take out multiple attackers as well. So i categorize reality (real fighting) along with competitive aspects. I believe the competitive training hones and sharpens reality based techniques and applications.



perfect examples- a trained boxer vs two guys.

[kenneth fish]

As I stated in the OP, this is the metric that I go by. I assume that other people have their own criteria.

As for learning from people with criminal backgrounds - in the 1960's and 1970's, the majority of the really good TCMA in the Chinatowns of New York, Philadelphoia, and SF were taught by teachers who had some gang involvement (a list would sound like the who's whom of the Chinatown kungfu scene). A lot of the better teachers in HK and Taiwan were also similarly connected. Others had direct military, intelligence, police, or body guarding experience.

While I do not disagree that ring experience is valuable and builds some applicable skills, it does not build what Ken Delves refers to as "bloody mindedness" - a kill or be killed attitude. Nor does it build the skills necessary for dealing with persons presumed to be armed.

[Bao]

While I do not disagree that ring experience is valuable and builds some applicable skills, it does not build what Ken Delves refers to as "bloody mindedness" - a kill or be killed attitude.

+1

[neijia_boxer]

One issue i find with someone who is a instructor or "sifu" is that there is a huge "lose of face" aspect going on.

The reason i made the "flow chart" was based on one charismatic person I know who goes by "Sifu" and does not posses ANY of the metrics many of us agree upon here or list. That is why "coach" is a much more safer and satisfying name to go by.

for me a Sifu has important metrics like ken was saying about instructors.

things sketchy "sifu's" do that isolate themselves from the CMA community in general, what is not a sifu in my view and why they lose face:

1. never participate in CMA community events: competitions or network with peers.- person in question is judgmental of competitions, dislikes push hands and full contact comps.
2. have an unknown origin of who gave them title of Sifu. even after researching people they trained with peers within that style to no like that person.
3. Lose of face factor: is willing to have plenty of videos of defeating his compliant students in push hands, will not push hands with you or others who are skeptics.
4. Talks as if representative/authority of a Family they are not apart of. saying things that family would never say like" _____ family art is a one touch knock-out art, tai chi in fighting without our principles looks like bad kickboxing." all the while they have no real-world fighting experience, or ability to show fighting experience against a non-compliant partner.
5. Make unsubstantiated claims that are too woo-woo in nature: "we do one-touch knockouts" "we launch people in the air with our fajin", while all the while being compliant play.
6. Competitions- they will chastise you as a fighter, yet there fighter can't survive first minute of fight and gets knocked out. has nothing to show of fighting, then calls fighting "boring".
7. Remain in their comfort zone around their worshipers. forget ever seeing them outside their circle of influence.
8. Critical of people who actual have actual gone and won championships: publicly said so and so wasnt using Tai Chi when he defeated everyone in chen village or the Tai chi guy who fought 3 opponents and won heavy weight championship on lei Tai. had the nerve to say "it wasnt tai chi". pssst.
9. makes fun of other martial arts or CMA's while being hypocritical: for instance disrespects Wu-shu, but then uses the term "jibengong" which is "basics" from wu-shu.
10. as a internalist, thinks cardio and weight training is stupid. publicly even saying is "allergic" to cardio. i guess they "allergic" to having what their internal needs...aka strength and what their body needs: to lose weight.
11. altering peoples belief systems: flooding the students with religion. Nothing wrong with Buddhism, however Tai chi and buddhism are two separate fields of study and not part of the same. what tai chi system teaches buddhism? none.
12. hiding behind minions: having their students contact you rather than themselves.
13. Wu De- does not understand, no respect, no ability to have a normal conversation, reasoning, since you don't hero worship them, they have no interest.
14. By not allowing you to touch hands with them, they save their face because if the truth was found that the skills they claim are fake, they know it will be reported publicly.
15. Sifu as a business move, they do not want to lose their "rice bowl" because they have no other real life skill or source of income other than to make claims and sell of Tai chi "secrets" or skills tai chi people think they want like 'fajin' and enlightenment. skills that will not work in a real fight anyways.
16. when they come to town, no interested in friendly visit, to network with other people, just here to make seminar money. Often claim "i have a injury" to want to try push hands with you.
17. anytime you question them on a forum or have an opinion, it comes down to getting name calling and getting banned from the forum group. will not answer where they learned the "secret tai chi form" of so-n-so.
18. claiming to have trained with someone, but not really over a time frame of years. more like a week retreat or workshop.
19. claims, " not enough people to touch hands with" and "i've never been taken to the ground". yeah...cause you shelter yourself from real fighters and martial artists.

