Tuesday, October 21, 2014

"He's too nice..."

"He's a nice guy," the senior Japanese teacher told me with a smile and thick accent.  Then, his smile dropped to a hard look and he finished with, "but, he's too nice."

One thing I've come to learn in the world of martial arts, martial arts masters, and all the different schools out there - popularity and quality are not equal.  Often, the highest quality teachers are the hardest to learn from, even the hardest to find.

When I was younger, I used to set my VCR to record all kinds of late-night, cheesy martial arts flicks.  They were aired on a show called "Kung-Fu Theater", where they played low budget kung-fu movies at some crazy hour of the night (like 3:00am).  The majority of them had a common plot line:  A young apprentice would have to prove himself and convince the old master to accept him as a student.  In this process, the young man would carry water, haul rocks and do all sorts of difficult tasks.  Once he was finally accepted, often the student would either be an "uchi-deshi" (live-in student) or part of the small group of students.  In the latter, the new pupil would be in the lowest class of student, usually having to work hard to keep up with everybody else, often having to prove himself to the other students.  He would be treated roughly, shown little mercy at times.  As an uchi-deshi, he would have to continue to perform many tasks, sometimes grueling and repetitious.  I remember scenes where the young student would have to stand on the tops of tall, vertical poles, while holding himself in some kind of pose.  Other situations would involve having to cross treacherous mountain passes, while carrying very heavy and awkward loads on his shoulders.

 The point is that all this was a test for the aspiring student.  Then, when finally accepted, they were still expected to prove themselves, to have their endurance and patience tested.  At various points throughout this ordeal, the student would be exposed to the master's teachings.  He would have to try and pick up what he could from them.  If he was lucky, proved himself that day (or moment), the master would give him some personalized training, a nugget of wisdom or a particular technique to practice.

In one movie, the student would have to travel miles to be taught one technique, then sent away to practice.  When the student returned, the master would ask him to demonstrate the technique.  If it wasn't to the master's satisfaction, he would send him away, telling him to come back when he's trained enough on that technique.  One of two things would happen - either the student would train enough to finally be granted a new lesson, or he would eventually give in to frustration and quit.


In many of these movies, the masters who were popular were most often the ones who were arrogant, had arrogant students, and they usually lost in the end.  Yet, they had the most attractive schools, flashy and charismatic, the kind of school that people would want to go to.  They were popular and had huge numbers of students, a large facility and fancy uniforms.

In contrast, the rogue master, the "good guy", was often a kind of hermit, usually very humble lifestyle, either no school or a home dojo of some kind, no uniform or something simple, and they lived either in secrecy or obscurity.  Some had reputations which would be almost unbelievable, yet you would never know it by their appearance and demeanor.

In today's martial arts, popularity most often is the judge of quality.  If a teacher, school or style is popular, all over the internet and other media sources, it's easy to assume they are "good" and worth our time and energy to learn from or with.  Yet, one has to take a good look at why they are popular and is it proof of the substance and quality of the instruction?  Are they even legitimate? 


I have found that most often, popularity is driven by a few key points:

1.  Marketing - the person, school or style which is most predominant in the various forms of media available (internet, books, magazines, etc) is the one on the forefront of people's minds.  Most people don't bother with doing their homework or research, so whatever is most commonly seen or heard tends to be what people go to.










2.  Availability - schools and teachers which make information easily accessible tend to attract most people.  Those who give away 'freebies' or spoon feed information are attractive to an audience who lack the drive, patience and fortitude to have to work hard for the information.


3.  Packaging - schools and teachers who present their teaching into convenient packages for the students are more likely to attract and keep students.  Most people don't want to be presented with teaching which is obscure, or incomplete.  Yet, we all remember watching movies of the old masters who taught with puzzles and cryptic lessons that forced the student to discover the answers themselves.  Our own Soke is known for this.  It just doesn't make for a successful McDojo.

4.  Home Study Courses and other means that go against actually having to come to class and train - this is a vehicle that only serves to line the pockets of the teacher.  It's pure money making, as anybody with a wad of money can purchase the material.  They have to prove nothing to the teacher, other than the purchase confirmation.

5.  Instant rewards - schools that do the best and teachers who are most popular are most often ones which pump their students with special awards, recognitions, "Black Belt Club" and other special patches, certificates for all sorts of things, and many other gimmicks designed to give the student a sense of accomplishment.  Even ranking can be used this way.  Yet, if you look back in martial arts history, even belt ranks are a fairly recent invention.




The old masters trained their students hard and expected absolute devotion to the lessons they provided.  How much a student put into their training was a reflection on the level of respect they had for the art they were learning.  Only the most passionate, hardest training students were allowed to continue.  It was the student's obligation and responsibility to seek out the teacher, prove themselves as worthy of the teaching, and through their actions, continue to be accepted as a student of the master.

The master never pursued or tried to influence the student to join.  If the student failed, or wasn't showing up to train, the master continued without him.  If the master saw potential in a young man, he might invite him to come train, but would not use any slick marketing or gimmicks to get him to join.

It was always about the relationship.  Building that relationship took time and effort, at first on the part of the student.  However, when the student stuck it out, did everything the master instructed, and proved his devotion and showed respect by practicing hard and diligently in the lessons he was taught, that relationship became stronger than any other.  This is why the relationship between a student and one's teacher can be stronger than family.

Yet, today we have students who simply sign on the dotted line, show up and expect to be taught.  They carry themselves as the valued person, where the teacher is their servant and their success or failure is a result of the efforts of the teacher, not of their own.  In a McDojo, this is further hammered in by programs which offer ranking for memberships, structured lesson plans that lay out a cookie-cutter design for everybody.  It's not about the relationship.  It's about the program and it's success as a business.  You have teachers who are salesmen, watching their profit/loss ratio and always coming up with some new strategy to attract more and more students.

Then, there are those who aren't running businesses, but who are almost like predators in the way they go out and seek "followers" or "students" to surround themselves with.  For them, it's not about the program, but about the attention.

Unfortunately, the McDojos tend to be the popular schools and teachers who have strong public presence and easily accessible instruction tend to be the popular teachers.  But, there are many masters, those who live normal lives outside the limelight, who train in their arts and pursue their own Shugyo (martial path).  Those who they allow to follow in their footsteps are close knit, having developed good relationships which began with the students first proving themselves as devoted students who are serious about training.  The numbers are small and anybody wanting to be a part of that group has to first try and find them, then be welcomed in.  Neither of those two points are easy and that's part of the test.  If a student is allowed to join a class, they still aren't accepted.  They have to earn their place and lessons are things to grasp, not something handed to them.  Sometimes, it can take a very long time to finally be accepted as an actual student.  But, in the end, that relationship with the teacher (and the others in the group) is incredible, as are the lessons and the quality of martial arts that come from it all.

So, be careful of those who are "too nice", as they may be trying to sell you something or get you into their circle to fuel their need for attention.  Learning martial arts from a true master first requires establishing a relationship with them.  You have to earn their trust and prove to them you are worth their time and effort to teach you what they already know.  Understand that many different teachers sell their knowledge and, for the most part, that is fine.  But, there is a difference between a business transaction and a personal relationship.  You may get what you pay for, but nothing more.  However, in a true relationship between teacher and student, where it's a personal relationship instead of profits, the transmission of the art becomes enriched on unlimited levels.  You don't just learn what's in the textbook.  You get to learn all the good stuff that exists outside the limits of the textbook.

Seek out those real masters, do what it takes to prove to them that you are a serious student and, lastly, give respect to what they teach you by devoting yourself to training hard on it. Do that and you'll discover a depth to the art that you would never have gotten by simply following the crowd to the nearest McDojo, signing up for the 3 year black belt club program, purchasing the ten disc home study video course, buying the latest dojo t-shirt and fancy uniform with the artsy logo and falling for the slick salesmanship of the "nice" martial arts teacher who compliments you with a smile and tells you what you want to hear.

It requires hard work just to get the opportunity to learn from a true master.  It requires even harder work to actually learn from them.  There are no shortcuts.  There is no easy way.  It's in the struggle that the greatest rewards exist.  Anybody who is "too nice" runs the risk of denying their students those rewards.  Any student who chooses to follow the popularity of a school or teacher runs the risk of a transmission of an art that is no better than fast food.

This is budo, the way of war, of life and death.  You should never settle for anything less than the best opportunities and the most fulfilling training.  But, that may require intensive searching, sacrifice, often travel and constant struggle.  Are you willing to go through all that?

Most aren't.