When instructors start a new martial art...

[Daniel Sullivan]

YM, I can see your point of view; I avoid becoming too familiar with my students outside of class.

But I'd like to offer a different perspective.

Once you leave the school and go to another studio, teaching another art, it isn't about you and your students anymore. It is about you and your instructor.

Outside of the dojang and at another dojang, you are just a student, and if you can maintain a professional relationship and appropriate boundaries with your students in your own dojang, then certainly, you should be able to do so with them as a fellow student in another studio.

Also, if your students see you conducting yourself as an excellent student, you are then able to do something for them that you cannot do as an instructor: model appropriate student behavior.

Daniel

 

[harlan]

If that is true, and the standard in MA practice, then I think it is very sad. I think the opposite...that there should be no-thing between teacher and student. To my way of thinking (which may be very 'untraditional'), training is too easily obstructed by artificial constructs. Best paradigm...informal...as in father to son.

Why not? Because there is a certain distance that should be kept between the instructor and the students. I would not train with students for the same reason I would not have a casual/social relationship with teachers of mine. It denigrates that relationship and makes it too casual. If you want to train in another art, fine. Just do it away from your students. I couldn't imagine having an instructor of mine as a fellow student and training with them. We don't have that kind of relationship.

As for starting a new art: it seems to be the consensus that MAists, even teachers, are on their own journey as well. I note my own was teaching TKD, and after many years moved on to Goju. That was his personal journey...but the students wanted only TKD. So, his training and his teaching were kept seperate until the time came that the TKD students grew up/moved away/quit.

I wonder about this mindset...seems to me to be quite 'proper' to commit to a teacher and be willing to learn whatever it is they want to explore. The MA journey is lonely enough...seems like a small price to pay...to be willing to learn new things in order to share that journey with others.

 

[Blindside]

Why not? Because there is a certain distance that should be kept between the instructor and the students. I would not train with students for the same reason I would not have a casual/social relationship with teachers of mine. It denigrates that relationship and makes it too casual. If you want to train in another art, fine. Just do it away from your students. I couldn't imagine having an instructor of mine as a fellow student and training with them. We don't have that kind of relationship.

As an instructor I don't promote distance between my students and myself, heck, my entire goal is to build students so they become my training PARTNERS, and make me better. I emphasize early in my training that we are all students, I'm just ahead of them right now. So I don't have any problem starting a new art and doing so with one of my students.

My, and my instructor(s) authority in the school(s) are fundamentally built on our skill level, not on some culturally foreign master/slave relationship or militaristic rank heirarchy. If I go to a new school where I lack skill and knowledge, why should I feel embarassed or awkward about admitting my newbieness?

 

[AMP-RYU]

Why not? Because there is a certain distance that should be kept between the instructor and the students. I would not train with students for the same reason I would not have a casual/social relationship with teachers of mine. It denigrates that relationship and makes it too casual. If you want to train in another art, fine. Just do it away from your students. I couldn't imagine having an instructor of mine as a fellow student and training with them. We don't have that kind of relationship.

But by not building a relationship with your students your not showing them respect and this is what it is all about:asian:. I think it helps keep students longer and build your student base, if they feel respect they will tell their friends!