Teacher and 'student'- a precious relationship

[Chris McKinley]

Alex,

We may very well be talking about different things. You hail from a Baguazhang tradition that has sometimes very different beliefs than most practitioners, and so your mileage will definitely vary.

RE: "Does your school have a systematic practice of internal alchemy / shen gong / meditation which is integrated into the boxing, rather than being a seperate entity?". I claim to speak for no organization, but I should think that all recognized systems of Baguazhang would acknowledge the claims you make as you have worded them here, even if they are referring to different ideas of what that means.

RE: "...do you feel martial art or Way can take the genuine role of a spiritual work in a person's life, with the experienced teacher as the guide ?". It's not for me to proclaim what can or cannot be a part of any person's spirituality but my own.

[yusuf]

hiya all

I think this whole debate is based on the path of choosing a premise .... of whether you are paying for a product, or whetehr you are asking for someone to help you as a person from their experience & tradition...

yusuf

[alexsuffolk]

thanks for your answers Chris. I think that to go any further with the first and second points would require both of us to detail at length what we consider falls under the blanket of those terms , which may make a very interesting topic some time.

I did find your last answer interesting in that it would suggest you give no guidance on spiritual challenges/problems your students may encounter. What happens , for example, when the neidan or shen gong practices which you have (and i presume teach as apart of your complete system?) begin to produce energetic and physical reactions and students turn to you for guidance ? Where do you draw the line between physical, moral , energetic and spiritual ??

In my experience the path to spiritual experience, and the accompanying energetic and physical changes, have been very clearly mapped out in various traditions and it is exactly to be guided through these with the minimum of danger that we need a teacher. There is nothing vague about the spiritual work or realm , nor is it the exclusive domain of 'my little self'. What one realises for 'oneself' will hold true for others, and can be of great help to those taking the first steps on a path along which you may have travelled much further along.

[johnrieber]

just my two cents, and pardon my conjecturizing:

seems to me that the deep core of the...disagreement? between chris and alex is a pretty simple thing, and that simple thing is just kind of getting masked by a lot of the classic EF/RSF stance dynamics.

chris is something of a modernist--not because he doesn't respect (or practice) the old stuff, but because he believes that its real survival value has been buried or blurred by nonsense...maybe even superstition. alex believes that the old skills are difficult to come by, but they're out there, and if you want them, your best bet is to learn them old-style.

but the core of this thing you guys are diplomatically not quite hashing out is pretty simple, i reckon.

i'm not going to say anything about the differences between y'all's approaches to energetic training and higher and lower things that may or may not exist, in the context of the discussion, because i think that would be chasing a red herring or something.

chris is kind of asserting that kung fu and combat training are kind of compartmentalized. and specifically mechanically and situationally functional, like a tool that you'd pull out if you needed it, but aren't always carrying around. and just reading between the lines, sorry, chris is a nice guy and he doesn't want to feel like he's walking around with lethal violence in his pocket all the time. he doesn't want to be in that mindset. and he trains accordingly.

alex is basically saying that the way he trains, there is no such compartmentalization. that the person you are when you're cooking for your family is the same person you are when you slap someone's kidney, and they fall down and don't get up. and he trains accordingly.

what i think chris may be missing is: the stuff that alex does that you're very sceptical about represents a different approach to whatever it is about martial arts--okay, potentially killing arts--that makes you not want to be in that zone all the time.

the two of you just see life and death and life-and-death situations in different ways. don't know how i'd sum up the difference, if i had to. a situational approach to the arts versus a holistic approach? dunno.

i'm on alex's side of the fence, personally. but i wasn't always. so. whatever.

***

i don't know if that makes any sense. and hell, what do i know. i may just be imagining the whole thing.

[D_Glenn]

A lot of arts would benefit greatly if the spiritual aspect is understood. Everyone who walks through the door has some level of spirit, teach them how to use it: 'put some spirit into it', 'put your "heart" into it', the spirit entails the 'yi' /intent and the 'zhi'/ willpower. That alone will make someone better. It's not a fringe benefit that comes at the end of one's life Teach them how living a healthy lifestyle can increase this. Good health, good food, good hard practice can get them to the level of obtaining 'ling' (alertness, nimble, agile). Everyone probably knows someone who naturally has 'ling', it's the star athlete who excels at every sport they try, naturally good fighters who rarely walk into a martial arts school because they already know how to fight and don't need to be taught. It's almost a guarantee that all your students could use some 'shen' spiritual work from day one, and it's not something that's only applicable to martial arts it could be practiced in every thing one does... making a pot of tea, hammering a nail, opening a door.

