Your 3 pieces of advice to a newcomer

[Slim]

Thanks, Chris McKinley, for clarifying what you meant by "question everything." That makes a lot more sense to me now, I read it as Dragonprawn did.

I think in the beginning its important to

1) be patient
2) be open to what the training has to offer
3) trust the teacher (or find a new one)

IMA takes time to develop. It also takes time to develop a relationship with a teacher, and get a sense of what the training is about. I think its best to stay open in the beginning and just work hard at what the teacher gives you. For myself it's a simple question of: my teacher has what I want, and I trust that he knows the best way for me to get it. We all come to this stuff with a massively limited perspective and can't know what's what. Empty tea cup and all that.

[Bao]

Becoming a skeptic, learning to think critically, and seeking for and obtaining the answers to your questions, even if that process takes time, is the only way to ever truly take ownership of your own training, and your own knowledge for that matter.

Very well expressed, Chris.

I Feel very much the same. Once I had a teacher, one of the best taiji practitioner I have ever met (or the second best to be exact). I felt, and still feel, truly blessed that I have had such a teacher. But there are only a few of his students who have attained anything even close to his skill. Why? I believe that the trouble for his students is that they listen to much on what he says. When I have had practiced for him sporadically a few years, I started to understand that he could not open his mouth without saying BS. Everything was generalized and he loved mystify everything he said. He put on a great show and enjoyed very much to be the star in it. At once I realized this I stopped listening to what he said and tried to examine what he did, by watching, imitate or better - feeling it first hand - and I always translated what he said to my own words and many things I just didn't take any notice of what he said. Then, and first then, his classes started to give my something. First then his classes meant anything of value. I believe that realising that word and action do not always match is the best lesson I have ever learned in my taiji practice so far. However, I feel very sorry for many of this teachers students, because they worship his skill to the extent that they will never learn any of value from him. They listen with their ears, but do not question his words with their own judgment. And my feeling is that this, or similar situatons, are very common, not only in taiji, but in the whole world of TMA.

To take responsibility for your own learning process and to personalise what you are taught are extremely important things. But then, when will you know and have the confidence to make your style your own? I guess one have to test one own wings from time to time...

[dragonprawn]

Chris,

I honestly hadn't (still haven't) read your post. Others said "question everything" as well.

While I agree with much of what you are saying in response to my post - my point still stands. First off, just read the thread's title. "Newcomer" is the key to me.

Let me make an analogy to when I teach a psychology class - of course the main point I begin with is "be a critical thinker". But even as seniors they might be reluctant to challenge a published study. However if there exist multiple points of view they should evaluate each on their merits and come to their own best conclusion. But if someone is truly a beginner in the IMAs then they lack the foundation for this type of thing.

If I had someone in a psych class that every few minutes challenged something I said it would actually create a fairly hostile environment. Of course I have the opposite problem - and most times I wish they would challenge more of what they are exposed to. But if a student in my IMA classes comes in right away and starts questioning everything I tell them I will show them the door. Most people like that won't come back anyway.

So it may be apples and oranges here. How do you define newcomer? I picture most teachers on this site attracting fit, eager, young men with at least some experience. I attract mostly totally inexperienced and out-of-shape (even if they don't realize it) individuals. You wouldn't want them questioning everything day one either. I want them to question more as time goes by - that is my point.

This all addresses my critique of the original poster's point number one. I borrowed my idea from a source that used the word "faith" - the first requirement is having faith that what you are being told by your IMA teacher is valid and will help you. Faith may be too loaded a word for me, but I agree with the basic premise which was: show faith at first and if it's crap you'll figure it out soon enough. But if it is good stuff the fact that you believed in it or gave it the benefit of the doubt from the get go means you get your foot in the door.

[Minh]

Im Tire,
We are Tire

[Josealb]

Im Tire,
We are Tire

But you see...here it was a mistake. Thats a bad Tire.

[Bao]

If I had someone in a psych class that every few minutes challenged something I said it would actually create a fairly hostile environment. Of course I have the opposite problem - and most times I wish they would challenge more of what they are exposed to. But if a student in my IMA classes comes in right away and starts questioning everything I tell them I will show them the door. Most people like that won't come back anyway.

