The Responsibility You Have as a Martial Arts Teacher

teaching martial arts Oct 11, 2007

I remember the first week I started teaching, ten years ago this month. My class was held in a fitness center in Muscatine, Iowa. Some young guys came in who wanted to learn kung fu. There were four or five of them, ranging in age from 16 to 24.

They lined up and we began warming up, stretching, doing pushups and crunches, and then I demonstrated a form and some techniques that they would be learning, in an effort to excite them about things to come.

And then it hit me. I had to be perfect.

The pressure was immediate. Every move I made in class had to be teacher quality. I couldn't make a mistake. If I did, I would lose credibility with my students. It was a feeling I hadn't expected. These guys were looking at me as if I was the expert, and I needed to prove it every class.

My reaction to this? I trained every day--hard. On weekends, I would train four or five hours a day, refining my technique, working on forms, studying applications and chin-na deeper. In one way I was fortunate (or maybe not so fortunate in other ways). I was married to someone at the time who didn't make spending time together a priority. That freed me up to train and train and train.

The photo above is of me and Rich Coulter, one of my first students, sparring with staffs in 1997.

I read an article a couple of years ago about Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang. Being the grandson of Chen Fake, and the standard-bearer for the Chen family in his generation, was a weight that he feels. He commented that he had to work harder because of the legacy he carries. People expect him to be great.

It isn't always easy--even for someone with his skill--to be under that microscope every time he performs or demonstrates something.

I've always wondered why Americans are so eager to have the title of "master." Seems to me that places you on a pedestal where you can easily be knocked off. I've competed against people who call themselves masters and defeated them in both forms and fighting. What does that make me?

A student, that's what it makes me. When you look at the skill of the top masters out of China--the people who have trained all their lives--you realize that mastery is something that most of us Americans who spend most of our time working for a living and raising families will never achieve. It's impossible for us to reach that level of skill. We can be good. We can certainly be effective in a self-defense situation. But mastery will likely elude us.

Lucky us. In the martial arts I really believe that the journey is much more satisfying than the pressure you find if you ever reach the level of master.

--by Ken Gullette

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The Responsibility You Have as a Martial Arts Teacher

Try Two Weeks Free and Get Step-by-Step Training in Taiji, Xingyi and Bagua from Basic to Advanced Skills with No Mystical Mumbo-Jumbo

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