Fringe benefit--- ha ha ha



.

[Chris McKinley]

Alex,

RE: "I did find your last answer interesting in that it would suggest you give no guidance on spiritual challenges/problems your students may encounter.". I'm not a clergyman, life coach, nor long-time family friend. I'm not even a close personal friend to most of the people I've taught. Numbers alone would preclude that option in most cases. Without at least a very close personal friendship, it would be entirely out of place for me to be prying into students' personal spiritual lives. I'm their martial arts teacher. I'm not their guru, their priest, nor even anyone to whom they must answer other than while in class.

RE: "What happens , for example, when the neidan or shen gong practices which you have (and i presume teach as apart of your complete system?) begin to produce energetic and physical reactions and students turn to you for guidance ?". This question is full of all kinds of assumptions unfortunately. To begin with, I'm no longer teaching Baguazhang publicly. However, even when I was, there were no confusing or frightening reactions, whether energetic or physical. Everything that happens is so fully expected by the time it occurs that there's no need for students to turn to anyone for further guidance. They're already receiving it since day one anyway.

I'm not sure what you believe your practice supposedly produces. Your branch has put some fairly controversial statements out there over the years that most of the rest of the neijia community does not accept. While that does not make you or your branch wrong, per se, it does however render me unable to address specifically what your branch's practitioners experience or hope to experience.

RE: "There is nothing vague about the spiritual work or realm , nor is it the exclusive domain of 'my little self'. What one realises for 'oneself' will hold true for others, and can be of great help to those taking the first steps on a path along which you may have travelled much further along.". Unfortunately, these statements are themselves sufficiently vague and subjective so as to not to be arguable one way or another. I believe it's a bit presumptuous to state that one's personal 'realizations', whatever they may be, do or even ought to hold true for other people equally. That is a matter for each to decide for him or herself.

Once again, though, you're operating on the premise that one's martial arts teacher ought necessarily to also be one's personal spiritual advisor. That's a premise that won't find traction in the case of the majority of martial artists, nor even specifically among practitioners of Baguazhang. If you happen to enjoy that kind of relationship with your students, that's between you and them. But furthering that assumption to include all teachers and students would not only be erroneous, it would perhaps produce an impasse to much further fruitful discussion on the matter.

[Chris McKinley]

johnrieber,

Overall, not a bad summation. For me, there's no personal ad hominem-style disagreement with Alex. I think we just simply disagree on some things, which is fine. He's not demanding I believe what he does, nor vice versa.

RE: "chris is kind of asserting that kung fu and combat training are kind of compartmentalized.". More accurately, I'm asserting that they can be, not that they necessarily are. I'm also asserting that some of the other aspects beside combat are also not necessarily spiritual matters, though someone might attach spiritual significance to them by choice.

Also, one's identity need not change from context to context. I, too, am the same guy whether making homemade chicken tomato bisque (which I'm doing currently), playing my guitar, practicing TCM, or defending myself physically. I'm simply refuting the notion that a person's martial arts training has to be a spiritual pursuit by necessity. I'm certainly not claiming that it can't be, I'm just reminding of the reality that it doesn't have to be.

[Chris McKinley]

BTW, I feel like I ought to point out that Alex is showing that, even if and when you disagree with him, he can remain cordial and respectful. I don't believe I've ever seen Alex act in anything but a courteous manner. I've also found that trait consistently in He Jing han's posting style. It's a characteristic that isn't always as consistently found in the other branch of his art, and I should hope that other practitioners and teachers might look to his example.

[meeks]

The existence of more casual teacher-student relationships should not invalidate the more formal ones that exist.

good point - it's easy to get a little one sided when you take the time to type words instead of just the 1 second to speak them.

When a well known Tibet monk (he supposes to be able to see through people's past and future) asked others, "Have you seen my Rolex watch this morning?" I lost faith in that monk after that.

LMAO!! (on more than 1 level ...)

i'm not looking for a daddy-figure or a guru or anything

let me know if that ever changes...*pats leather zipper mask...soon my precious...*

I'm simply refuting the notion that a person's martial arts training has to be a spiritual pursuit by necessity. I'm certainly not claiming that it can't be, I'm just reminding of the reality that it doesn't have to be.

+1
I had a teacher that tried to force that stuff down my gullet after getting to know him more. Training became more about following his beliefs (in the name of wu de) than simply training. I think spirituality belongs with martial arts just as much as it belongs with swimming - meaning it's there if you decide to make it a part of it, but only because of your own personal beliefs. Qi has nothing to do with spirituality although we tend to slot it in there because it's more on the esoteric side of CMA

[johnrieber]

meeks, i didn't like that.