[wayne hansen]

I remember asking a Sifu about one of his students who had opened a school of his own.
Asking if he would be a good teacher

Wasent even good student how can he be good teacher
Was his reply

I find here people here are trying to define the indefinable

Just be lucky at the start there is no other way

[daniel pfister]

While I do not disagree that ring experience is valuable and builds some applicable skills, it does not build what Ken Delves refers to as "bloody mindedness" - a kill or be killed attitude. Nor does it build the skills necessary for dealing with persons presumed to be armed.

That attitude is something I actually try to avoid in teachers. My first MA instructor was an ex Navy Seal, worked in security, and had violent involvement in gangs. He wanted us to build that "bloody mindedness" attitude. He wanted his students to all be killers, and often took advantage of his students' "respect" (read: fear) of him. Is this what martial arts is about? Nowadays, I question the motives of people who become involved in any organization (government or otherwise) that uses violence as a tool to accomplish its goals. I think any list should include some sort of moral/ethical component to it.

I also don't believe it's very clear this attitude or any other can protect you against gunfire.

[johnwang]

"bloody mindedness" - a kill or be killed attitude. Nor does it build the skills necessary for dealing with persons presumed to be armed.

I agree with you that our previous generations all had this quality. My teacher told me that before his teacher passed away, the last few words that came out of his teacher's mouth was,

"Remember that TCMA is 1. 狠(Hen) - cruelty, 2. 毒(Du) - vicious, 3. 要命(Yao Ming) - kill. Do pass this down to the next generation."

Those were the exactly words that came out of my teacher's mouth.

[Doc Stier]

As for learning from people with criminal backgrounds - in the 1960's and 1970's, the majority of the really good TCMA in the Chinatowns of New York, Philadelphoia, and SF were taught by teachers who had some gang involvement (a list would sound like the who's whom of the Chinatown kungfu scene). A lot of the better teachers in HK and Taiwan were also similarly connected. Others had direct military, intelligence, police, or body guarding experience.

I know that's right! During the 1960's and 1970's, most of the noted practitioners and teachers I met in NYC Chinatown had widely known, long-term connections to various Tong Associations...i.e. An Leung, Hip Sing, etc., and many worked as 'soldiers' and enforcers for these organizations, as well as doing door security work or security courier work for establishments which were either owned by Tong association members or were under 'contract' with one of the Tongs for 'protection'! As such, these men were all quite familiar with regular real-time street fighting, were generally competent and courageous fighters, who actually liked to fight, and were guys who would rarely back down from a fight, if in fact they weren't initiating the fight themselves!

[Bao]

He wanted his students to all be killers, and often took advantage of his students' "respect" (read: fear) of him. Is this what martial arts is about? Nowadays, I question the motives of people who become involved in any organization (government or otherwise) that uses violence as a tool to accomplish its goals. I think any list should include some sort of moral/ethical component to it.

I can't speak for Mr Fish, but I don't think that is what he meant. I think it was nicely expressed by Mr Fish, but I personally would like to speak more about a kind of no fear mental attitude that isn't afraid to act sudden without thinking and is not afraid to meet any kind of violence.

I had one very kind and warm teacher, a real old school boxer, but he was born and raised in a very tough area, meeting violence everyday when he was a kid. He tried to teach us a bit about this, often very sudden and sometimes pretty strange, kind of violence. But he didn't believe that anyone who hasn't experienced that kind of violence first hand and had been trained by circumstances could ever really learn a "bloody mindedness" - a kill or be killed attitude". It takes a lot of experience, fighting, losing, being humiliated, sometimes over and over again to really gain a killer's attitude. His point was also that the many of the worst fighters were severely abused by life and that they had no respect for anyone, not either for themselves. To have the "right attitude" you must have both the experience and a Jackie Chan-throw-yourself-against-the-wall kind of attitude with no self-respect what so ever. Living or dying seems not very important for this type of fighter. I do agree with him that this mental attitude is almost impossible to reach for normal, modern citizens. Not in my country anyway. And I am not sure if this kind of attitude is worth striving for even if it could be achieved.

My teacher told me that before his teacher passed away, the last few words that came out of his teacher's mouth was,
"Remember that TCMA is 1. 狠(Hen) - cruelty, 2. 毒(Du) - vicious, 3. 要命(Yao Ming) - kill. Do pass this down to the next generation."
Those were the exactly words that came out of my teacher's mouth.

[johnwang]

During the 1960's and 1970's, most of the noted practitioners and teachers I met in NYC Chinatown had widely known, long-term connections to various Tong Associations...

If you belong to a Tong Association, you don't necessary belong to a gang group. My teacher and all Chinese intelligent agents during WWII worked for the Chinese "Blue Shirt Club" with the leader 戴笠(Dai Li), all belonged to the Tong Association.

[johnwang]

My teacher told me that before his teacher passed away, the last few words that came out of his teacher's mouth was,
"Remember that TCMA is 1. 狠(Hen) - cruelty, 2. 毒(Du) - vicious, 3. 要命(Yao Ming) - kill. Do pass this down to the next generation."
Those were the exactly words that came out of my teacher's mouth.

When I get older, I start to have better understanding about those words. It means as simple as, "It's better to kill than to be killed." If you don't have strong intention to kill, when you are killed, your soul will feel sorry for yourself in heaven.

[Doc Stier]

During the 1960's and 1970's, most of the noted practitioners and teachers I met in NYC Chinatown had widely known, long-term connections to various Tong Associations...

If you belong to a Tong Association, you don't necessary belong to a gang group. My teacher and all Chinese intelligent agents during WWII worked for the Chinese "Blue Shirt Club" with the leader 戴笠(Dai Li), all belonged to the Tong Association.

Of course. These associations are often publicly styled as the ABC Chinese Merchants Association, the XYZ Benevolent Society or Family Association, and so forth, in order to present a more acceptable public image, both within the local Chinese community and beyond. These fronts are highly entertaining to anyone who knows what the various business enterprises of these organizations actually are!

[kenneth fish]

Bao is quite right about my view of "bloody-mindedness" - I think John gets what I mean as well. I don't mean abusive psychopath, as Daniel Pfister seems to be describing.

John: Doc has it right. The "tong" in the U.S. were for the most part involved in serious criminal activities (drug distribution, prostitution, gambling) and were frequently the sponsors of the teenage street gangs (for example, the Ghost Shadows in New York's Chinatown in the late 1970's were under the An Leung, and the Flying Dragons were under the auspices of the Hip Sing). His description of the social milieu is very accurate.
Several of the more notable kungfu schools were basically training grounds and resources (recruitment centers) for the different tong and gangs as well.

[daniel pfister]

I can't speak for Mr Fish, but I don't think that is what he meant. I think it was nicely expressed by Mr Fish, but I personally would like to speak more about a kind of no fear mental attitude that isn't afraid to act sudden without thinking and is not afraid to meet any kind of violence.

What I don't agree with is the possible conclusion that in order to become a good sifu one would want to seek out experience within the organizations mentioned in #4. There must be another way. Your boxer seems like a much better example.