Zhong_Kui wrote: I think in many ways the last is most important, because most MA teachers have no clue about how different students learn, so focus on the ones who seem to "get it" without understanding that other students could get it just as easily, if it were explained differently. Educational theory is not really high on the MA teacher's priority list after all.
I hear you, having experienced tbe same thing myself with a number of teachers.I think that many know only one way to teach, and those who don't have the strength of ego to accept their limitations and admit them, and try to grow and become real teachers, can be openly defensive if some of their students fail to learn, or have great difficulty. Transference -- they blame the student rather than looking into their own methods. I've had some instructors who even stated that if the student failed to learn, tough cahoones... go somewhere else. I took that to mean "Hey, it's all I know, but I can't let myself look flawed, so I'm going to turn it around onto you and make you look ungrateful and incompetent."
When I was in high school, I was a failure at mathematics. Couldn't do algebra or geometry for the life of me, and forget about calculus. I was no dummy, but in retrospect I understand that the methods being used to teach back then were ones geared toward a very specific kind of learning process, one which was not among my own. After I got out of university, one day on a whim I picked up an algebra book and taught myself the basics in a week, and understood it. The author of the book had chosen a different approach for conveying the information, and it clicked with me. End of problem. Now I'm looking for similar books on geometry and calculus.
The thing is, the teacher has to actually care about the students, and about the art and craft of teaching. Not everyone is cut out for it. For some, the MA and their own skills come first, the student comes after (not that that's a bad thing in itself, but some guys do "teach" just to have a ready supply of fresh meat for their own training). Sometimes teaching is an ego trip (met a couple of guys in that department) and not a calling. And, many MA teachers I've met love MAs and try to teach them as best they can, but always in the way that is most familiar to them (usually the way their own teacher taught them) but are too rigid to consider changing themselves to become better teachers, or to find ways to help students who don't understand the particular approach. Instead, they try to change and mold their students to fit the teaching model already extant. It's the trying-to-shove-a-square-peg-into-a-round-hole syndrome.
That said, I still think Aunkai would be an eye-opener for you, though I do understand your comfort level being in the formal MA style setting. It's a comfortable model for pretty much everyone who came up in a system with a curriculum, a history and a culture connected to it. There is a comforting order to it. I was part of that myself for many years, for the same reasons. My reason for recommending the less style-oriented nature of Aunkai is because the internal skills being taught are ultimately of greater value in fighting, IMO, than a technique-based style itself, unless you find a style that simply uses technique as a vehicle in which to teach internal skills. When you have the actual martial body that Akuzawa talks about, it is one that generates "style" or which can be used and expressed in any style you choose, and particularly for martial applications.
You might consider studying that as a supplement to any training you take in a formal style. You may be pleasantly surprised, and even amazed, at what it will do for you power-wise and more.