Chinese Martial Arts Teacher

[pbicmhc]

Hello,

just wanted to introduce myself.
I am a practictioner or the Chinese Styles. Have been for 27 yrs. Northern Longfist, (with some Southern tiger crane), Ba Gua, YangJia Michuan Style Tai Chi Chuan, Qi Gong, Acupressure knowledge and Aikido learned in Hawaii from Aikidos oldest living teacher (Takaji Ishida 8th dan).

Detailed info is on my site (listed in my profile). I am also listed in Allexperts as a reference source in the martial arts section. Anyone have questions, I will always answer. My primary focus is on the health and fitness aspects attributed to the martial arts.

I am also a Leukemia survivor (almost died from it)....mainly because I had a good doctor, but also my yrs of practice sure helped a lot. (I have a theory about this too)

I would like to connect with people of a variety of arts for discussion. I am mainly interested in students of Takaji Ishida Sensei, Master George Ling Hu, Mike Gillespie (Anne Arbor Michigan) and/or related people, in addition to anyone interested in the health aspects of the arts, along with high quality teachers of any style to discuss teaching, but I am open to anyone willing to discuss the arts with an open, honest, truthful and knowledgable mind.

For starters, I would like to kick off a discussion on a totally different aspect of the arts -

"How the martial arts community as a whole (ALL ARTS) can come together to expose and remove martial frauds in a competent and professional manner."

My thoughts:
For starters -
There are those who know the real thing and teach it openly and honestly.
There are those who know the real thing and wont show it to students.
There are those who do not know the real thing yet teach as if they do.
There are those who have been taught lies, and do not know it.
And there are those who have been taught lies and dont care.

Some of these, we as a connected community can reach and correct their errors. For the others, what proper and professional avenues of approach exist for us to remove (by proper and competent authority, be it a panel of experts or whatnot) those deemed incompetent to teach "Our" arts?

Who decides what type of knowledge is deemed real or fraudulent?
Who or what type of authority acts on this?
How do they act on this?
What repercussion can we expect from instituting such measures?
Importantly: who decides if we even have the right to do so?

And I am sure many more questions.

What I hope to start is free open discussion leading to useful conclusions that can be implemented in todays society. I feel that we as martial students and teachers have the ability to institute change in this area. We should police ourselves by either openly exposing frauds, forming groups can stick together and help each other, by getting the information out thru all media aspects, by getting panels and groups formed of high class, knowledgable, and respected teachers of all arts; by being willing to stand up and protect our knowledge and demand that those who make claims either prove themselves NOW or cease and desist - (and we need methods to make the C & D stick).

I dont like frauds, there are a few in my town. I know them, they know me, and thats as far as it goes. My whole issue with this is that they end up protraying all the Arts wrong, and societies impression of the True Arts is diminished and tarnished. And that ultimately ends up backlashing at those who try to maintain some semblence of truth and reality in their studys and teachings.

Anyone have useful suggestions?

Sincerely,
Randy Martin
Head Instructor - PBICMHC
Purple Bamboo Institute -Chinese Martial Health Concepts
Purple Bamboo Institute - Chinese Martial Health Concepts

[Tant01]

Welcome aboard, I look forward to reading more from you.

[Wolfeye589]

Welcome to the forum. I'm glad to see a teacher of the martial arts in the forum, especially one so dedicated to teaching truth. I look forward to seeing what you have to say (since I have limited experience with formal teachers).

I wish we had an "all-martial-arts" type forum, since MMA/BJJ is pretty much considered a system in itself. This would be a good topic for all martial arts communities to take a look at and discuss. Not many people check the Intro forum, so you may not get many responses here.

As far as fraudulent teachers in the martial arts community; It's my opinion that the student should seek the truth (what's effective) and dispose of anything not useful. As such, it should be up to the student to determine whether or not what they learn is truth or not. If it's something they can use, then they should use it, but if what they're being taught is ineffective for them, they should seek elsewhere.

Depending on what a student of martial arts is practicing martial arts for (fitness, tournament fighting, street defense, etc.), they should seek only what effectively serves their purpose. If a fraudulent teacher doesn't serve the purpose of the student, then the student should (and will, eventually) leave. I don't think there is much to be done about poorly taught martial arts between instructors, but it's up to the students themselves to determine if the training meets their goals.

Just my 2 cents. Again, welcome to the forum and I look forward to hearing more form you.

[pbicmhc]

Teachers and Students

Wolfeye,

I can totally agree with what you said. In the end, if the teacher cannot
provide that which the student seeks, or the teacher gets caught in their
"fraud" (so to speak) then it all works out. It just bothers me that it has to be that way. But maybe the other side of this coin is that it weeds out those seeking the quick path from those who truly want to learn. Then again, in my experience, most people dont really have enough correct information to make an informed decision. So they fall for it. All I can do is teach as openly as I can, provide as much correct info as I am able, and let the student walk with me. I can't drag them along.

I know I am not alone in this predicament. Other teachers I have talked to see the same thing daily. What really gets me, is that back here at home, there are numerous teachers (real instructors with real lineage and training), who have to "fight" to maintain or gain students, while those that "play the game" get flooded with students.

I have taught all over this area at more that 10 different facilities. In the past 8 yrs, I have had contact with over 200 people willing and wanting to learn, yet none do. At the same time, there is one person in particular, (and I know for a fact his knowledge is slim - cause he attended one of my classes and I saw for myself his knowledge base) who gets tons of students at a local facility. I cannot figure out what is so different between what he is doing and what am doing and have done. I have never confronted this person, and I do NOT intend to - it just sort of gets to you.

I have tried to use this issue as a way to better myself. Sort of a success thru failure mode. If I could figure it out, maybe I might have more students.
But I dont know. I hold to the fact that these arts are not learned overnight, and no amount of pleading by the student will change that. It requires hard work and perserverence over time - I explain that in classes. I tell them that the flashy stuff you may get now may look good, but its not the art and it wont support you. Its the "core" knowledge that makes these arts what they are. With that core, all things are possible. I have never held back on my knowledge, I show it all, explain it all, tell them that it may seem hard at first, but keep at it, and it gets better, and in time, you will understand.
While I dont water my art down, I have broken the information up in to pieces that can learned and understood easily. I have found ways for the student to learn what I want them to learn that does not take a lot of effort,
while still not diluting the material. Doing this is fun in a way cause it challenges me as the teacher to find a method that works for "that" person... and in the end only makes me a better teacher!

dont read me wrong here. I am probably the most open and information giving teacher around. I hold nothing back, I show it, I demonstrate it, I help them every step of the way, and I give them the info and references they need to really learn.

Have you any teaching experience? If so, lets hear your horror stories. Have any student gaining suggestions? I have tried so many different approaches.
I even went so far as to use my experience with Leukemia as a class. (I didnt like that idea - Internal Arts For Cancer, but I tried it.)

Got any suggestions? Lets hear them!
RLM

[Wolfeye589]

Wolfeye,

I can totally agree with what you said. In the end, if the teacher cannot
provide that which the student seeks, or the teacher gets caught in their
"fraud" (so to speak) then it all works out. It just bothers me that it has to be that way. But maybe the other side of this coin is that it weeds out those seeking the quick path from those who truly want to learn. Then again, in my experience, most people dont really have enough correct information to make an informed decision. So they fall for it. All I can do is teach as openly as I can, provide as much correct info as I am able, and let the student walk with me. I can't drag them along.

I know I am not alone in this predicament. Other teachers I have talked to see the same thing daily. What really gets me, is that back here at home, there are numerous teachers (real instructors with real lineage and training), who have to "fight" to maintain or gain students, while those that "play the game" get flooded with students.

I have taught all over this area at more that 10 different facilities. In the past 8 yrs, I have had contact with over 200 people willing and wanting to learn, yet none do. At the same time, there is one person in particular, (and I know for a fact his knowledge is slim - cause he attended one of my classes and I saw for myself his knowledge base) who gets tons of students at a local facility. I cannot figure out what is so different between what he is doing and what am doing and have done. I have never confronted this person, and I do NOT intend to - it just sort of gets to you.

I have tried to use this issue as a way to better myself. Sort of a success thru failure mode. If I could figure it out, maybe I might have more students.
But I dont know. I hold to the fact that these arts are not learned overnight, and no amount of pleading by the student will change that. It requires hard work and perserverence over time - I explain that in classes. I tell them that the flashy stuff you may get now may look good, but its not the art and it wont support you. Its the "core" knowledge that makes these arts what they are. With that core, all things are possible. I have never held back on my knowledge, I show it all, explain it all, tell them that it may seem hard at first, but keep at it, and it gets better, and in time, you will understand.
While I dont water my art down, I have broken the information up in to pieces that can learned and understood easily. I have found ways for the student to learn what I want them to learn that does not take a lot of effort,
while still not diluting the material. Doing this is fun in a way cause it challenges me as the teacher to find a method that works for "that" person... and in the end only makes me a better teacher!

dont read me wrong here. I am probably the most open and information giving teacher around. I hold nothing back, I show it, I demonstrate it, I help them every step of the way, and I give them the info and references they need to really learn.

Have you any teaching experience? If so, lets hear your horror stories. Have any student gaining suggestions? I have tried so many different approaches.
I even went so far as to use my experience with Leukemia as a class. (I didnt like that idea - Internal Arts For Cancer, but I tried it.)

Got any suggestions? Lets hear them!
RLM

Hehe, actually I have no experience as a teacher (especially as a MA teacher
), and little to no experience with "martial arts" (per se). My dad (who also had limited experience in martial arts; He took Tae Kwon Do as a kid or something ) taught me basic boxing after being bullied a lot at school as a kid. Since then, I've always found combat arts interesting (and have used some stuff I picked up over the years for self-defense). So as far as a way to bring in students, I couldn't tell you because I never went to a school to learn any fighting styles (I get all my info/techniques from watching practitioners and trying to replicate their attacks; some are effective for street defense, some are not).

I would just stick with teaching what you know truthfully and if students require it, they should seek you out; but then again, I'm no advertising guru.