What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby johnwang on Tue Jun 18, 2019 12:12 pm

What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

- You can only teach the form. You can not teach the application.
- If you teach the form, you should not correct your students if they make mistake.
- You can make the training easier for students even if it may violate the style principles.
- If you demonstrate your form in public, you should always add in some extra moves.
Last edited by johnwang on Tue Jun 18, 2019 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby dspyrido on Tue Jun 18, 2019 3:31 pm

I would say - I can't do that.

If the teacher insisted then I'd state - CMA has become the laughing stock of martial arts because people did this. This is why it is smashed in mma. Continuing to teach like this will mean that it will only get more ridiculous and lead to the eventual abandonment or at best turn it into a folk dance supported only by a few LARPERS.

"Is this what you want to see happen?"

Sadly it already has but things seem to be swinging the other way for some CMA.
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby Finny on Tue Jun 18, 2019 4:27 pm

I would ask why I'm supposedly teaching this shit when you're the teacher?
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby Trick on Wed Jun 19, 2019 1:54 am

I’ve been told by one of my teachers to keep certain teachings “under my hat” to only give away if I myself ever seriously take on a teachers role, and give it to the most dedicated/talented long time student(s). And make him/her follow the same..... I agreed
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby charles on Wed Jun 19, 2019 6:44 am

johnwang wrote:What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

- You can only teach the form. You can not teach the application.
- If you teach the form, you should not correct your students if they make mistake.
- You can make the training easier for students even if it may violate the style principles.
- If you demonstrate your form in public, you should always add in some extra moves.


My initial knee-jerk reaction would be to find another teacher.

In thinking about it, I'd want to understand the motivation. For example, if I'm a "kindergarten" teacher, teaching only beginners, it might be my role to walk students through the form: it might not be my role to teach applications or provide corrections.

If my teacher's motivation was for me to hide/not teach anything of substance, I'd wonder what he wasn't willing to teach me. If one is a serious student, one forms a relationship with one's teacher that is between one and one's teacher. It might well be a different relationship than between another student and the teacher. In some relationships, the teacher might teach that student more than he'd be willing to teach another student. Some of that might depend upon how hard the student works at the material being taught. The student rarely knows fully whether or not he's the one getting all the "goods", or one of the students from whom material is held back. If a teacher is holding back material from some students, chances are good that he's holding back material from me as well.


There is also the other half of the equation.

What would you do if, as a teacher

- your students aren't interested in applications, only learning forms
-when you teach the form, students don't incorporate the corrections you provide them
-when you teach the details, the students don't work hard enough to ever learn them and what they do is a simplified version because the "real stuff" is too difficult for them
-when they demonstrate in public they have trouble remembering the sequence of the forms?
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby Bhassler on Wed Jun 19, 2019 7:31 am

I will say "Yes, Soke Sensei Grandmaster Sifu, I will teach others exactly as you have taught me..."
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby windwalker on Wed Jun 19, 2019 7:37 am

:-\
Last edited by windwalker on Wed Jun 19, 2019 7:59 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby suckinlhbf on Wed Jun 19, 2019 7:57 am

Walk away from that teacher.
he is not good at CMA;
he does not understand CMA;
he never has the opportunity to meet a good teacher;
his attitude will never get him to a higher CMA level;
he should never teach as he has no passion on the art.

The movements are a reflex from the body, and the instinct. It does not process from the mind but from the heart. The heart won't be there for the movement when the mind is doing one thing while the body is doing a different thing. Don't waste the time to learn from him.
Last edited by suckinlhbf on Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby suckinlhbf on Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:07 am

What would you do if, as a teacher

- your students aren't interested in applications, only learning forms
-when you teach the form, students don't incorporate the corrections you provide them
-when you teach the details, the students don't work hard enough to ever learn them and what they do is a simplified version because the "real stuff" is too difficult for them
-when they demonstrate in public they have trouble remembering the sequence of the forms?


These are the problems of the student. The teacher still has to teach properly so the problems of the student do not become his.

Teaching is not money making. It is the passing on of knowledge.
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby charles on Wed Jun 19, 2019 8:43 am

suckinlhbf wrote:These are the problems of the student. The teacher still has to teach properly so the problems of the student do not become his.


In theory, that's true. In practice, however, for many teachers it likely becomes demotivating.

A good teacher teaches what students want to know, what they are interested in learning, what has relevance. Martial application, for example, might not have much relevance to octegenarian students. "Know thy audience." Trying to force-feed students with material/information they aren't interested in learning doesn't make for effective teaching, that is, effective passing on of knowledge.

Some Chinese teachers found that Western students are NOT willing to work very hard and, consequently, learned they don't need to teach as much to satisfy their Western audience. Trying to force-feed students with material/information they aren't interested in learning or practicing doesn't make for effective teaching, that is, effective passing on of knowledge. It becomes a battle of wills: "You are going to learn this, whether you want to or not."

Teaching is not money making. It is the passing on of knowledge.


Ideally, that is true. In practice, teachers have all sorts of reasons for teaching, including ego, passing on what their teachers taught - even if it is "wrong" or "deficient" in some way - acquiring status, making money, and so on.
Last edited by charles on Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:23 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby Steve James on Wed Jun 19, 2019 9:10 am

Beginner's can't know how to respond, unless they've been on the internet. Then, they'll know how experienced people would respond. If a teacher says "I will only teach you form," he's being honest. If he says that he only teaches phs, it's the same thing. IT's up to the student to decide what he wants to learn and whether the teacher is capable. When the student wants more, he can leave, find another teacher, and do what he likes with what he's learned.
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby suckinlhbf on Wed Jun 19, 2019 9:38 am

Once a friend came to me saying he wanted to learn kungfu. He had watched lots of kungfu movie, and wanted to learn how to fly and jump from one building to another. My tongue was stuck.

Teaching and learning are a match up. It works when somebody wants to learn something from the teacher's toolbox. A serious learner would collect tools from different teachers, and then personalize it and ingrain in himself. A teacher is to help the learner to get on his path, hopefully in the right direction.
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby suckinlhbf on Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:08 am

it likely becomes demotivating

ego, passing on what their teachers taught - even if it is "wrong" or "deficient" in some way - acquiring status, making money, and so on.


Ego holds off the openness to accept new ideas - it sucks
Being a copycat on what their teachers taught - It sucks and implicates they don't understand.
Status is an illusion - it sucks
Making money is making money, not teaching. The teacher paces the progress on how to make more money, not on the progress of the learner.
So on.....

All in all, being a teacher sucks.
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby charles on Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:27 am

suckinlhbf wrote:All in all, being a teacher sucks.


It certainly can, unless you teach for the love of teaching, rather than the many other things for which many teachers teach.

As you said, teaching and learning are a match-up. It doesn't work well when either part is missing.
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Re: What will you do if your CMA teacher tells you this?

Postby MaartenSFS on Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:24 am

I wonder if boxing or Judo teachers hold back...

For what it's worth most people in China are as lazy or even lazier than Western people nowadays.. They also lack the impulse to question when things don't make sense or seem to be clearly wrong...

I love teaching, but it can be disappointing. The other day one one my former students informed me that he had been able to use what I taught him against someone with a big ego trying to harm him. He only learned from me for a half year, off and on, and had been studying other arts since he was a child, but it was what I taught him that aided him. That was a good feeling.. :)
Last edited by MaartenSFS on Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:34 am, edited 2 times in total.
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