Make IMA great again (or other style if that helps)

[dspyrido]

JW you have a toolbox. We've never met but let's assume you know how train and build a student to great levels in the toolbox. Do you have 100s+ students? If not why?

I have taught UT Austin informal Kung Fu class for 15 years. Each semester, I have 50 new students. 15 x 2 x 50 = 1500. I have not included students from my MA school (Peishaolin Kung Fu Institute) yet.

Chinese believe after a teacher brought a student indoor, the rest is all up to that person. I don't agree with that approach. If a teacher expect a student to discover everything by himself, why does that person need a teacher for?

Great numbers! What's the formula of success for why people come and find you?

As for the Chinese way - yes I can see that. I am still amazed when I find a great Chinese instructor. They are the product of this type of sometimes unstructured sometimes confusing training - how did they get so good? The few theories I have are:

1. with a billion people it is a numbers game
2. talented dedicated individuals will always find a way
3. they have a secret training method that is only exposed to them

Or maybe something else. I don't know.

[johnwang]

3. they have a secret training method that is only exposed to them.

For some CMA instructors who like to keep thing in secret. If their children don't train CMA, and also their grandchildren don't train CMA, their secret would be kept for no value.

If Bill Gates kept his Window in secret, what would happen to him?

[dspyrido]

3. they have a secret training method that is only exposed to them.

For some CMA instructors who like to keep thing in secret. If their children don't train CMA, and also their grandchildren don't train CMA, their secret would be kept for no value.

If Bill Gates kept his Window in secret, what would happen to him?

I don't think secret witholding happens as often as it used to but i could be wrong. I think that good cma people are a product of natural talent and dedication as opposed to learning secrets. Is your formula for success because you're open in your teaching? Why don't other cma instructors have 100s to 1000s of students? Or perhaps they do but in other countries. That said i don't think I've seen big IMA classes at all except for in workshops or a big group all following a tc form.

[johnwang]

I don't think secret witholding happens as often as it used to but i could be wrong.

This move is called "捆 (Kun) - Tie". One day my teacher said to the public that he would pay $10,000 to anybody who knew what "捆 (Kun) - Tie" is. 40 years later, this technique can be found online.

This make "to keep in secret" as a joke.

[edededed]

To me, punch is punch, there is no difference between long fist punch, preying mantis punch, Baji punch, and boxing punch. What I like about CMA punch is a punch is a punch followed by a pull (most boxing doesn't have the pulling concept).

When you get into skill development, you will find out that there are over 62 categories of throws (over 230 throws total and not even include combos). For example, there are over 35 different kind of foot sweep. Each throw all require different set up. When you get into skill development into this level, everyday will be a new day and you will always come up with new idea. If I can come up with a new way to set up a technique (entering strategy), I'll smile in my dream for 3 nights. Even money won't be able to buy that kind of happiness.

Thanks John - I think I can see a hint of why you were also very successful in computer programming as well! Your approach is very good for both. (When you came up with a new algorithm (e.g. your search algorithm), did you smile in your dream for 3 nights, too? )

[edededed]

I don't think secret witholding happens as often as it used to but i could be wrong.

This move is called "捆 (Kun) - Tie". One day my teacher said to the public that he would pay $10,000 to anybody who knew what "捆 (Kun) - Tie" is. 40 years later, this technique can be found online.

This make "to keep in secret" as a joke.

Keepings secrets is the default for CMA - but it only takes one person to leak it. Little by little each CMA's "public information" gets bigger and bigger.

On the other hand, KFC has been quite good at keeping its "secret recipe" secret for so long

[.Q.]

Sometimes secrets are just things your teacher does naturally without thinking, so it's hard for him to teach you. Throughout the last few years my training friend and I realized many major issues we have when trying to learn/teach each other our different styles are caused by habits we inherently have. We both had to analyze what we ourselves are doing and compare to the other person's problems in order to isolate the subtle differences. Some of these issues took years to resolve, and it was only possible because we have someone who could already do it to compare and we're both engineers and like to analyze problems. As an example, one application with Zuan (drilling fist) is to sort of snake your arm over opponent's arm. To me it's simply following a specific arc with my hands, but my friend just gets jammed no matter what. Literally took me years to realize our humerus start off rotated at different degrees (probably 15/30 degree difference), that's why it works for me and not him. Another example is my elbow also gets jammed whenever I do any turning throws. It took my friend years to solve the problem and tell me it has something to do w/ my shoulder position causing it. None of the judo teachers could tell me that in the years I spent at the dojo, even though I'm sure they're not hiding any secret. This points out to me a big problem in any teaching is that often when teacher tries to teach something, if the student doesn't get it they just assume the student just needs more practice or lacks talent. They don't expend the effort to identify and solve the actual blockage. Obviously this is not feasible to do for every student/problem but when teachers take effort to do this, they not only help the students, they can improve their existing understanding and extrapolate the info and apply it in other areas. I reexamined my humerus position in all my forms and fixed several of my own problems.