Well, everything is about attitude really. For myself, when I visit a new teacher (very seldom nowadays), I am there for the art and nothing else. I respect his position as a teacher, as well as the class and classmates. But if I pay money to go to a class, I pay money to recieve some of his knowledge, not to become friends with someone, not to socialize, not to show off. I can be a good student and class mate, but that doesn't mean that I have to like them or their attitudes.

If a new student comes to my own class, it's all about if he likes the art or not. He needs to respect the class, but I really don't care if he likes me, or my teaching methods. He can still be a good student and become a good practitioner if he loves the art and is a respectful teacher. It's not about me or him, we all strive for the same goal: to explore and develop our knowledge of the art we study.

I think it's a big problem that people come to a class for the wrong reasons. People wants to socialize, maybe to show off, maybe just to be an ass. It's definitively ok to socialise and make friends, but when there's a class, the class is the most important thing. I have been to classes where people just stand and speak, maybe someone show pictures from the last year's summer camp. They do very little practice. I hate this attitude. This was the reason why I left my own teacher's class and very seldom visit him any more. They just want to socialise. I just want to practice and develop my skills.

[Chris_McKinley]

dragonprawn,

If you haven't read the post, then you may not be getting the context, which also appears to be true of some others. From your response here, I'm a bit unclear as to whether you've read all of my most recent post as well, since I fairly carefully inocculated against some of the counterpoints you just brought up, or at least thought I had. Let me take another crack at it and see if you don't like these explanations a little more.

RE: "First off, just read the thread's title. "Newcomer" is the key to me.". Yes, to me as well, which is why it's important that new students don't develop the poor habit of thinking uncritically simply out of short-term convenience. I'll explain a little further with the next point, though thinking critically and openly challenging everything spoken by an instructor aren't the same thing, and the overall impression I took from your post suggests it might be necessary to point that out.

RE: "But even as seniors they might be reluctant to challenge a published study.". They shouldn't be. In fact, if they've listened to what their own professors should have been telling them, by this point they should be well on their way to making skeptical and critical thinking part of their academic habits, which would also inform them as to whether an actual challenge is justified or not. By the time students begin a graduate study program, they are expected to already know how to think critically, follow up on references credited in a given piece of research, and to evaluate both the research and the peer reviews to which it has been subjected. They don't begin developing such skills the day they start grad school; those are prerequisites.

That said, you seem to be mistakenly substituting in the word "challenge" where I'm using the word "question". In modern political culture, the term "question authority" has been corrupted by the political Left to take on an erroneous connotation of rejecting authority, a misuse of the language. I'm not sure if that's something that's colored your perception or not, but let me clarify the distinction regardless. To question is to begin from a point of healthy skepticism and to require that any assertions be accompanied by eventual objective evidence before they receive full acceptance as truth. This implies that at least some portion of the time, such evidence is actually provided and the student is genuinely and legitimately convinced. This can occur without even a single challenge ever taking place, even when the convincing evidence is long-delayed in arriving. Remember, part of my admonition was, "Sometimes you do not receive an answer to your question right away and you must be willing to say, at least for the time being, "I don't know yet".". That implies that sometimes you simply won't have enough information to make a convincing determination either way, perhaps not for years in some cases. In contrast, a true challenge is only warranted when a) a person, even an authority figure (perhaps especially an authority figure) makes what is, on its face, an unusual or extraordinary claim, or b) when someone makes an assertion that, at least seemingly, appears to contradict that knowledge that has already been vetted through convincing evidence.

RE: "However if there exist multiple points of view they should evaluate each on their merits and come to their own best conclusion. But if someone is truly a beginner in the IMAs then they lack the foundation for this type of thing.". Okay, so this statement reassures me a bit more that we're not as far off our understanding and agreement as I had thought. However, the student should definitely begin questioning (not challenging) what he is told from the moment he walks in the door on the first day, or better yet, even earlier, by questioning his own preconceived notions or the anecdotal advice from friends or other martial artists he may have received long before he begins his study. Once he actually begins studying a martial art, he should bring a notebook and should begin the habit of writing down his questions starting from day one. If and when he receives a satisfactory answer to them, he should write down the answer next to the question.

In this way, he can actually live out the notion that there are no stupid questions. Now, sometimes the answers will be either immediate or fairly quick depending on how easy they are to answer. It should be noted that sometimes the answer will come from a teacher and sometimes the student may answer his own question through continued experience. Both are legitimate, though conclusions achieved through direct experience might also benefit from being shared with the instructor for his input. Beside functioning as a handy occasional reference, writing down both questions and answers as they occur is also a very valuable way for the student to track his own development and understanding over the course of time. This can be a powerful bolster during times of inevitable frustration, stagnation or temporary plateaus.

Eventually, as the student's understanding and direct personal experiences increase, he will be able to evaluate information for himself, speeding up the process of obtaining the answers to his questions. He may even get to the point where he has accumulated enough understanding to be able to evaluate new assertions and claims on the spot and in real time. An important "side benefit" to this practice just happens to be the primary objective of the entire practice of studying a martial art. The student will gradually take full ownership of his own training and experience and will be able to fight with increasing effectiveness without needing external validation from any given instructor or authority figure, no matter who they are. He will have developed confidence in his ability and the competence to justify it.

RE: "Faith may be too loaded a word for me, but I agree with the basic premise which was: show faith at first and if it's crap you'll figure it out soon enough.". That's how it's supposed to work on paper, but as the horrible state of functional fighting ability in the IMA at large so aptly demonstrates, they don't "figure it out soon enough" by taking things on faith, and in many if not most cases, they don't ever figure it out. One of the most destructive problems we have in the IMA right now is too much of people simply taking things their instructors say on "faith". They leave their brains, their common sense, and any semblance of critical thinking at the door when they walk in, and like their shoes, they get used to training without them, even if they've been training for many years.

What's needed is objective skepticism. A default to questioning (not default rejection, not default challenging), not a default to faith. Sometimes when the question is going to be a long time coming, we then move to a position of saying, "I don't know yet", where we may have to remain for many years in some cases. It is only when an answer hasn't yet been acquired and we are forced to take some kind of action before it arrives that we may be forced to, begrudgingly and regrettably, entertain notions of taking something on faith. This does indeed occur in real experience fairly frequently, but it should happen only when necessary, i.e., only when the answer to the question is not available and action must be taken before it is. Otherwise, we should sit tight, be patient, and be willing to say, "I don't know yet".

Always remember, the truth does not fear inquiry.

[dragonprawn]

I think that if they keep their faith in a substandard teacher they probably never would have appreciated the real deal anyway. Again, for the most part I agree - I just think they need about a year or so before following most of the advice I see on this thread. I mean think about the simple, repetitive things they might need just to get strong, balanced, and flexible. They don't need a whole bunch of questioning at that point.

I always liked the stories of how in the old days you would knock on the door for a year before they would let you in and stand for a year before they taught you to walk. Maybe it's just me. I knew from jump street I had a great teacher who's instruction would take lots of time to absorb, let alone modify, so maybe I have tunnel vision.

[Chris_McKinley]

Sorry, but that's all a bunch of horseshit that belongs in a kung fu movie, not in real life. People have the right to their questions regarding the self-defense of their own lives and the protection of their families long before they ever agree to begin training with someone claiming to be an authority at it. Put frankly, it's not any of a kung fu teacher's business to tell his students not to have any questions. Yeah, it's true that they may have to wait patiently while doing some consistent hard work before a full answer to a given question actually arrives, and they may have to be satisfied with saying, "I just don't know yet" for a while, but their questions are valid all the same.

If a guy came to a fitness instructor and said, "Hey, I'd like to get into shape because I'm concerned about some health risks my doctor said I'm facing. I realize the whole process may take at least a few years of solid investment on my part but I'm willing to do the work". If the fitness instructor turned around and said, "Okay, I'll take your money and I'll be your fitness instructor, but you have to do what I say and you don't get to have any questions about what I'm having you do or how it affects your health or fitness until I tell you you can", the guy would rightfully be justified in telling the fitness instructor to go engage in some self-copulation.

I've had the privilege to have been the instructor to too many guys who can smoke the shit out of most kung fu instructors without breaking a sweat on a bad day to be convinced that we even have the right, nevermind that it's the best course of action, to purposefully keep students in the dark or prevent them from taking ownership of their own training as soon as possible by teaching according to an obsolete Confucian face-obsessed collectivist approach to hoarding/teaching martial information. The real world doesn't favor that approach, as the actual empirical results of that method are so dramatically evidenced via the dismal state-of-the-art in functional fighting ability that it produces, and perhaps nowhere moreso than in our very own IMA.

[JAB]

Wow Chris, excellent post! Very well put.

Cheers
Jake

[Tesshu]

I did not read the whole thread this time, and maybe this has been answered or covered already.

Of course people should ask questions. But questioning things is different. It undermines the bit of faith you need to keep you training. If you ask yourself everytime you train, if what you train is good at all, you better stop training.
Asking yourself and your teacher about the training being right for you and your goals - okay. Asking about mistakes - yes, please. Asking about the content of what you actually train yes. There are lots of things to ask, but still: "Questioning everything" does not seem right for a newcomer. On what basis should a newcomer validate the teacher and his teachings? In a newcomer there is not enough experience for that.
If you want to learn a martial art, spend your time doing so and after a while, test it. If you fail, look for the reason. Is that "questioning" enough? I don't know.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

1. the teacher is here to teach, you be here to learn
2. question everything at the appropriate time (not during instruction )
3. you must do the work, no one will do it for you

[DeusTrismegistus]

I did not read the whole thread this time, and maybe this has been answered or covered already.

Of course people should ask questions. But questioning things is different. It undermines the bit of faith you need to keep you training. If you ask yourself everytime you train, if what you train is good at all, you better stop training.
Asking yourself and your teacher about the training being right for you and your goals - okay. Asking about mistakes - yes, please. Asking about the content of what you actually train yes. There are lots of things to ask, but still: "Questioning everything" does not seem right for a newcomer. On what basis should a newcomer validate the teacher and his teachings? In a newcomer there is not enough experience for that.
If you want to learn a martial art, spend your time doing so and after a while, test it. If you fail, look for the reason. Is that "questioning" enough? I don't know.

IMO a teacher should not be instructing a new student in anything that cannot be immediately demonstrated. For example if I am instructing someone on a basic straight punch and I tell them to keep their shoulder down, if they ask why I will simply show them why. I will have them hold their arm out straight with a fist made and the shoulder raised, I will then push on the fist with my hand which pushes the shoulder blade back and pushes them backward. I then have them drop the shoulder and do the same and they immediately feel the difference in how solid the position is as they don't move.

As for on what basis to validate the teacher and his teachings. That should be from experience and from simple logic. If they lack the above experience then as in the above example an instructor should be able to give them an experience to validate that claim or show the via demonstration with another student. Other things cannot be so easily demonstrated and might take time as Chris said but that is where the other students of the teacher come into play as well as logic. If the students of that teacher have obvious skill from practicing the methods of that teacher then it makes it easier to say, "even though I may not understand this right now I am going to give it a chance and practice it and see the results". Regarding logic if the teacher can clearly explain the reason for doing something the way you are doing it and it makes sense for you then it should be enough to give it a try and see the results.

My teacher has always said to question him and to never take anything he says on faith but to verify it through your own experience.

However if the students never have the opportunity to gain the experience necessary to verify something then it becomes difficult to actually find truth and even when presented with a message to question everything without the means to gain their own understanding through experience it becomes easy to go back to a faith based understanding without even realizing you have done so.

[DeusTrismegistus]

I want to make a separate post to say this thread is all well and good but a lot of this thread would really only apply to teaching adults. My original 3 points apply equally to anyone who starts regardless of age (Don't worry, relax, have fun). Some of the points are more specific to adults and others more general.

[Tesshu]

Nice answer Deus. Of course the teacher has to provide the opportunity to have experiences.