"Starting Over" in a new martial art

[Appledog]

After a while, one essentially knows everything they are going to know in a certain martial art. And, moreso than that, they have practiced it. While not everyone finds themself in that particular situation, it leads to the desire to go to another teacher or another art.



The best case is getting a reference from your sifu or a recommendation from (him) to go study with someone specific. All of that aside, what factors will impact someone who is "starting over"?

1. Someone is "too old to start over". I am not sure what this means. Windwalker often talks about a man who switched from Chen style (or was it Bagua) and became a highly skilled Yang style Tai Chi player. There is also the story of Ma Hong who didn't start Chen style until he was 45 or so and didn't get any good until he was over 55, doing his best work in his 70s iirc.

2. Baggage from other systems or styles. I do get that people might not want to start over because they have gotten something from their previous studies and therefore the best course of action is not necessarily starting over but finding a way to "continue" -- i.e. going from one Yang style teacher to another seems a bit easier than going from chen style to bagua. But even so, going from Chen tai chi to Bagua seems easier than going from Chen style into something vastly different like (I presume) choy li fut.

Beginner's mind aside, it is really possible to be so 'twisted' into the shape a style requires that it is not possible to learn a different martial art? I have heard stories where even someone who has learned xingyi cannot learn tai chi. I am not sure if these stories are really true. But I have also heard that there are some kinds of training that can damage your body, so maybe it is true from that perspective.

3. Changing your Karma Not sure what to say here precisely, but, if karma is the reason you are not making progress maybe changing styles won't help as much as you hoped.

4. The instructor doesn't want to share his lineage. If you have lineage in a system and learn from someone else, will you accurately represent and carry on the new teacher's instruction? I have seen many people who learn from two or three masters and then one of them gets promoted far, far less than the other. Sometimes you have to end up learning a lot of new "baggage" just to get to the good stuff. If the teacher thinks you will throw away the baggage later on maybe he won't teach you the good stuff you are looking for. Masters can tell.

5. Anything else. What are the major things you think someone has to watch out for when starting over? And, on the flipside, is there anything such as a 'complete' martial art, anyways? Is there an art you can try in which you don't ever need to 'start over'? Or maybe, is "starting over" in and of itself a red flag? I know a lot of people who are happy with where they are and a of people who are looking at the greener grass. For those who want to start over, what are the main tipping points, i.e. when do you think it is time to start over? Would you be angry if your student left you for another dojo? Just thinking of some possible ideas here.

[Bao]

The title and thread start give the impression that practicing only one martial art at a time is what you need to do, that this is the "golden standard," and that people are usually dedicated to one school or teacher. But if you look at history, this is not perfectly true.

Windwalker often talks about a man who switched from Chen style (or was it Bagua) and became a highly skilled Yang style Tai Chi player. There is also the story of Ma Hong who didn't start Chen style until he was 45 or so and didn't get any good until he was over 55, doing his best work in his 70s iirc.

The strictness of "Style", "system", "lineage" seem to be more recent "inventions". People of older times didn't really have mindset. Instead they looked at what they do as exercises and kept practicing exercises that were related to each other, or belonged to the same philosophy. This was why broader terms as "wudang arts" and "neijiaquan" were common in older days.

Quote from my latest article:
"If you take a look at older teachers and masters, such as the students of Yang Cheng Fu, Wu Jianquan, Chen Fake and Sun Lutang, as well as the next generation, they were not strict stylists, or loyal to one teacher. Instead, they often practiced across styles, not only Tai Chi, but studied internal martial arts in general. Just this indisputable fact should give you a hint that focusing on one style, one school, or one teacher, is not the common road to mastery."

going from one Yang style teacher to another seems a bit easier than going from chen style to bagua. But even so, going from Chen tai chi to Bagua seems easier than going from Chen style into something vastly different like (I presume) choy li fut.

Bagua styles and even different lineages of the same style, can be very different in focus, training methods and how you start learning the art. Sometimes you can get the impression that two teachers of the same lineage teach completely different styles, because even if they do the same things, everything is still different.

I agree that going from internal styles to external styles, or the opposite, from external to internal, is still much harder. The problem is that if two arts are two different, they teach too different types of body mechanics, the footwork, power generation everything is too different so they don't match. It's like trying to eat a sweet dessert and a salty fish dish together. They just clash. So if you completely go from one type of body mechanics to another, you will still be more successful than if you try to mix and practice both at the same time.

But also, sometimes one "internal art" can be more similar to an "external art" than to another internal. It's really more about body mechanics and how the schools teach "strength" and "jin", than about names and labels.

[wayne hansen]

More about teacher than style

[origami_itto]

I agree. My style is my style. My gongfu is the sum total of everything I do.

A teacher can see where I am and help me get further. If they can't or aren't doing that then I should be looking for a better teacher. This is true even when I am my own teacher.

Throwing away everything you've learned is impossible and makes learning harder. The best approach is to build on what you know. Sometimes you have to completely throw something incompatible out, it happens.

If you rely too much on books, best not to read books, if you rely too much on teachers, best not to have teachers.

Take what is useful to you, leave the rest, but keep it close in case it starts to make sense when you're a little smarter.

[everything]

if you are specifically talking about not finding "it" in taijiquan, isn't that more-than-par for the course? one reason we say 99%+ of taijiquan is crap. i agree with wayne it's about teacher not style, BUT it's mostly about the individual.

if you mean like the people who gained proficiency in one of the big 3, then added one or two of the others ... it's a well worn path for those select few.

if you mean like adding bjj like people did in the 90s to early 00s, or strikers adding wrestling, yeah, of course. the assumption of mma is there isn't a single "complete" art. a wise assumption.

[Bhassler]

Boxing has all of five punches, and yet people spend their lives mastering the nuances of the "sweet science." If someone feels they have learned all there is to learn from a particular style, then either the style itself is empty and of little merit, or the problem lies with the student. This is a different situation than if a student's needs or goals have changed, and they want to learn something their current art does not offer (i.e. ground fighting, small weapons, flying kicks, etc.).

[everything]

if our goals didn't change as we progressed and matured, (e.g. if it's still to beat prime Fedor or win some kind of "street fight"), we are probably idiots who didn't mature from middle school Beavis and Butthead mentality. that particular goal will be farther and farther away as time goes by. otoh, this is where IMA/the Tao "should" keep giving.

[robert]

Many people study the big three together. Besides SLT, his student Chen Weiming also studied with YCF, and there is Zhang Junfeng, he taught the Hong brothers in Taiwan and Hong Yixiang founded the Tang Shou Tao and some of his students continue the tradition. I think Adam Xu studied baji, taiji, piqua, and some others. If you look at principles and body requirements there's a lot of overlap.

I wouldn't think there would be much problem leaving one teacher for another unless you're a formal disciple, that could be problematic, although there could be some hurt feelings, that depends on what kind of person your current teacher is. Switching styles is one thing, if you add a style then, you need to spend more time training.

[twocircles13]

I can only talk on this topic from personal experience, so the experiences of others could be very different.

I spent 13 years studying with various Taijiquan teachers learning as much as I could anywhere I could, moving from one to another was really pretty easy. The forms and emphasis might be different, but they were essentially on the same page, regardless of style. When I met up with my Wutan teachers, we started with praying mantis, and progressed through the system. That felt like a different world, one that didn’t follow the rules of tai chi, so it was easy too.

Set aside what you have previously learned.
When I met Chen Zhonghua and he decided to take me on as a student, he asked me to set aside all I had previously learned until I had become proficient in what he had to teach, then I would know how to blend the arts together.

The praying mantis, bagua, baji, and pigua were pretty easy to set aside, since in my mind, they were so different. However, I had studied taijiquan for 13 years, and I thought I knew something about it. Setting this aside has been the biggest obstacle to my progress.

Probably 10 years after starting with Chen Zhonghua, I finally started to seriously clean house of old teachings, habits, and body methods and replacing them with correct ones. I estimate probably 80 to 90 percent of what I thought I knew about taijiquan was wrong. Specifically, there were incorrect key principles and body methods that corrupted everything else. Once I had dismissed these, I slowly began to make positive progress, but it has not been easy.

Empty your cup
There is the story of the full and empty cup. I think when ever you start with a new teacher you need to start with and empty cup, truly empty.

Simile of the towers
By contrast, my one of my Wutan teachers told me the simile of the towers. He said each martial art is like a tower. Some towers are taller than others having more skill, but the height of a tower is difficult to see from the ground. A lot of students spend their time running from tower to tower, running up a few stories running down and moving on to the next one but never reaching the top on any. They end up with a broad base, but never any high level skills.

At the top of some of towers, you can see the height of other towers. And, there are bridges and zip-lines to some of the neighboring towers. That is, you can bring the skill learned in your art and start at the same or a little lower level in a neighboring art, but you don't really know until you get there.

Then, he said, "Northern Chinese martial arts are all sons of the same mother." They are neighboring towers. This is a premise of the Wutan system that arranges the teaching sequence from Liu Yunqiao’s repertoire in a synergistic manner, one teaching this skill best and another theching that skill best, one building upon the strengths of another.

The 80/20 rule
Another perspective, years later, my friend, Steve, had designed his own martial training system based on the premise of the 80/20 rule. He said, "At least 80 percent of all effective martial arts are the same, so I focus on teaching my students that 80 percent." After mulling this over for a while, I responded, "So, the competitive advantage of each martial art, if any, is found in the 20 percent that is different." He said, "Yes, but many martial arts today focus on that 20 percent and cannot use it, because they have not built the foundation of the 80 percent."

All of his students are phenomenal fighters. When he and I both moved from that area, two of his students became students of Chen Zhonghua and have been able to make good progress. Others started their own martial art schools and so on.

Take aways
Take away what you will. Here are some of the lessons I've learned related to changing teachers or arts.

One must go into a new art or even to a new teacher with an empty cup, otherwise nothing can be learned. So, I think Chen Zhonghua's advice to set aside what I thought I knew was sound. Had I treated what I was learning from him as an entirely new art instead of am advanced level of what I had learned, I would have saved myself years of frustration. Wutan kind of built this into the system.

I have also began to see northern Chinese martial arts as brother and sister arts to taijiquan. Instead of the 80/20 Rule that applies to all martial arts, it is more like 90/10 among CMA and 95/5 to Northern CMA, including CIMA.

The other arts I had learned have been corrupted forever. Corrupted or enhanced, I don't know. They all have a Chen Style Practical Method flavor to them now. If I found a teacher of another martial art from whom I'd like to learn, I'd be hard pressed to truly empty my cup at this point.

Edit: Chen Fake taught students individually rather than in a group. Since most of his students were already martial artists of some experience level, he would start them where they were and build off what they already knew.

[D_Glenn]

So traditional Yin Style Bagua would always teach Chuan Zhang (Piercing Palms) first.
It’s a brutally fast and lethal style and it was used to get students of any skill level in fighting to be pretty effective on the streets. In those days when a person was accepted into a school they immediately became a representative of that school, and often they would get jumped by rival schools to try and discredit it. So it was important that they could quickly be brought up to speed.
Chuan Zhang also had another aspect which was a test to see who could qualify to move onto the Animals. The Animals were strictly Inner Door. Yin Fu Bagua people could only practice Chuan Zhang in public and the Animal styles only in private.
Chuan Zhuan is a fast hand style that does not require the ability to know or use the Bao FaLi (explosive use of the lumbar) to add power in the strikes. Where the Animal Systems are explicitly designed around Bao Fali and how to make a martial art that can use it in every movement, yet still be effective as a martial art.
When my teacher Dr. Xie decided to start openly teaching Yin Style Bagua to anyone, in 1995, when it was a different world from the late 1800s and early 1900s that it was no longer a requirement to first teach Chuan Zhang. And so he started teaching the Animal systems. Which are unique, and are more important to keep being passed down to future generations.
Throughout his years of teaching he always had students who either could do Bao Fali, and those who couldn’t. It’s hard to learn. You can’t force people to learn it. A student either sees what’s happening in the core, or they just look at the hands. It’s an arduous and frustrating process to learn Bao Fali. Basically a 6 year tangent, or detour sort of, where you’re not really learning how to fight. But if he just taught Chuan Zhang then nobody would have the opportunity to learn Bao Fali.

The Animal Systems are still effective without Bao Fali but it’s harder to learn as a person is just collecting and having to organize hand movements.
But since they’re designed around Bao Fali, if you first learn that, than you can sort of teach yourself the art, because you only have to see your teacher do a form once or twice and then you can figure it out on your own because when everything is starting at the core, there’s only one way to get your arms out to the ending position. So from start to finish the technique is correct. Where if you’re just moving your arms, there’s a myriad of different ways to get them into positions, and even though they may end up in the correct position, getting them there won’t necessarily be a proper technique.

So that’s why if someone does something like Chen Taijiquan, and already knows how to Bao Fali, then it will be easy to learn the Animal systems of Xie Peiqi’s Yin Fu Bagua.

Traditionally Bao Fali was something that was never to be taught to foreigners. It was a Chinese secret that was meant to be hidden forever. But Dr. Xie realized that it was dying out because young Chinese could care less about learning it. After the Chinese Martial Arts community started seeing the VHS tapes of Jinbao openly doing Bao Fali in every strike, and designed for an English speaking audience. They were furious. Death threats etc. Jinbao had already spent much of his time fighting and beating some of the guys who were threatening violence, and would just respond, Bring it, I already beat you once, I can do it again. But even more impactful was when they said ‘Look at your students. Your Bao Fali skills are going to die with you.

But after almost 30 years of openly teaching Bagua and Bao Fali, Jinbao said ‘Now he truly knows what the saying “It’s a secret that hides itself.”, means. As so little people actually see what’s happening and try to figure it out.

So point is, if you know Bao Fali, or learn it first, then you can essentially teach yourself my style of Bagua.

.

[twocircles13]

That’s interesting. What are the Chinese characters for Bao Fali? I know you use it a lot, but I am not familiar with the term.

[D_Glenn]

“爆發力“

Actually it looks that term has been stolen by modern sports, so not the best search term anymore.

I normally just use the word that describes the actual movement of the lumbar, which is Bolang Jin (crashing wave power), which is more apt because one’s trying to create a wave of flesh to move upward from the abdomen and out into the arms.

.

[vadaga]

I didnt realize that 'baofali' is a specific technical term, when my teacher said it to me I just took it as kind of an idiomatic expression about how to 'strongly' exert force. although TBF he did at the time say some very specific things about how one should breathe and move whilst doing it...

[BruceP]

Throughout his years of teaching he always had students who either could do Bao Fali, and those who couldn’t. It’s hard to learn. You can’t force people to learn it. A student either sees what’s happening in the core, or they just look at the hands. It’s an arduous and frustrating process to learn Bao Fali. Basically a 6 year tangent, or detour sort of, where you’re not really learning how to fight. But if he just taught Chuan Zhang then nobody would have the opportunity to learn Bao Fali

The trainee has to have their Hank Hill torso method corrected before they're able to learn it. It's the essential first step.

Some are able to make the correction easier than others, and some are never able for whatever reason.

[twocircles13]

“爆發力“

Actually it looks that term has been stolen by modern sports, so not the best search term anymore.

I normally just use the word that describes the actual movement of the lumbar, which is Bolang Jin (crashing wave power), which is more apt because one’s trying to create a wave of flesh to move upward from the abdomen and out into the arms.

.

Thanks for your posts.