[johnwang]

Keepings secrets is the default for CMA ...

It's very sad to think this way indeed. Since I like to use my students to test/polish/maintain my skill, it will be difficult for me to hide any secret from my students. Any move that I used on my students, my students would ask me to teach them.

[dspyrido]

This move is called "捆 (Kun) - Tie". One day my teacher said to the public that he would pay $10,000 to anybody who knew what "捆 (Kun) - Tie" is. 40 years later, this technique can be found online.

This make "to keep in secret" as a joke.

So cma just priced itself out of the market and people went off and found equivalent (maybe better) products without the transaction friction? It's not martial arts ... it's just bad business?

[dspyrido]

Sometimes secrets are just things your teacher does naturally without thinking

I like to think so to. It's kind of the only sane way to answer - why would anyone want to take this to the grave?

Although secrecy occurs alot in cma i have found coaches in wrestling and boxing who can describe and do things that don't always translate to students. This is even when they are teaching the technical method. I think that somehow their bodies worked it out with experience but the teaching ability is not as developed. It's said to be occurring now when looking into the golden age of boxing heavyweights and comparing them to the current heavyweights. Previous generations are said to be levels above.

In the end i think the things that have been missing - broad teaching lots of students, refining how things are taught (taking feedback to improve) and competition to challenge assumptions. Otherwise it's left to the student to puzzle it out which works but is a slower path & requires good intellect to work it out.

[Bao]

Sometimes secrets are just things your teacher does naturally without thinking

I like to think so to. It's kind of the only sane way to answer - why would anyone want to take this to the grave?

Sometimes maybe it is a sort of lack of communication skills, but in general I don’t have that kind of faith in people. Some teachers are very selfish. They want to create a very strict hierarchy amongst their students and make sure that only a few of them learn certain things. This is only because of that they have the need to stay in the center of things and become admired. They run a show and are not really interested in their students learning something of value.

[johnwang]

why would anyone want to take this to the grave?

Even if my teacher tried to keep "Tie" as a secret, his brother didn't mind to release that information to the public. This make "keeping secret" to be a big joke.

Principle: You attack one of your opponent's leg, you then attack his other leg.

If we use computer to generate all the possibility, we can always find the secret of "Tie" which is as simple as

- spring, shin bite, or
- spring, ankle pick, or
- spring, knee seize, or
- spring, foot sweep, or
- ...

This is why I start to use my mind as a computer. I may be able to generate more meaningful combos than our ancient masters all combined.

- Input all tools.
- Let computer to generate all meaningful combo.

[.Q.]

Sometimes secrets are just things your teacher does naturally without thinking

I like to think so to. It's kind of the only sane way to answer - why would anyone want to take this to the grave?

Sometimes maybe it is a sort of lack of communication skills, but in general I don’t have that kind of faith in people. Some teachers are very selfish. They want to create a very strict hierarchy amongst their students and make sure that only a few of them learn certain things. This is only because of that they have the need to stay in the center of things and become admired. They run a show and are not really interested in their students learning something of value.

I'm pretty sure that's actually true in a lot of cases. I figure usually things fall into these categories:
1. Intentionally hiding info.
2. Lack of patience/time to teach students thoroughly. A lot of teachers just lack patience or they have too many students to analyze problems individually. You can't always blame them because a certain amount of repetition is always required and you have to avoid letting people just talk instead of train, but it's easy to end up with students never figuring out.
3. Lack of experience with the problem. I sometimes work with a judo classmate that's blind and deaf. Unless you've actually worked with someone like that, you have no idea how much you depend on on those senses when teaching. Had to learn basic sign language (communicate by touching your hand signs) just to tell him the most basic/rough explanation.

[Peacedog]

I'd also add that sometimes teachers simply do not know how to teach something they can do, but don't honestly understand.

I've frequently seen this with fah jing, meditative skills and a lot of the "soft skills" stuff like body training. Frankly, anytime someone says something like, "it takes ten years to learn how to …," my first thought is that the pedagogy is not well defined.

They trained a lot, sometimes for years, woke up one morning and could do it at some point. They just don't know how to transmit it.

[marvin8]

Don’t sweat it - Kung Fu is about to be made great again:

https://www.dynastyclothingstore.com/bl ... rgence-mma

Yes. Make IMA or kung fu great again by not only talking and demos but by showing real fighting skills too.

Zhang Weili (e.g., taiji, shuai jiao, sanda) may be one of those leading the way:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJqgaTYYuSg