Sharing Space with another lineage.

Dirty Dog

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Or one student from class A beats up one student from class B. Worse than that, one student from class A may tell one student from class B, "My teacher can beat up your teacher."

Sometime even if you don't look for trouble, trouble will look for you.

Read the comment above about being, or pretending to be, adults. I mean, are these schools run by third graders?
 

Kung Fu Wang

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If Bruce Lee shared teaching space with another MA style. When Bruce said "When I fight, I punch, I don't push." Do you think Bruce's comment might upset MA styles that love pushing?
 

Gerry Seymour

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As long as students don't take both classes at the same time.

When I started my UT Austin Kung Fu informal class, it was 2 hours class. The 1st hour was WC and the 2nd hour was long fist. After few weeks, all the students got really confused.

The confuse started from the basic punch training.

- Long fist punch requires punching arm and chest make a straight line.
- WC punch requires there is an angle between chest and the punching arm.

I don't think "cross training" should start when students are beginners.
It depends on the instructor and what's being cross-trained. It sounds like trying to start both Long Fist and WC would be problematic. Probably the same is true of trying to start two branches of WC at once. Boxing and BJJ, not as much problem. And if someone starts my Aikido class when they start at the Karate school, I just don't teach the formal punch or basic kicks as early as usual. They can get by with the Shorin-ryu basic strikes for their first rank.
 

Gerry Seymour

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It might create an interesting situation if all the students gradually migrate away from one teacher, in favor of the other.
That would be more likely to create conflict. In that case, if I were the first teacher, I'd be desperate to figure out why...or I'd join the other instructor's class.
 

Gerry Seymour

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Or one student from class A beats up one student from class B. Worse than that, one student from class A may tell one student from class B, "My teacher can beat up your teacher."

Sometime even if you don't look for trouble, trouble will look for you.
Those seem like really unlikely scenarios, except where kids are involved.
 

Gerry Seymour

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If Bruce Lee shared teaching space with another MA style. When Bruce said "When I fight, I punch, I don't push." Do you think Bruce's comment might upset MA styles that love pushing?
It wouldn't upset me. Sometimes I punch, sometimes I push. I wouldn't expect another instructor - even in my same art - to actually have my same approach in every way.
 

geezer

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Sharing space with another WC group would be gutsy. I can think of two ways you might approach it. One would be to train at different times, to have a as little contact with the other group as possible, and have a standing rule for students not to talk about or compare techniques with the other group , period.

That wouldn't work for me though, or my (last remaining) students. They are a curious bunch and they are always asking questions about stuff. So after class we will often have lengthy conversations comparing what we do to other things we have seen or experienced so we can better understand why we do what we do ...understanding that there may be no "best" way, just different approaches.

So if I had to share a studio with the WC guy down the street, I'd have to get him on board and maybe at some point do some joint workshops where we talk about similarities and differences. From my previous contacts with him, I'm pretty sure he'd be open to at least talking about the idea. Decent guy.

On the other hand, the association I first belonged to preached the we're right and they're wrong line ...or more like we're superior and they're all really stupid line. And even informal training with other groups was really frowned upon. Even among (or especially among) people that had previously trained in our lineage and association. Very cult-ish. :confused:

So if you are in dealing with anyone like that, or anyone who is 100% about making money and crushing any possible competition, better walk the other way.

BTW if you give this a try, keep us posted and let us know how it works out. :)
 

Kung Fu Wang

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Sharing space with another WC group would be gutsy.
Some issue also happen in SC as well. Before my wife and I got married, she went to another SC school. When she applied a "front cut", she used her hand to push on her opponent's throat. The SC instructor said, "That's John Wang's way. In my school, we push on the shoulder instead". In that SC school, the throat hold was not allowed.
 

Flying Crane

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If Bruce Lee shared teaching space with another MA style. When Bruce said "When I fight, I punch, I don't push." Do you think Bruce's comment might upset MA styles that love pushing?
You do need to understand the context in which Bruce Lee said that.

Some Sifu were settling into horse stance and taking turns trying to push each other out of that stance. It was merely to test the rootedness of the stance; in and of itself it was not meant as a combative application. According to the story, Bruce walked up to one of these Sifu who had settled into the stance, and popped him in the nose, which was a real dick thing to do. As if there is any difficulty in sucker-punching someone who is absolutely not expecting it, and in fact has reason to expect the opposite. Wow, really deep stuff there.

Bruce was not saying that you never push in a fight.
 

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In case you care about such things, there's always your future reputation to consider.

My teacher shared space with another teacher back in the 90's I think. To this day that other teacher's students talk trash that my teacher learned from the other person. Not true, they've only met a handful of times, but they keep rumors circulating. People like to build themselves up by cutting others down.
 
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yak sao

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Turns out this thread was one big hypothetical situation.
The guy that runs the school decided not to go for it. Can't say I really blame him, and besides it gave us something to talk about.
 

Gerry Seymour

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Turns out this thread was one big hypothetical situation.
The guy that runs the school decided not to go for it. Can't say I really blame him, and besides it gave us something to talk about.
That's a shame. I liked the idea and was looking forward to hearing about it.
 

geezer

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yeah...we need our WSL guys back...and maybe even...ahem...HS! :) :D

Actually, I'd really like to get the other WSL guys back. The ones who knew what they were talking about, but who wisely avoided the dumb arguments!
 

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