See that's the thing, isn't it. There may be an inciting event (e.g., bullying). But then there's also some source of inspiration (e.g., the Kung Fu series). We have a perceived problem and embrace a perceived solution. Personally, I don't think David Carradine could defeat a wet paper towel in single combat.
<Gasp> he was Kung Fu!
But we latch onto what we latch onto. I'm 53 and can easily relate with Carradine and that show being your gateway. But kids using anime as their gateway seems perfectly understandable to me.
Yes I can see that, but what we’ve noticed is the motivation to wear all white and have white swords to more closely emulate their anime crush rather than become good at the art; it’s more like cosplay. I suspect they want to learn a bit so they can doing a flashy resheathing at ‘Comics-are-a-Con’…impress their mates.
I liked Kung Fu, only had easy access to Karate so I wanted to really get good at that art (little did I know there was a thriving CMA community in Manchester city centre only 3 miles away!
I also teach a weapon art that includes swords and knives. Part of the role of a teacher (in my view) is to disabuse those notions, not disown those students.
A very good point, well made!
Can you imagine a world in which education only holds itself accountable for those who show an aptitude?
Well that’s what I’m saying…there is no aptitude. Look at it from an evolutionary point of view (which is my habit), what survival advantage does being able to academically study/learn an unarmed martial art/play a musical instrument/dance/acting etc bestow upon the practitioner? Very little. So aptitude in these skill-based areas has to be
acquired in spite of the disadvantage devoting so much time to them incurs.
An argument could be made for aptitude in say running/throwing things accurately, since they bestow heritable, advantageous trait.
To me, that sounds like an absolute dumpster fire of a world.
I think you should look around and you’ll see it is and increasingly so. Money gives the most opportunities
I haven't lived in the UK for a very long time, so I had forgotten that swords are illegal. But you're telling me that, despite this being a crime, students regularly show up with sharpened katana on Day 1? How regularly are we talking?
It happens about once a quarter. We noticed Damascus steel-bladed swords (with white scabbards) appearing at these times and wondered if the same one was being passed around (one person said their’s cost them £600!), so we photographed unusual features and they turned out to be different sword…illegal swords!
Regardless, doesn't that seem like a fairly straightforward fix? "Um, no, you're not using that here today. Or any day. Now let's get to work properly."
That’s what we did and there’d be much sighing, acceptance and they’d never come again. We saw one person
walking home with their sword strapped to their back! He should be forcibly sterilised to clean the gene pool a little.
Talent may be made. Or at least built upon.
As I said, why would such abstract ‘talents’ be preserved and passed on? Perhaps having longer arms for throwing further, eyes wider apart for better visual depth deeper glenoid fossae to protect the shoulder joints, stronger rotator cuff muscles…it’d take a while for those to appear in an individual population, but they probably would. But that’s physical advantage rather than neural. I forgotten my point now, but any excuse to talk about Darwin’s incredible fact!
But, in my opinion, a teacher should help students to find their way in. Not everyone starts from the same place and it sometimes takes folks a while to find their "in."
I want to be untalented and in
your class!
Yay!
And, while I'm very ambivalent about anime in particular, I get what it's like to look at martial arts and simultaneously think "this is awesome" and "this is the solution to my confidence problems."
Is that what they peddle?
When I look back, I cringe at memories of sticking my little finger out in sparring like Bruce Lee. Or decorating my room with Asian characters I couldn't read. Or any number of other retrospectively silly behaviours. But that's life. People grow and change. And teachers help people grow and change.
I think many of us here followed that kind of trajectory, but we carried on practising the MA to reach our lofty heights of…whatever.
Three other thoughts:
- Teaching the less talented makes you a better teacher in my view. You have to work out different ways to get things across. There's value in that for any teacher.
After 30 years of it, you want to give up, though.
- Balancing the needs of students with less and more need is part of classroom management. I don't believe it impedes talented students for a teacher to not constantly be at their side.
If you have a gaggle of them, it really is a disrupter.
- One of the best ways for less talented people to learn is to see their peers doing it properly.
Or could it be disheartening to see a peer doing the same things as you but getting better than you?
- Students frequently come in with an image in their heads, but that image can be revised and replaced. How's that going to happen if those students are rejected and sidelined?
Yes…
This is the best post and you have persuaded me to revise my teaching ideas should I ever get the urge again (very unlikely). Fantastic
@ap Oweyn!
