In the traditional Chinese martial arts including Tai Chi Chuan, Xing Yi Chuan and Ba Gua Zhang there is a culture of hiding information. It is not done by all, but, it is done by many. Most often this is seen as private or behind "closed doors” (disciples only) information and public open door information. Historically (prior to the proliferation of guns) this made sense for safety and security. In the modern world it is much easier to pick up a gun than it is to spend 6 months to several years learning how to perform high level skills for fighting. When it came to the health aspect of these arts it also made sense to hide information due to the need for personal security. If my family and tribe are really extra healthy and my enemies are not very healthy then we are in a much better position to defend ourselves. But in the modern world this is just plain messed up. If a teacher wishes to keep the secrets by only teaching a small handful of folks and not teaching publicly then I feel they are completely within their rights to do so. If they are going to teach publicly and charge money for what they are teaching then it is a different matter entirely. I find it slightly hard to grasp the following scenario and yet in the Chinese internal arts this is often the case: A teacher has a method and the means to make folks healthy and publicly offers classes. The students know or feel that the teacher has the info and they want to be healthy and want to have the health benefits the teacher has. They pay the teacher good money (and often a lot of it) to learn how. But, the teacher is not teaching them the real way to be healthy. The same goes for self protection skills! In the modern day, I am completely against this policy of secrecy for a number of reasons including what I consider the unethical circumstance I detailed in the last paragraph. One of the biggest complaints that I have against this policy is that it has caused the quality of these arts to be greatly diminished almost to the point of causing them to flat out disappear. Really high quality practitioners of these arts are hard to find. The first and foremost thing I dislike about this deception & abuse of power (from teachers who really do have the goods) regarding secrecy is the situation where a teacher has a few folks who get the real thing and everyone else gets crap. The thing that I really don't like about it is when high level teachers (who have the goods) do this and then charge for the crap as if the student is getting the goods. This IMHO amounts to fraud! Also, today, there are a lot of folks who are masquerading as the real thing when they are not. This includes but is not limited to folks who have a "few" higher level things right but who are missing many of the other skills relative to the art they claim to teach. This culture of high level teachers hiding information while charging for it and teaching crap instead creates the environment where folks who do not really have the skills can "also" rip off the public. In any other buyer / seller situation fraud can be criminally actionable and is certainly subject to civil action. (By the way, I am not an attorney and nothing I write here should be construed as legal advice). There are a number of simple solutions to the problem. First and foremost, teach the real thing that works. Most of the skills in these arts take a lot of time and effort to train and develop. They are not quickly or easily attained. Even when teaching folks correctly only a handful will get to the real intermediate or advanced material because most folks simply won't put in the time and work required. Another way to do this is for potential students to take some responsibility. Vet the teacher thoroughly. 1. Do they have something of value to teach you? 2. Will make you noticeably healthier, stronger, better able to defend yourself and will work for you in old age as well or better than you can now? 3. Can the teacher do something that you would like to be able to do? Ask them how long and how much time it will take for you to be able to perform the skill. The best answer will tell you how long on average it takes for a student of theirs to learn it and specifically how much it will cost you to learn it. If it is a skill that is gained over a long time of training then ask for benchmarks that you can use to really gauge progress. If the teacher is vague or evasive with their answers or simply seems completely unable or unwilling to answer the questions then BEWARE! Pay close attention so that you can reasonably pick up the difference between con-man tactics and someone who simply has not considered teaching their art with these benchmarks in mind. Remember that it is them who are selling and you who "MAY or MAY NOT" be buying. 4. Does the average student that has been with them for 6 months to a couple of years have some ability with these skills that makes it obvious that the skills are actually being taught? Ask to visit a class and speak with students who have been attending for 6 months to 2 years. Talking to folks who are indoor disciples doesn't cut it because they may be getting the goods but it is not guarantee that you ever will. 5. If and when appropriate and if it is a skill that pertains to body quality or self defense ask to try out a class and feel / experience the teacher or one or more of his senior students. IMHO, you should really feel & experience the teacher or senior students of theirs if they are making some fairly lofty claims and you cannot figure out from looking if they are skilled enough to really increase your current abilities.
By the tradition of Chinese martial Arts it is very open because Tai Chi has Tui Shou, Wing Chun has Chi Sau, Bagua has Shuai Da, and Xingyi has two person sets. The other styles also has two person sets and San Shou competitions. Most people only do routines and workout some sort of scenarios might not have the proper training, as most of these things can be learn from videos, books or some workshops, etc.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. That because there are partner training methods people learn that some individuals don't hold back from imparting more in-depth teachings? While I don't think the problem is not teaching people how to be healthy-that's more easily obtained by eating right,getting adequate rest,and obtaining a level of fitness via aerobic,strength,flexibility and agility training anyway- Dm's post brings up a practice common even these days,which is that some practitioners who have the goods,or at least a good chunk of them,don't actually teach that much even to their very serious students. Even some who do drag it out.Pretty silly not being able to consistently express function until you've been around 20 years. Wasn't like that in the pre popularization period. Holding back teachings isn't just in TC but TC is probably the one system I can think of where training methods which are vital to develop abilities beyond the basic are often withheld. One could say the health aspect fits there as that is supposed to be an effect of such training even if not the purpose for it. I personally doubt there are a lot of TC for health students who would want to devote themselves to those aspects of TC training,tho'. Folks pursuing it in the "traditional" way,that is as a functional martial system,require these things. Just being told to relax,sink,etc doesn't cut it for long term development of skills.
A friend of mine who was big into TC for a while described it as a similar model to scientology, in the sense that "secret teachings" were only available to those who paid for expensive courses. This perpetuated itself, because those who took the courses kept it secret to justify the expense and to feel superior to those not "in the know". It sounded like pretty basic stuff too, like reversing left and right in the form and so forth. Apparently this kind of thing can be a mind-blowing revelation to some.
Holy crap! Talk about fraudulent. A person should at least get what they pay for. Wish I'd known I could have charged extra when I taught folks to do the left hand version of the form. Darn it! I alway$ mi$$ the boat on thi$ sort of thing. It's not unknown or even looked down on that some,such as disciples,will pay more for getting MORE in depth stuff.One might say that is "traditional".Chang,Chung-fung had to pay his HI teacher per technique! That was a bit extreme methinks. The real problem as I stated in another thread is that what once were TC basics are now "secrets". Most "teachers" of TC aren't even aware of these things,let alone know them,altho' it is encouraging that more of these things are now being taught openly by some. Oh,well.Just relax,sink,do the form,and all will be revealed. :zzz: < I could really use a vomiting emoticon right here instead of this one.
If you pay enough to a teacher to practice Chi Sau, Tui Shou or Shuai Da with you, I am sure you will find out quick enough how he or she can neutralize your attack and retaliate.
That doesn't seem to pertain to Dm's subject,which is about people not getting much of the transmission. Someone besting another doesn't reveal the victor's openness in teaching. Or are we misunderstanding one another?
Yes, you are right I do not understand the marketing of martial arts. I am not suggesting that you should test your potential teacher before learning even if you have the knowledge. But a student must have some idea of the syllabus and able to try what he learnt on his teacher or seniors.
Perhaps it is easier for people to blame their lack of progress on some vital piece of "withheld knowledge" rather than a lack of application/patience?a master may have taken decades to hone their skills.
There's a ridiculous number of TC teachers in my area. Why do almost all of them lack even the awareness as to the existence of the depth of body mechanics required by their specific systems? Because somewhere along the line someone didn't impart it.Their teacher,the teacher's teacher,whoever. Not because they're lazy or anxious. This has nothing to do with lack of practice,there are plenty of people out there who have practiced seriously for many years and are not without abilities. They'd be more so if they'd received more of the transmission. There are also those who have practiced seriously for many years and never even got enough pieces to get beyond a very,very base level. I'm speaking of things which were formerly taught as necessary basics/building blocks. To quote myself-"What once were basics are now secrets." If the teacher even has them.
Nothing was held back from me by my teacher, but the system was imparted over many years. Looking back i understand why. I could probably "demonstrate" the entire sylabus in 5-6 hours. But what use is that to a student? The training methods need to be understood, become second nature and the interrelevance of them internalised. Otherwise much of whats practiced becomes empty. The beauty of the training methods is that they train the body even if not understood intellectually, though they need to be practiced correctly. Its a slow process, but i will add that fighting ability should be gained and improved from day one, it is not a case of once the sylabus is completed there is a massive moment of enlighenment and suddenly you are on par with Yang Lu Chan.
The "many years" thing always raises the question -How come people took the platform and other such methods of making their rep in the "old days" without waiting 'til they had been practicing for 10-15 years? Because in those days no one would bother to study a martial system which would be useless until one was possibly way past 30 years of age. Good post,btw.
Yea, i never bought that delay thing either, you can go out and fight (successfully) during those "many years", to me sanshou/ lei tai is part of the training, my Sifu would always state - "technique suffers under pressure", this is true, and finding out how much, and becomming proficient in timing range and angle can only "honestly" be done through exchanges with fully resistant opponents. Such encounters "teach" you, only after many does the relevance of TCC sanshou techniques and drills like "flying flower palm" become plain to see, understand and adapt internally. Its a reason i believe such techniques etc. were kept "inside the door", of course when some "masters" made bai shi cermonies a meaningless income generator in exchange for affulent students to have their name recorded rather than a commitment of both parties to progress the art through thorough coaching and practice, well an art can become a sylabus of economic transactions solely, devoid of martial "art". Whats really strange is people willing to cash up for some secret although they never train hard enough to be fighters. Its like going to some boxercise class and believing that by paying for the secret uppercut technique you can be Mike Tyson! Not only is it delusional but it disrespects the work, sacrafice and effort fighters like Tyson put in to achieve what they did.
I think one of the things we have to remember is that the people who developed many martial arts were training on a full time basis, which nowadays most of us are not. We have full-time jobs and so forth, and while we might practise for a short time every day, we probably don't have classes more than once or twice a week in most cases. So it's inevitable that we're on a very long learning curve compared to the masters in the 'old days'.
Heard that one a lot also. I would think it's a given in a subject like this I'm speaking of serious practitioners who devote major amounts of time to training. A person isn't going to get very good if they go to their TKD/CLF/Goju/etc class twice a week and just practice a little bit outside of class. Except for the very,very well to do I think you'll find that most practitioners of anything,T'ai Chi, Pa Kua, Shotokan,thumb wrestling,etc were all people who had to make a living.Even the well to do have to work.Have to eat,y'know. It's not like the local community took up a collection to support them while they pursued what was a pretty much looked down on activity, at least in China.( But I'd steer clear of those hooligan thumb wrestlers in the western world if i was you!) Here's a modern day example. Wolfe Lowenthal in his books mentions the 3 guys in Shr Jung in New York who the other students of Cheng,Man-ch'ing referred to as "the bums" 'cause these guys worked part time jobs so they could go out together and practice for 4-6 hour stints every day. Every day.Besides class time. Really working on stuff and critiquing each other to get it right. I'm the #2 senior student of one of "dem bums". So how come they received no real extra attention from Cheng? He had to notice,heck I could tell how much my guys were practicing and I'm no master. My teacher used to go back to his first teacher,Cheng's disciple Wm. Chen, to get additional instruction.Nothing wrong with that but if Cheng had been more forthcoming he needn't have. Not picking on Cheng as he's hardly the only individual I could cite. I've also probably now committed a blasphemy by criticizing Cheng. I'll invite you all to my excommunication and execution. For most of my own years spent receiving instruction I worked full time jobs and spent ridiculous amounts of hours training in class,out of class,and in private practice with my teachers. Ask my wife. TC,as well as Fu Hok Hung Gar. Kali too,but I was never a formal student. I was lucky in that my teachers were open and imparted what they knew freely. Helped having a lot of direct hands on experience with them as I always became the training partner for my TC teachers. I think it's significant that the (Cheng) line probably most open in their teachings is the line from Yue,Shu-ting- as their purpose was to churn out fighters. Same line as Nigel Sutton's.That's where I got most of my,if you will, "inside stuff",from a disciple in that line. Let's not forget Wm. Chen,tho', who also was having his guys really bang on each other years before the so called "Full Contact Karate" came about.
It would behoove a master of a martial art style/system to pass along their knowledge to as many students. Like a family bloodline, to allow it to fade away is atrocious. People, per teachers, get too obtuse upon who shall be taught and as well as students looking to be the rightful heir. Many so-called “secrets” are now common knowledge. Teachers need to stop projecting an enchanted high self image upon their students. Students need to come to a reality that their teachers have limitations and recognize fallible projections from their teachers Gone, should be the blind passing and following within martial arts, like some religions. Likewise to religion, gone should be the bickering of who may have “the best authority”. However, people martial arts or religion, should maintain the freedom of choice and logical thought.
