OP
rmcrobertson
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- Thread Starter
- #61
I agree with Mr. Castro.
Eliminate what you don't use well, after you've learned a martial arts systems, by all means. "Simplify, simplify," is always a good rule.
But don't confuse what you need or don't need with what students need. As I may have mentioned a time or two, when you go ripping the wiring out of the system of kenpo, you are making it impossible for students to get to where you are. With rare exceptions, students simply have to have an organized teaching structure.
They're dunderheads like me, in other words, and at a mere twelve years in I am nowhere near ready to start formally discarding. (Though at times I suspect this gets handled by a simple avoidance of practice...) And so what if Bruce Lee went faster? He was a bit of a genius, and he died much, much younger than his instructors, and I simply don't believe he was a good teacher...in fact, based on absolutely nothing, I will bet a shiny new penny that Mr. Inosanto is far better in this regard.
I might add--just to be difficult--that a) some of the discarding may still take place too soon and too facilely for even instructors' progress; b) some of the curriculum seems to me to confront us with issues that we would rather not be confronted--so, throwing things out of the system can at times become a way to duck out on progress.
Eliminate what you don't use well, after you've learned a martial arts systems, by all means. "Simplify, simplify," is always a good rule.
But don't confuse what you need or don't need with what students need. As I may have mentioned a time or two, when you go ripping the wiring out of the system of kenpo, you are making it impossible for students to get to where you are. With rare exceptions, students simply have to have an organized teaching structure.
They're dunderheads like me, in other words, and at a mere twelve years in I am nowhere near ready to start formally discarding. (Though at times I suspect this gets handled by a simple avoidance of practice...) And so what if Bruce Lee went faster? He was a bit of a genius, and he died much, much younger than his instructors, and I simply don't believe he was a good teacher...in fact, based on absolutely nothing, I will bet a shiny new penny that Mr. Inosanto is far better in this regard.
I might add--just to be difficult--that a) some of the discarding may still take place too soon and too facilely for even instructors' progress; b) some of the curriculum seems to me to confront us with issues that we would rather not be confronted--so, throwing things out of the system can at times become a way to duck out on progress.