Steve James wrote: I taught because I wanted to teach --and that doesn't beg the question because wanting to teach is not the same as wanting to make money.
I'm not interested in arguing for the sake of arguing. To be crystal clear, many use teaching as a vehicle to making money: their teaching is not about teaching, it is about making money. Sure, there are teachers, such as you, who teach for the love of teaching. As I previously stated, there are other teachers who teach for other reasons that are not primarily for the love of teaching.
I disagree with any teacher who holds back what could help his student. I wouldn't bother trying to study with him. I think it is a question of character.
Generally, I agree with you.
I once had a very interesting discussion with Liu Chengde. I was to interview him for publication. Instead, we ended up "chatting": nothing was published. The long and the short of it was that he wanted to know what I would do with the information I obtained during an interview with him. He asked why I would want to publish it, why I would want people to have the information. The drift of the discussion is that how Taijiquan is usually taught now, particularly in the West, is as a commodity that is bought and sold. Traditionally, in China, he said, that it wasn't that way and that one provided information to those that one wanted to have it, rather than try to advertise it and sell it out to anyone who will take it - picture having someone standing on a street corner with a sandwich board trying to sell it to passersby.