[Bhassler]

In my own experience certain belief systems have to be in place for certain aspects of my art (taiji) to work. Things like relaxation, yielding/borrowing, investing in loss, etc., have to be automatic responses, not something that all of a sudden applies in a physical altercation but no other time. The philosophy of the art serves to reinforce the correct mindset so that it becomes ingrained deeply enough that it's there under pressure-- it serves a similar purpose to mental techniques like visualization, self-hypnosis, and so forth. The test of the thought process-- and all MA training-- is "does it work?"

I've had teachers that talked all about this and that philosophy but were on their third wife, were strapped for cash, and couldn't be in the room with their 13 year-old son for 3 minutes without a screaming match. To me that fails the test of "does it work?" On the other hand, my current teacher uses his taiji philosophy for fighting, computer programming, corporate politics, familial relationships, and trading in the stock market, and he is successful at all of those things. So when I started training with him I looked at it and said "here is a better man than I, and I can learn from this." I believe in the philosophy because I see proof that it works in every realm, and I trust in the teaching because I can see it demonstrated physically, practically, and concretely every time I go to class. So now I have a deep and profound philosophical approach to life that I believe is necessary to the mundane physical success of my art, and over time the art has permeated my life. At what point does a profound and pervasive cognitive philosophy become something that could be considered "spiritual?"

That's a question each person could ask or answer for themselves, but for me it points to certain aspects of my art that can only be attained by allowing the art to become so deeply ingrained in myself that it definitely borders on the spiritual. Those are my own experiences and may not relate to anyone else, but it is an example of philosophical/spiritual aspects of an art that are inherent in and necessary to the practice, and are not the result of teacher/style worship or cultural misinterpretation (unless one assumes that the necessary mental conditioning is inherent to the source culture, in which case it would be a case of cultural transplantation rather than misinterpretation).

[Bhassler]

To go back to the original question about attacking one's teacher, a couple of things strike me:
1. Why not just ask nicely? As far as any of my teachers with whom I'd want to try, there would never be a problem with just asking if I could really go all out and learn something from the experience.

2. If a relationship fails that badly, one should look at all parties involved. The student may have failed the teacher, but there is no doubt that the teacher failed the student as well.

[Walk the Torque]

To go back to the original question about attacking one's teacher, a couple of things strike me:
1. Why not just ask nicely? As far as any of my teachers with whom I'd want to try, there would never be a problem with just asking if I could really go all out and learn something from the experience.

Bhassler,
I'm not sure in the case sighted above that the person attacking the teacher really wanted to learn anything.
I read it as a challenge.

2. If a relationship fails that badly, one should look at all parties involved. The student may have failed the teacher, but there is no doubt that the teacher failed the student as well.

Sometimes it matters very little as to how a person is treated. One can afford them every courtesy, be patient, understanding, and bend over backwards to help them; but if their particular representation of the world and their interaction with it is such that they perceive someone to be a threat, or an easy mark, or even feel that the hurt they are feeling is attributable to another persons actions, then they can commit some pretty atrocious acts of violence.

To say that there is a failure on the part of the teacher is, I think, a gross underestimation of the power of a persons internal representations.

2c

[alexsuffolk]

Chris I understand where you are coming from but we have to agree to differ in some things.....thats what makes life interesting !

One more question - for Chris and anyone who may want to add something - how about the systems such as Shorinji Kenpo, various Silat arts and i guess even Aikido ........ones that can really do the business yet insist upoun a certain way of life/ meditation-spiritual work / code of wude - do these , in any of your experiences, consistently produce more balanced , compassionate, wise individuals or just a conveyor belt of indoctrinated followers?

[alexsuffolk]

In every country you will find thousands of libraries filled with
books. Humanity has certainly been well instructed by all these
books, but it has not improved. What we need from now on are
living books. If the invisible world sends initiates, saints and
great masters to earth it is because they are living books.
Humans need those living books more than they need the other
kind, because the others they read and place back on the shelf
without putting anything into practice. Whereas, when a living
book appears they are stimulated and carried along by it.
Of course, most people prefer to read books made of paper,
because these are quiet, nice and inoffensive, whereas living
books are constantly giving them a good shake. And they don’t
like being shaken up; they say, ‘Leave us alone, we’ve got our
libraries, our sacred books and we read them…’ And then the
living books reply, ‘Perhaps you do read them, but you don’t
apply what you read. We’re here to show you how to apply them.’"

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov