Legitimacy in the MA

[D.Cobb]

Stone_dragone,

First of all let me compliment you on an excellent post with an excellent thesis! I think you have submitted a very insightful and compelling argument. *grin*

I have been ruminating on your post most of the day trying to devine my own thoughts. I have distilled it down to two schools of thought: the "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" versus the "There is no staus quo in nature" schools. These are my own personal labels and let me explain.

"Standing on the shoulders of Giants" is drawn from a quote by Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to Robert Hooke that went: "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." I would submit that this is indeed the basic premise of the traditional school structure in which the original master gathers a body of work and then subsequent generations carry that on and enhances it within the lattitudes of the original framework. It is a belief that the founder has created a body of wisdom and that all practicioners can leverage that wisdom and add perhaps a small amount to it but ultmately owe the bulk of their prowess to their lineage of teachers. In this case the issue of linage is greatly important and legitamacy is paramount.

"There is no staus quo in nature" is a very different, pragmatic view. It is premised on the idea that no thing, being, idea or system is ever really static. We percieve things as being "stable" but in reality there are only two states in nature, Growth and Decay. Thus if you are not Growing you are not, as you might think, "staying the same" but rather you are in fact Decaying even though you may not be aware of it. This concept aplied to a Martial Art is that if it is not Growing and actively adding in new ideas, new concepts and reacting the the changing world around it then it is in Decline and is losing relevance with respect to the outside world.

The second school of thought is a scary one! It means that we cannot rest on our laurels. It means that we cannot assume that because we have reached a level of ability today that we will have the same level of capability, relative to the outside world, tommorow. The first school of thought assures us that we have reached new heights and are laying the foundation for our next generation to achieve even greater skills, while the latter school makes no such assurances and leaves future generations to fend for themselves.

Which is true? I think these are polar extremes in thinkg and that reality is somewhere in the middle. The tradiionalist in me wants to beleive that in the first school, the pragmatic martial artist in me realizes the cautious wisdom on the second. Growth and Decay are harsh realities but ones with much evidence. Let's perform a little thought experiment.

Today you are at skill level X. You train tomorrow and at some level when you go to sleep you are at skill level X+1. But if the day after that you don't train where are you? You didn't forget anything in a day so you probably think you are at X+1, same as you were when you went to sleep. But what if you didn't train for a month? Well I think we could all agree you are at some diminished skill level, X-1 we shall say. You lost skill somewhere along in that 30 days of not training. It didn't happen all at once at the end of the 29th day.. it happened in tiny little bits all along. Your skills were decaying not growing. You are always in one of the two states, either growing or decaying, never staying completely the same.

All systems experience this. Skills are handed down from generation to generation and loose some fidelity. It is inevitable. But each practicioner has the option of embracing the art and adding to it. Finding out solutions to problems that the founders never encountered. Adding and growing and then passing on. But we must have a foundation to do this from. You can't make silk purses out of saow's ears. Lineage is important in that it is the input for the next generation and while we must not be afraid to add and subtract to it we still want the highest quality as a starting point.

As instructors we are given seeds from our instructors. It is up to us to grow them into something, to cultivate them and perhaps even to cross them with other seeds to create something better adapted to the soil we will plant them in. Perhaps it is something beautiful or something very useful, or perhaps a combination of both. The possibilities within those seeds are defined by the lineage, the actualization of their potential is the responsibility of the gardener.

As a student we need to find Good Gardeners. As a Gardener we need to find good Seeds. Beautiful Gardens have had the benefit of both.

Rob

Is it possible then that our knowledge of something can progress beyond point x even if our ability regresses? If so, then what level could I be?

Due to a family tragedy, I have not trained for more than a year, except for the occasional messing around with friends. Then a few weeks ago, I joined a school with a style I have no experience in at all. I know that my physical abilities are definately at x-1 or even -2. But in all that time, I have never stopped studying. Looking into theories on why certain things happen a certain way, or what a specific application to a move from a kata I know might be. So my knowledge and understanding could well be x +2 in spite of my physical regression to x -2.

--Dave

 

[D.Cobb]

Regardless of the lineage and talent of the instructor important knowledge can be gained. I personally would not continue to pay a poor instructor regardless of his lineage.

And neither you should... But how do you know?

As a fairly new student to the martial arts, I want to learn. When an instructor has nothing more to teach me, then I will move to another instructor. If I don't think that something I am being taught is useful, then I will discard it.

The problem with this kind of thinking is that you may leave too early and miss a mind blowing part of the system you are in. The more in depth stuff is usually held till after black belt. This way the instructor knows you are commited to his style before giving you the ins and outs of it all. Quite often, especially with newbies, the student is not able to perform at the level required for some of this stuff to work, so if you get it to early in your journey, it might be beyond your capabilities.

Even if the lineage is pure, does each generation truly capture the founders style completely?

If the lineage is pure, and you teach the root of the system exactly as it was taught to you, the yes it can be done. However if you teach things a different way, leave a bit of this out, put a bit of this in and allow the core of the system to change, then the lineage starts with you.

--Dave

 

[Phadrus00]

Is it possible then that our knowledge of something can progress beyond point x even if our ability regresses? If so, then what level could I be?

Due to a family tragedy, I have not trained for more than a year, except for the occasional messing around with friends. Then a few weeks ago, I joined a school with a style I have no experience in at all. I know that my physical abilities are definately at x-1 or even -2. But in all that time, I have never stopped studying. Looking into theories on why certain things happen a certain way, or what a specific application to a move from a kata I know might be. So my knowledge and understanding could well be x +2 in spite of my physical regression to x -2.

DAve,

Excellent points and of course you have very effectively pointed out the incredible inadequacy of my example! *smile* Knowledge exists in many dimensions, some applied like physical skills, some theoretical like a general strategy for avoiding kicks. I too have come off of a long hiatus from training and I know that my skills had atrophied over that time but they quickly returned and I began adding new skills from the moment I returned to training!

So in reality, the calculus of our knowledge is really multi-dimensional where our overall knowledge (K) is a function of several kinds on skills (s) so something like:

K(s1, s2, s3, s4, ...)

I'll stop the boring math talk now! *grin*

And yes of course as a student we can add new knowledge and exapnd the system without necessarily achieving complete fidelity from the previous generation. In reality we cannot perfectly replicate what out instructors did. We will adapt and change and hopefully add in new information and pass as much as we can on to the next generation. Great instructor have invested the time to somehow codify the essentials in the forms of notes and/or videos which is awesome, ut each practicioner will add their own flavor and hopefully insight to the material.

BTW nice meeting you! Looking forward to chatting!

Rob

 

[D.Cobb]

BTW nice meeting you! Looking forward to chatting!

Rob

Hehe, you say that now, but wait til you really get to know me

--Dave

 

[eismann31]

The problem with this kind of thinking is that you may leave too early and miss a mind blowing part of the system you are in. The more in depth stuff is usually held till after black belt. This way the instructor knows you are commited to his style before giving you the ins and outs of it all. Quite often, especially with newbies, the student is not able to perform at the level required for some of this stuff to work, so if you get it to early in your journey, it might be beyond your capabilities.

--Dave

When I said that if an instructor had nothing more to teach me, then I would seek another instructor; I was being facetious. I have seen this sort of attitude from other students. I do not agree with it at all. My post was not completed. Somehow I posted it before I was done. Then, I edited it and was booted or something. Anyways, the full force of my post was not captured before I was too frustrated to complete it. I know what you mean about some techniques being beyond my capabilities. That is what I meant when I talked about discarding techniques that do not work. What I meant is do not currently work for me. Somewhere along my journey, I may look back and find those techniques extremely useful and incorporate them into my arsenal of useful skills.

 

[Last Fearner]

When I said that if an instructor had nothing more to teach me, then I would seek another instructor; I was being facetious. I have seen this sort of attitude from other students. I do not agree with it at all. My post was not completed. Somehow I posted it before I was done.

I am so glad to hear that this was not your real beliefs or attitude about switching instructors at the drop of a hat. I was beginning to get worried here!

CM Eisenhart