The most important part of your art

[Jake104]

I see your point. I wasn't talking about regular common etiquette and courtesy. I was assuming most people already have some of this prior to MA's and have hopefully been raised properly.

I have seen were people who take a martial art and get a black belt, then become overly confident, arrogant and even obnoxious. They can't be taught and they think they know everything. It's a personality flaw that many have. They seem completely normal until they obtain a bit of power or rank. Martial arts affects people in different ways. For me, it keeps me grounded. It "reinforces" my confidence, discipline, humility, and self control. It just makes me that much more of a better person. Like previously said, learning new movements is great, but it takes time. So you're learning to be more patient and have more self control, both mentally and physically. Also, learning to respect yourself and your training partners is important and are all part of good martial arts training?

Reaching and connecting with people is another important part of Martial arts. Let's say a punk Kid comes to you who didn't have a stable home life? If you can make a difference and help that person learn those things, why not? Martial arts can be a very positive influence on "troubled people". If approached in the right way.

 

[mograph]

Yes. Kids, depending on the age, react to authority differently: they may prefer to learn discipline from a martial arts teacher rather than from their parents.
Maybe this is more true of older kids?

 

[Tez3]

Yes. Kids, depending on the age, react to authority differently: they may prefer to learn discipline from a martial arts teacher rather than from their parents.
Maybe this is more true of older kids?

Depends on what you think 'discipline' is, many think it's taking orders or doing as you're told. There's many parents and teachers/instructors who believe that is exactly what it is. For me it's not, it's the ability to make decisions for oneself in such a way that makes the most sense for me and those around me, being able to reason why I should work hard at something and being able to do it rather than take an easy way out. A disciplined mind doesn't mean behaving as others wish rather behaving as one should.
For many discipline in martial arts means students doing as they are told, a row of silent students moving in unison as the instructor barks orders, parents can see this and think it's wonderful. For some students it's a haven for laziness, they just follow what everyone else is doing and are told they are 'disciplined'.

 

[mograph]

I think we're on the same page. I don't think discipline is order-taking ... it's basically, delay of gratification: self-discipline. It's also, along your lines, the ability to set one's own framing of a situation rather than always needing someone else to set the framing. For example, in my opinion, the military really only has taught someone discipline if they can discipline themselves once they're outside of a military framework; they'd be expanding and extrapolating their military training to exercise delay of gratification in civilian situations.

My earlier post only suggested that different students respond to different teachers, in any domain. But I see your point regarding the younger kids: they may be too young to be able to learn self-discipline if they require a teacher to tell them when to apply it.

Here's a classic delayed-gratification study:
Stanford marshmallow experiment - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[Yendokuen]

There's a lot I love about the martial arts I train, but the most important part to me is the technical part. In the world of martial arts, there are always going to be people making big claims to what they can do. It all comes down to two words: prove it. And I'm just talking at the most basic level. I'm not saying you have to get into a street fight or show me some amateur/pro fight record, but at least be able to use the mechanics to prove that you can generate power/use sensitivity/use structure to break a persons balance/etc.

As dumb as this may sound, one of my favorite things about kung fu is that it's...well..kind of weird. It's not stuff you see people do naturally (for the most part). However, to train it until it's natural and to figure out how to use it efficiently and effectively...that, to me, is the true embodiment of using it as an art.

 

[Bkouba]

What is the most important part of your art ? Is it the technical part , history, lineage , or maybe spirituality if your art practice such a thing, or is it something else ? What part you enjoy most ? For me the most important is technical part in a sense that I can use it efficiently . But what I enjoy the most is a movement , performed perfectly , when the mind is empty and concentrated on each single movement whether I am doing forms , dummy , knives or chi sao , I simply disconnect my self from the world and enjoy , I have similar feeling when I listen some musical pieces I like so much .

For me it's changed a lot. Initially I wanted to learn to fight an compete in order to prove something, now that I've done that training is more a spiritual practice.
Sparring is like my mediation, and the people I've meet through training have become like family. I've seen this a lot with people who come through our gym, often angry young men that slowly transform under the guidance of our Sifu.
The ignorant see martial arts as simply violence, I can't help but think they have never trained or at least trained under the right teacher. I see this a lot with the popularity of MMA which is a shame.

 

[Isaiah90]

What is the most important part of your art ? Is it the technical part , history, lineage , or maybe spirituality if your art practice such a thing, or is it something else ? What part you enjoy most ? For me the most important is technical part in a sense that I can use it efficiently . But what I enjoy the most is a movement , performed perfectly , when the mind is empty and concentrated on each single movement whether I am doing forms , dummy , knives or chi sao , I simply disconnect my self from the world and enjoy , I have similar feeling when I listen some musical pieces I like so much .

The most important part of Wing Chun is the philosophy. It's about humility, self control, and living a better life according to the basic principles.

 

[JP3]

I very much enjoy the practical/technical expression of what I do, on a purely physical level, and the second part is the mental/emotional boost I get from teaching and talking about it with other-like minded folks, my students and my own colleagues and the instructors with much more knowledge than I. it's all good.

 

[Touch Of Death]

I think we're on the same page. I don't think discipline is order-taking ... it's basically, delay of gratification: self-discipline. It's also, along your lines, the ability to set one's own framing of a situation rather than always needing someone else to set the framing. For example, in my opinion, the military really only has taught someone discipline if they can discipline themselves once they're outside of a military framework; they'd be expanding and extrapolating their military training to exercise delay of gratification in civilian situations.

My earlier post only suggested that different students respond to different teachers, in any domain. But I see your point regarding the younger kids: they may be too young to be able to learn self-discipline if they require a teacher to tell them when to apply it.

Here's a classic delayed-gratification study:
Stanford marshmallow experiment - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Simply put discipline is where others won't let you fail, self discipline is not letting your self fail. If you start a kata and you mess up, start over. You don't deserve to go on.

 

[mograph]

If you start a kata and you mess up, start over. You don't deserve to go on.

Yeah. I had a trumpet teacher who said, "if you play a note badly in an exercise, go back to the beginning. Strive to make all your notes sound beautiful." Now, as I progress, I find progressively finer measures of beauty.